🪨 When Land Speaks: The Question Emma Dared to Ask

Emma stepped out of the Toyota Prado with the aura of someone used to reading rooms and rewriting expectations. A Kalenjin mother of three, she’d come to Kikuyu not to browse, but to choose. Her dream? A home of her own. Her children excitedly exited the car beside her, bringing the kind of chaos only kids can; squabbles in the back seat, fights, and a million questions she didn’t have time to answer.

From the outside, she looked like any other property buyer. But I sensed it. There was more stirring beneath.

We began with looking at houses. The first was charming. The second had potential. But neither sang, "Very nice Tumdo", to her. You could see it in the tilt of her head, the silence that lingered after the tour. Emma had a unique taste, subtle and uncompromising. She didn’t want to move in. She wanted to begin.

I took a breath, then offered what most buyers fear:
“What if you didn’t buy a house?”
She blinked.
“What if you built one from the ground up, around your likes?”

A slow smile spread across her face. Not because she was convinced. But because, for the first time, someone was "now talking!".

The shift was quiet but certain. We swapped houses for open fields, swapping concrete spaces for possibility. I took her to plots nested in gated estates; places with rules that protect serenity. No high-rise apartment shadows. Just breeze and blue sky.

Three plots. One afternoon. That was enough.

“I’ll get back to you,” she said, her voice trailing like someone who’s trying to be politically correct.

We agreed to reconnect in a week. I thought that was the end of it; for now.

It wasn’t.

When we met again, her tone was different. Not hesitant. Not afraid. Just honest.

“I love Kikuyu,” she said, “but as a Kalenjin, will I truly be safe here? What if... what if things turn like 2007?”

There it was.
The question no one asks out loud; but everyone carries in the silence of memory.

I didn’t flinch.

Because land in Kenya is more than soil. It’s history. It’s bloodline. It’s survival wrapped in soil. And it remembers.

Colonial hands once carved these hills, stripping ancestral lands from the Kikuyu, Maasai, and yes; her own Kalenjin kin. The settlement schemes that scattered communities, then sparked embers of unrest in places like Uasin Gishu, Kwale, Laikipia, Nandi, Trans Nzoia & Nakuru.

A little trip through history…

During Kenya’s post-independence era, a series of settlement schemes were introduced to address the widespread issue of landlessness. These programs saw many Kenyans, particularly from the Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru communities, resettled into regions that had long been home to other ethnic groups such as the Kalenjin, Maasai, and Luhya. While these schemes offered opportunities for new beginnings, they also sowed the seeds of tension.

A growing perception took root: that these incoming communities, often referred to as “immigrants” in the local context, had acquired land through unfair means, frequently leveraging political influence or insider connections. This belief fueled resentment, especially among locals who felt sidelined in their own ancestral territories.

Amid this climate, the rhetoric of majimboism, a call for stronger regional autonomy, gained momentum. While framed as a push for local self-governance, in practice, it was sometimes used as a tool to justify the marginalization, eviction, and, in extreme cases, violence against those deemed outsiders. This charged mix of historical grievance, political manipulation, and land-based anxiety became a volatile thread woven into Kenya’s socio-political fabric.

Elections have turned neighbors into threats. 1992. 1997. 2007. The Rift Valley had seen it all. Seen too much.

Back to Emma, I told her this:

The story’s not stuck. It’s evolving.

Since the 2010 Constitution, new roots have taken hold. Boundaries are still visible, yes; but now blurred with intermarriage, blended families, laughter that no longer asks what language it’s spoken in.

Kikuyu constituency has never been a flashpoint. It’s not a tribal enclave. It’s a heartbeat town, cosmopolitan, magnetic. I’ve sold plots here to Luos, Kambas, Luhyas and more. Not once have I seen division. only doorways.

Emma listened with the stillness of someone weighing more than numbers. She wasn’t just thinking about schools or kilometers to the tarmac road.

I looked at her and said the only thing that mattered:
“The land remembers. But so do we. And we get to choose what we plant next.”

That day, she didn’t buy. But she didn’t walk away either.
She walked towards her car and asked that we touch base the following week.

When land speaks... those brave enough to listen learn that it can forgive, too.