06/11/2025
REQUIEM FOR OUR RIVERS
Do you still remember the rivers we memorized in Class Two?
If you schooled in Central Kenya like yours truly, you must have interacted with the Gikuyu primer ‘Wĩrute Gũthoma’ Book 2. In one of its pages, there was a proud, almost musical list of rivers in Central Kenya-rivers we recited like a prayer before lunch break.
Chania, the roaring beacon between Murang’a and Kiambu.
Kayahwe,the scene of epic battle during Mau Mau war.
Mathioya, the sacred twin rivers of the Agĩkũyũ people.
Mugono, the whispering boundary between Murang’a and Nyeri.
Each river had a story, an anecdote or some purpose which our teachers shared with us.I must point out the list is incomplete since rivers from Nyeri and Kirinyaga are missing.
Fast forward to today, and the story of those rivers has turned tragic. Kĩũũ, once clear and pristine, is now a sluggish muddy stream that gasps even in the rainy season. Maragwa has been half-stolen, its waters redirected through secret tunnels to quench the city’s thirst. Thika River and its cousins have been dammed to form Ndaka-ini Dam, their songs muffled behind concrete walls.
If Fred K. Kago, the man who first penned that list in the 1950s were to write that reader again, it would not be a hymn to flowing rivers. It would be a requiem-a roll call of rivers diverted, dammed, or dying.Or dead.
Who will save our rivers?
