STANDING IN THE SAME SPOT: ITEN ACROSS 45 YEARS

 It is a fantastic feeling to compare two different eras through photographs. I have always loved photos, and whenever I find an old one, I feel an irresistible urge to return to the exact spot where it was taken and capture a present day version. The purpose is deeper than simply recreating an image. It gives me a sense of connection. It allows me to feel the life then and the life now, to sense the people who stood there before me and the people who walk there today. Sometimes it feels as though I am speaking to both sides of time, and perhaps that is just something that lives in me.

Today I stood in the same place where a cameraman stood in 1980. On that day he took a photograph of K A Tiren Merchandise at a time when a small pub stood in that space. In my photograph today a cooperative bank occupies the same ground. That is what time and change truly mean. The two photos are exactly 45 years apart.

His photograph captured President Daniel arap Moi at 56 years old and only 2 years into his presidency, saluting the wananchi with the raised finger that symbolised loyalty to the single party state under KANU. I can imagine the shouts of jogoo filling the air, the chant that echoed the cockerel symbol of the party. The councillors of the day, men like YY, Cherunya, Kipyagan and Kiptalam, must have been nearby lending their voices to the moment. It was probably also the same day the President visited St Patricks High School. At that time the Members of Parliament for the Elgeyo Marakwet District were Nicholas Biwott, Robert Kipkorir and Vincent Komen arap Too, representing Keiyo South, Keiyo Central and Keiyo East.

In those days St Patricks Iten was only 19 years old. Kabon, also known as Koko Marcelina, already owned Gogos Pub, a place that is known today as Iwoot Bar. It was frequented by respectable old men, the kind of society that carried itself with calm dignity in the 1970s and 1980s. Around this period the tarmacking of the Iten Kabarnet road had not yet begun. As Engineer Chemilwa tells me, the construction camp for the road was set up in March 1983 in the area that is now known as Lillys.

Iten had no hospital at the time. There was only a small brick dispensary near the place where the County Council later stood. Tambach District Hospital served as the main hospital before it was moved to Iten in 1985. I wrote about this in an earlier post on the hospital. The year 1980 also marked the period when electric poles were first being installed. That means Iten had no electricity until the early 1980s. The town was dark after sunset, its shops lit only with hurricane and pressure lamps.

Where the KCB Bank now stands there once existed a small barter market where people from Marakwet and the valley brought honey and fruits to exchange for maize and beans. That area also had a few places offering ready meat for lunch, and I am told that a small slaughter house served the neighbourhood. The tall Spencer trees around the KCB Bank stood proudly even then, having been planted in the late 1950s.

It is fascinating to compare the population of that era with today. Elgeyo Marakwet District had an approximate population of 150000 people in those years. Today we are half a million. Time moves quietly, but the change it brings is immense.

I am glad I had the chance to stand exactly where the cameraman of 1980 once stood. It is unimaginable that he ever thought that 45 years later someone would return to his spot to recreate his frame. The sun still rises and sets, the skies remain the same, the ground does not move, yet humanity keeps shifting forward. Our stories pass through time while the earth watches silently.

All I can do is speak to these two images, to tell them that I have witnessed the changes and to carry their message forward for the generations yet to come.

By Hillary Kosgey
An Anthology of Memoirs