AlexKeto.com

I was fairly skeptical about the efficacy of bush medicine until Ayub Githaiga Ndungu plucked a handful of Ajuga Remota, a ground cover plant, and told me to chew the leaves. Rarely have I tasted anything so bitter since the leaves were full of natural quinine and backed up the claim it was a natural cure for malaria, at least in the opening stages of the illness. 

Joram Gitei Githaiga, a Mau Mau medic,  in 1972 after leaving the forest long after independence. Encountering bitter feelings in his home village, a year later he fled to Tanzania for several years. Ayub recounted his story. Joram died in 2003   

Ayub learned the medicinal uses of the plants and herbs in Kenya’s central highlands from his grandfather, Joram Gitei Githaiga, who, in turn, used his knowledge of plant lore to serve as a medic in a Mau Mau unit based in the Aberdares. Sadly, Joram died in 2003, and I only learned his story by talking to Ayub.

Exactly when Joram was born is a mystery. However, by 1949, Joram was working as a herdsman on the Wrighter farm. Wrighter himself appears to be the type of settler who did a great deal to spark the rebellion. He routinely over worked his staff, beat them for infractions and even dragged them tied to ropes behind his horse. Joram’s growing resentment reached a peak when his first child was born, and he vowed to fight. In 1950, he fled the farm and joined the Mau Mau movement. This would make Joram a very early Mau Mau fighter since it would be another two years before the movement had enough confidence to launch outright attacks.

In his unit, Joram picked up the nom de guerre of Koori, which in Kikuyu means the youngest goat in a herd and his skills with herbal lore were put to immediate use. During the fighting, Ayub said the Mau Mau spent a considerable amount of time looking for weaknesses in the British security forces and planning before mounting an attack.

At some point, Joram was captured by the British who pressed him for information on his unit, specifically where they were based in the Aberdares forest. Joram stuck to his story that he had been picked up while looking for lost animals he had been herding but the excuse clearly didn’t wash. Instead, he was sentenced to hard labor.

Joram served in detention for two months before he found a Home Guard, or Kikuyu loyal to the colonial government, who was a double agent. As a Mau Mau sympathizer, the guard wanted to allow Joram to escape but needed an explanation. Incredibly enough, the Joram and the Home Guard decided they would make it look like Joram had jumped him. To make it convincing, the Home Guard agreed to have his arm broken. Joram grabbed the man’s rifle and ammunition and fled back into the forest.

For three months, Joram lived on his own but after snaring an antelope he was ambushed by a Mau Mau unit. Although the Mau Mau fighters who captured him were his former colleagues, they immediately suspected he was a spy working for the British security forces. In fact, late in the rebellion, the British were successful in convincing significant numbers of Mau Mau fighters to switch sides. With their knowledge of Mau Mau escape routes and bases, these turncoats caused havoc.

Ayub said Joram’s former colleagues tortured him for two days by burning his lips with flaming animal fat before finally becoming convinced he was still loyal to the Mau Mau cause. Although almost all the Mau Mau fighters had either been rounded up or had surrendered by 1956, Joram was the exception. In fact, he was still in the Aberdares forest in 1963 when Kenya became independent. Joram regarded the news as a propaganda ploy to trick him and did not return to his village until 1971. There he found his wife had remarried and had two grown children. During a ceremony in which a goat and heifer were sacrificed, Joram accepted the children as his own.

However, members of his village had long memories. Illustrating the point the Kikuyu split between Mau Mau and loyalists, Joram became increasingly afraid for his life given his history in the Mau Mau. Ayub didn’t say it, but this likely meant that Ayub’s village had largely opted to remain loyal during the rebellion. In any case, Joram fled to Tanzania until 1978 when he returned for good. By this point, memories of the rebellion had cooled.