Machakos

The town takes its name from Masaku wa Munyati, a Kamba chief who settled among these hills in the early nineteenth century. The Kamba were then among East Africa's most important long-distance traders, carrying ivory, hides and other goods between the interior and the coastal ports, and the country around Machakos sat on those caravan routes.

In the late 1880s the Imperial British East Africa Company placed a station here, and Machakos became the first British administrative centre in the interior of what became the East Africa Protectorate, a base for officials, soldiers and traders pushing inland. Its pre-eminence was brief. When the Uganda Railway was built through the plains in the late 1890s it bypassed the hills, and the depot founded on the swampy ground to the north-west grew into Nairobi, which took the administration, the trade and eventually the capital. Machakos was left as a district headquarters in a farming region.

Colonial land policy pressed hard on the Kamba: grazing land was alienated, and and a 1938 attempt to seize Kamba livestock met organised protest, led by figures such as Muindi Mbingu, which the community succeeded in resisting. Severe soil erosion in the following decades was tackled with an enormous programme of hand-dug terracing, which reshaped the hills. After independence Machakos remained a district town, its people heavily represented in the army and police and in labour migration to Nairobi. Devolution under the 2010 constitution made it the capital of Machakos County, bringing county offices, a public university and conspicuous investment in public works, of which the People's Park is the best known.

Machakos is the principal town of the Kamba, and Kamba identity runs through its cultural life. The community is known across Kenya for wood carving — figures, animals, bowls and masks sold in markets and curio shops far beyond the county — and it is practised in the villages around the town as well as in Machakos itself. Basketry and pottery are equally part of the tradition.

Kamba music and dance are the other great local export. Dances are noted for acrobatic display, with somersaults and lifts performed to drums, and Kamba guitar-and-drum bands have had a long place in Kenyan popular music. Church choirs are everywhere, and gospel, benga and Kamba-language recordings dominate the matatus and the market stalls.

The county has a strong tradition of migration and of military and police service, and families in the hills are often supported from Nairobi or abroad. Christianity is the dominant faith, with Catholic and Protestant churches, many of mission foundation, prominent in every neighbourhood. Kikamba is the everyday language, with Swahili and English in offices, schools and business. Respect for elders, mutual help at funerals and weddings, and the Harambee tradition of community fundraising are visible parts of daily life, and the county's public events — sports days, concerts in the park, agricultural shows — draw large crowds.

About 64,000 people live in the town itself, counted at the 2019 census, in a county of about 1.4 million, and the town's population swells on market days and at weekends. Mornings begin with matatus loading for Nairobi and produce coming down from the hills; the centre is busy through the day with traders, students and county workers, and quietens early in the evening.

The economy rests on farming, trade, government and education. Smallholdings on the terraced hills grow maize, beans, pigeon peas, cassava, sweet potatoes and fruit — mangoes above all — and keep goats and cattle, while water and the reliability of the rains are the constant anxiety of every farming household. County government, schools and the university are major employers, and a great many households depend on wages earned in Nairobi, close enough for daily or weekly commuting.

Nairobi's growth is the biggest force acting on the county. Its edge has reached Athi River and Syokimau in the north-west, where industry, cement works and housing estates have spread across land that was farmed a generation ago, and land prices around Machakos have risen with it. Water supply, the cost of living, youth unemployment and the subdivision of family land are the recurring local issues.

Kamba cooking is built on drought-tolerant crops. Muthokoi, maize that has been pounded to remove the husk and then boiled with beans, is the dish most associated with the community and is served at celebrations as well as at home. Githeri, whole maize and beans boiled together, is the everyday equivalent, and pigeon peas, cowpeas, green grams, cassava and sweet potatoes fill out the rest of the table. Ugali with sukuma wiki — maize porridge with braised greens — is standard, as it is across Kenya.

Nyama choma, goat grilled over charcoal and eaten by the kilo with kachumbari, is the social meal here as elsewhere, and roadside butcheries around the town do a steady trade at weekends. Chapati, mandazi and roast maize are the street foods, and chai, tea boiled with milk and sugar, punctuates the day. Boiled cowpea leaves and pumpkin leaves are common vegetables.

The county is known for its fruit, especially mangoes, which are sold in great quantities by the roadside in season and processed locally, along with oranges, pawpaw and tamarind. A fermented sugar-cane wine is the traditional drink, long made by the Kamba and prepared for ceremonies and for elders.