Under Sergoit Kop in 1917: S.C. Labuschagne Remembers

An overview of "Herinneringe aan Kenia" (Memories of Kenya) by S.C. Labuschagne, published in Habari 1992, the newsletter of the Friends of East Africa. The original is in Afrikaans. This is a summary for readers of this archive, not a translation.

S.C. Labuschagne, by then 86 years old, wrote after reading familiar names in Habari: Frank Arnoldi, Sonny Cloete and his sister Bonnie, Piet and Poppie Jordaan, Bokkie von Maltitz and "Miss Keese". She wanted to know who was still alive. Her short memoir tells of a family that lived for a while right under Sergoit Kop.

The journey, 1917

In 1917 her father, Wessel Pienaar, left South Africa for British East Africa with her mother and their six children, on a doctor's advice that a different climate might help her mother, who was often ill. At Mombasa her father had to pay such a large deposit that money was very short. From Londiani the only transport to Eldoret was by ox wagon. Theirs had no proper tent, only laths with a canvas over them, and the load was bags of salt. It rained day after day, the wheels had to be dug out, and some nights they outspanned not far from where they had started that morning. Food ran low, and her father shot game and cooked rice and meat in one pot, holding his raincoat over the fire.

When they finally reached Burnt Forest, a Mr Visagie, who had passed them days earlier, came back with an ox cart loaded with fresh bread, butter and a slaughtered sheep, and offered them a home while he helped her father find work.

Under Sergoit Kop

Danie Bornman also came to visit. Her father found work with Mr Robinson, son in law of Mrs Cloete (the mother of Bonnie and Sonny), helping build his house at Sergoit Kop. The family travelled there by ox cart and lived in a rondavel with an outside kitchen, in grass so tall the oxen almost disappeared. On the first night, she remembers, the bedbugs nearly carried them away. Her father later repaired a tumbledown house nearby, and her youngest brother was born there.

Their neighbours were Piet, Poppie and Lena Jordaan, who lived just behind the kop, Jim and Mynie Davies and their family, and Eddie Jordaan and his family. The children went to school, where Miss Keese, later Mrs van Heerden, was their teacher.

Malaria and leaving

Later her parents and the younger children moved back to Londiani, while she and a younger sister stayed with the Davies family for school. Both girls caught malaria. Their mother came by post cart to Eldoret, and with Ds H.C. de Wet sat them over pots of boiling water under blankets to sweat out the fever, with quinine and other medicines. Jimmy Davies, son of Oom Jim, then took them to Bokkie von Maltitz at Broederstroom, who helped them on with a light wagon, four oxen, a driver and a leader. She grew so ill on the way that her mother feared the worst, but they reached home safely.

The family later lived at Kijabe, where her father worked for the Kedong Trading Company and her mother's health recovered completely. Because there was no school there, the family eventually returned to South Africa. She ends by asking Sophia de Wet (born Davies), and anyone else who remembers, to write to her.

Source: S.C. Labuschagne, "Herinneringe aan Kenia", Habari 1992, pages 12 to 14 of the PDF, Friends of East Africa. Read the original issue (Afrikaans). See also the archive's post Thysie Davies of Sergoit and the guide to settler stories in Habari.