Victor Germishuis Remembers: Burnt Forest, the Locusts of 1932 and Eldoret Before the War

An overview of "Victor Germishuis skryf" (Victor Germishuis writes), published in Habari 1997, 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.

Victor Germishuis grew up at Burnt Forest (Verbrandebos) and in Eldoret between the two world wars. His memoir is full of names of neighbours, teachers and workmates, and gives a clear picture of farm schools, communion weekends and young people's lives on the Plateau in the 1930s.

From Londiani to Burnt Forest

His parents came from Barkly East in South Africa in 1912, sailing from Durban with relatives who settled around Nakuru and the Kinangop. His father served in the Belfield Scouts in the First World War, then bought two wagons and oxen and carted goods from Londiani to Eldoret, since there was no railway yet between Nakuru and Eldoret. Victor remembers place names on the old road: Arnoldi's Bridge, Erasmus Bridge, the Draaibos and the bamboo forest near Timboroa.

Victor and his brother Wessel were born at Londiani, and their younger brothers John (Tokkie) and Pieter (Koekie) in Eldoret. When Victor was four the family trekked to a farm they bought at Burnt Forest, a journey of weeks through red mud, sometimes with two spans of oxen pulling one wagon. Their neighbours included Abraham and Truia Joubert, Martiens and Martie Prinsloo, the Steenkamps, the Malans, Gert and Maria de Jager, and Koos Prinsloo, who later bought a farm in the Moiben area. His mother was the local midwife and often rode out at night to neighbouring farms, with a kitchen worker walking ahead with a lantern.

His father died in August 1936, a few days after being attacked by a leopard on the farm, of blood poisoning in Eldoret hospital, at a time before antibiotics.

Farm schools

Schools were built where most children were. The first was on Abraham Joubert's farm, taught by Tannie Isabel and then Johanna Malan. Later there were schools on the Germishuis farm, on Koos Prinsloo's farm with Lalie Prinsloo as teacher, and on Kerneels Smith's farm under Mr Visser and Lettie Engelbrecht. The children walked two or three miles and rode horses to the farthest. Victor then went to Eldoret Central School under Mr Humphries, where Bonnie Cloete (later Alex Boshoff's mother) taught Afrikaans one period a week, and to the Prince of Wales School in Nairobi.

The locusts of 1932

In December 1932 the wheat stood ripe and golden, ready for cutting on the Monday. On the Sunday afternoon a dark cloud came from the direction of the Nandi reserve. People had heard talk of locusts but thought they were still far away. The cloud grew until it hid the sun, and by evening the ripe wheat was gone. It was the first time he saw tears in his father's eyes. Later the hoppers ate everything but stones and soil, and it was the second year in a row that the wheat was lost.

Communion weekends

Before his father had a car, the family went thirty miles to town by ox wagon three times a year for communion. They left on a Wednesday, outspanned for the night at Wolwespruit, where hyenas chewed the oxen's leather straps, then at Suikervlei, and on Thursday reached Eldoret and pitched their tent on the church grounds. Friday was for shopping and visiting, Saturday was the church bazaar and the preparation service, and on Sunday came prayers at seven, communion, baptisms in the afternoon and a closing service at night. On the way home they visited Jan and Hettie Barnard near Wolwespruit. He remembers Ds Tienie Loubscher crossing the Plateau on his mule to visit farms as far as Burnt Forest.

Work, sport and the war

After school Victor worked at Hughes and Co in 1936 under Mrs Ullman, then at the Kenya Farmers Association, and from 1938 at Gailey and Roberts, on a salary of 100 shillings a month. He boarded with Mrs Dreyer, a nurse who ran a maternity ward and boarding house. The young people rode bicycles everywhere, including moonlit rides to Jan and Manie le Roux's farm at Broederstroom, twelve miles out.

In 1938 he played for Eldoret's hockey team against the Springboks, who won two goals to one, and he was a reserve for Eldoret in the Enterprise Cup final against Nondescripts in Nairobi. In 1939 Ds Dednam founded the Plateau rugby club and was its father, coach and captain. In August 1939, the month before the war broke out (the printed text says 1943, which seems to be a slip), Eldoret won the Enterprise Cup, and Victor lists the team, among them Sakkie Steyn, Piet du Plooy, Japie Kruger, Stompie Jones, Norman Davies, Koppie Eksteen and Gordon Goby.

He was confirmed in October 1939, just after the Second World War began, in the last group taught by Ds Dednam before the minister returned to South Africa, and most of the class were called up within six months. He ends with warm thanks to Ds Dednam and to Tant Frieda van Heerden, who turned the old parsonage into a hostel so that Afrikaans children could attend school in Eldoret, and who led choirs, concerts and plays for years. "As long as I live," he writes, "I will remember her."

Source: Victor Germishuis, "Victor Germishuis skryf", Habari 1997, pages 3 to 7 of the PDF, Friends of East Africa. Read the original issue (Afrikaans). See also the guide to settler stories in Habari.