About This Archive

Wonders of Sergoit Hills is a living archive of Sergoit, Moiben, Eldoret and the wider Uasin Gishu, with neighbouring Keiyo, Marakwet and the Kerio Valley. It gathers in one place the history, places, people, land and nature of this part of Kenya's North Rift, so that anyone looking for them can find them.

The archive belongs to the community whose story it tells. It is written by many hands: elders, teachers, former residents, researchers, and the children and grandchildren of families who lived here, Kalenjin, Maasai, Afrikaner, British, Asian and others. William Kiptoo, who grew up at Sergoit, set up the blog and looks after it, and he writes for it alongside everyone else. No contributor stands above another. Every story, whoever wrote it, is part of the same shared record.

Where it began

This archive grew out of The Wonders of Sergoit Hills Facebook group, founded by Arap Bett Keiyot-ab Sergoit, Genicious Mugun and Ronald Kosgei Arap Koech. The memories, photographs and conversations that members shared in that group gave rise to many of the stories here, and the group remains the archive's living companion. We are grateful to its founders for creating the space where so much of this history was first told.

What you will find here

• Places: hills, rivers, farms, villages, schools and trading centres, and how they got their names.
• People: pioneers, elders, teachers, traders and ordinary families who shaped the area.
• Settler History: the farms and families of the colonial period and what became of them.
• Land Disputes: the long story of who owns the land, from the settler farms to the land buying companies and the court cases of today.
• Nature and Environment: Sergoit Hill, Lake Sergoit (Charar), Karuna Hill, the giraffes and the wildlife that once filled the plateau.
• Eldoret Businesses and Landmarks: the hotels, factories, schools, cemeteries and buildings of the town.
• Faith and Religion: churches, missions, the Sikh Gurdwara, and the prayers and sacred places of the community, including the Reformed Church of East Africa and its beginnings at Kapsengerut.
• Other: stories from beyond Uasin Gishu, such as Iten, Tambach, the Kerio Valley and Marakwet, and Kalenjin culture and traditions, along with anything that does not fit the other topics.

To find your way around, use the Browse the Archive page, which lists every story by topic and by place. You can also use the search box to look for a name, a farm or a village.

How reliable is it?

Much of this history was never written down. The stories here come from interviews, family memories, old maps, colonial records, newspapers and published books. Where accounts differ, we say so. Some stories are memories, and memories can disagree. If you know something that corrects or adds to a story, please tell us. The archive gets better with every correction.

Stories written by members of the community appear under the topic they belong to, alongside everything else, each credited to its writer.

Contribute to the Archive

This archive depends on the people who know Sergoit, Moiben and Uasin Gishu best. If you have a story, a photograph, a memory or a correction, we would like to hear from you. You do not need to be a writer. Many of the pieces here began as a conversation.

What we welcome

• Stories of families, elders, and the beginnings of villages, schools, churches and markets.
• Old photographs, with names, places and rough dates if you know them.
• Memories of events: droughts, harvests, ceremonies, sports days, elections, the arrival of the first road or school.
• The meaning and origin of place names.
• Corrections and additions to stories already published.
• Research, essays and local histories, including school projects and family records.

How to send it

Leave a comment at the bottom of this page with your name, what you would like to share, and how we can reach you. We will get in touch. You can also leave a comment on any story you want to correct or add to.

A few simple guidelines

• Write in your own words. English, Kiswahili and Kalenjin are all welcome, and we can help with translation and editing.
• Tell us your name and how you are connected to the story. Contributors are credited by name unless they ask otherwise.
• Only send photographs you took or have permission to share, and tell us who is in them.
• Be fair to living people. This is a place for history and memory, not for attacks on anyone.

We edit lightly for spelling and clarity. If we need to make bigger changes, we will check with you first.

Thank you for helping keep the story of this place alive.