No place is too far in our quest for 'buroti'' even when we are taken for a wild ride

A section of a tea farm in Tuthu, Kangema, destroyed by landslide in May 2024.  [Boniface Gikandi, Standard]

I was back in the Rift Valley recently reviewing how the counties are faring, after the long rains.

I wasn’t necessarily interested in monitoring the state of national roads, even though it was self-evident that the national highways authority, KeNHA, has taken a long sabbatical, which could explain why the Nyahururu-Nyeri road resembles kichungi. That means it’s been battered into smithereens.

I was in Rumuruti for other reasons, though. I was serving as taxi driver for one of my relations who had been lured by notices that declared “butori maguta maguta,” or very prime land.

We had been on the road all day, hungry and thirsty. For those who don’t know, Rumuruti means “remote route,” and it was one of the earliest routes chosen when Safari Rally was all the rage. The legacy of those rally days is the small market of Checkpoint, where rally drivers stopped by in their races.

Anyway, we raced towards Rumuruti before nightfall to visit the fabled ‘‘buroti maguta maguta’’. We turned on the GPS when we reached the township. It said the location was 42 kilometres away. We checked out the flier in our possession. It said the site was in Rumuruti, “only 900 metres along Maralal road.”

Unable to make sense of the two distances, we phoned our contact. We asked why GPS was saying we were some 42 kilometres away? “No place is too far when you are making an investment,” she breathed haughtily. “The land will appreciate with time…”