Another Side of Kenya
The landscape here is greener than Kermit the Frog. Anyone taking a car from Nairobi and stepping out here will be enveloped by coolness and a damp, earthy smell—that’s the scent of tea. We rent a house from our friendly, Kenyan-English landowners. I enjoy the long walks with this elderly white lady, her two dogs, and my now well-known ‘Baby Mzungu’ among the tea pickers. During one of our walks, she tells me stories of a different Kenya. A colonial Kenya, where white children were transported to their boarding schools in special trains. This is the Kenya she grew up in. A lot has changed since then. Or has it?


Limuru Tea
When I take an Uber to our house, which doubles as a tea plantation, my driver sarcastically remarks that I live in a colonial village. It irritates me that he says this. Yet, he’s right—it’s true. There are several 'villages' near the tea factory where Kenyans live. Then there’s our compound, where the Mzungus reside in charming, warm cottages. Here, Kenyans cook in our kitchens, change our children’s nappies, and burn our rubbish. The Kenyan working on the land just outside our compound is a day labourer, picking tea. Without these workers, you and I wouldn’t be able to easily enjoy our daily cup of tea. It’s beautiful work, at least for a photographer. But tea pickers work hard and are poorly paid. They work around 6 hours a day, picking 12 kilos of tea in that time. They get paid 9 Kenyan Shillings per kilo, which amounts to 108 KSH per day—just one dollar a day. That’s hardly ‘fair trade’.

I find myself questioning how it’s possible that 12 kilos of tea are picked, and yet I pay around one euro for a packet of tea. Why can’t these lovely people, the ones I enjoy walking with, the day labourers, be paid a little more? I’m part of the ‘toean’—I was born on the better side, in Amsterdam. That side where you can buy tea for a dollar, but not the side where you have to work a day for a dollar. It’s my white guilt that makes me feel how hard this contradiction is. This prosperity stems from colonial theft—what ‘we Dutch’ did when all those colonies—Africa, Asia, and America—still belonged to us. That stealing gave us the means to develop in prosperity for hundreds of years. There was money and space to build a democratic system. By the mid-20th century, this colonial stealing was replaced by American imperialism. This system imposes democracy on other countries, but at the same time, ensures that inequality persists—and even grows. The end of colonialism is an illusion when I look at the position of tea pickers and my packet of tea. I feel deeply uncomfortable about this ‘modern colonialism’. I realise I suffer from what’s known as ‘empire syndrome’: "The blinding effect that occurs when you’ve been part of the safe cocoon of the centre of world power for too long. The Dutch, as part of the prosperous West, have come to believe that we are the very embodiment of goodness." (Trouw, May 2, 2018, Marjolein van Pagee). As long as I watch the 8 o’clock news with my tea, sitting on my comfortable leather sofa in Holland, I quickly forget how far-reaching the influence of that comfortable lifestyle is; all the way to a tea field high in East Africa. It strikes me to the core when I realise I now live right next to it.




Our Partnership with Local Partners
At Charlie’s, we cannot ignore the inequality and the past that exist. It may be sad and thought-provoking when walking around this beautiful environment, full of markers and relics from colonial history. But we also want to establish long-term collaborations with local partners. At the moment, Simone is doing research on this. How sustainable and fair is Charlie’s Travels, really? Her report will be available in a month’s time. For now, we can share that our guides, drivers, and cooks receive a fair, local salary, and we hope to offer them a brighter, more stable future. Judge for yourself and come take a look at the green tea oasis of Limuru, on our farm. Here, you can taste both the old and new times in an authentic drink and give your children an insight into the long journey tea takes and all the people involved in it. Does that sound good? Leave a message here, or see what else there is to do in Kenya!
