2 August 2008
Kampala — Set up in 1916 as a retirement home, Kahangi Estate has over the years attracted several foreigners whose desire was to create a mini-Europe in Fort Portal. Harriet Birungi found out the the changes the estate has undergone
Peeling paint, a broken floor and a partly collapsed roof with more holes than those in a tea strainer is what the main house at Kahangi Estate had become. The once magnificent home for the rich tea planters had almost collapsed. It was a far cry from the retirement home it originally was.
However, in 2000, Alan Tulip bought the estate and has revamped it into a modern retirement home and a cottage industry engaged in agro-tourism. The tall eucalyptus trees, well-manicured lawns, neat gardens and plants have added to the beauty and serenity of the estate.
The main house was rebuilt and furnished with locally made art pieces.
Many of the plants in the compound are part of the species that were planted in the 1950s. "I got the seedlings by stem cutting and transplanting them in other areas," Tulip, an organic agricultural consultant with Agro-Eco Uganda, says.
The estate has coffee and tea plantations and produces creams, soaps and oils from locally grown organic products. Though this is a diversion from the traditional tea and coffee growing, Tulip wanted to promote a culture of growing and consuming organic products and providing different sources of generating income for the locals.
Apart from the eucalyptus, lemon grass, rosemary, moringa, avocado, citronella and sunflower, other raw materials like oyster nuts, shear nuts, loofah seeds and papaya seeds that are used in the production of creams and oils are got from Lira, Bundibugyo, Ishaka and West Nile.
Tulip says their products are mixed as bases in regeneration enhancers and for exfoliation. The main buyers of their products are skin doctors and individuals who care a lot about their skin. Oils are often exported to Kenya, where they are used in making skin-care products.
They also export their products to Egypt, Sweden and the United Kingdom through mama-kijura, a retail shop in the UK.
Like a rose between thorns, Kahangi is located 14km from Fort Portal town.
With no developed infrastructure in the area, the cottage industry uses solar energy. Waste materials from the industry are used as fertilisers.
The estate supplements its solar energy by producing bio-diesel from citronella. Nothing is wasted, says Christine Kangume, the production manager.
"Work on the cottage depends on the raw materials available. But usually, a day may start with picking and processing the tea and coffee or crushing the dried and roasted shear nuts.
These produce several litres of oil after they are crushed, leaving residues which come out in long, brown cylindrical shapes. Kangume says the residue is applied to the gardens as fertilisers. The oil is filtered and left to cool before it is added to the creams.
Avocados are sliced and later added into the creams. Retiring for the day is after the materials for the following day have been prepared.
Tulip has four permanent workers and over 30 casual labourers. Unlike in the past, where the big ritual in the evening was the BBC world service news, today Tulip has DStv to enable him keep abreast with current affairs.
To call it a retirement home may be an understatement. It is the place to spend the last years of your life, sleeping to the sound of nature and waking up to a fresh view of the Mountains of the Moon. It is a way one should spend the evenings of their years.
Kahangi's history
Established on February 21, 1916, the estate that covered over 1,000 acres, was a retirement home with coffee growing as its main income-generating activity. But after the Wall Street crash of 1929, the farm was abandoned between 1930 and 1933.
The estate was taken over by Countess Elaine Hussey, a daughter-in-law to the William Thomas Stead, the father of modern and investigative journalism in Uganda.
Stead introduced headlines, maps, illustrations and personal interviews in newspapers. He was a prominent peace campaigner who initiated the first peace conference in 1899.
He was a good friend to Cecil Rhodes and together they developed the Rhodes scholarships.
Stead died in the Titanic disaster in 1912 while traveling to America to attend a peace conference.
However, to appreciate the attraction the area had and the desire to create a mini-Europe in Fort Portal, the British East Africa reports provide a better illustration. "Although 200 miles (322km) from the railway, Toro is attracting considerable attention.
The good climate, the land is fertile and cheap, and the labour supply good. Imported articles are dear, but the cost of living is low, provisions such as meat, eggs, vegetables, etc, being procurable at very low prices..."
Such reports by colonialists attracted people like Countess Stead to areas that were far from civilisation. Countess Stead made Kahangi a retirement home and started the growing of tea. Their first harvest earned them sh30 and 82cents.
Realising the hardships, the planters were going through to have their produce ready for consumption, through sun withering and improvised crushing and grinding of the tea, Kijura Tea Factory was set up in 1939 by Hugh Naylor, a friend to Countess Stead.
It introduced the labour-intensive method of picking tea and the workers at Kahangi were the first beneficiaries. The factory also set up a clinic for its workers.
To keep up with the tide of development that was sweeping through Fort Portal, the mud-and-wattle main house was grass-thatched in 1934, replacing the papyrus.
Although it was stylish then, they lived in fear of fire gutting the house and the house dripping during the rainy season. The grass was later substituted for iron sheets in 1950. The reconstruction was done by Mr. Sing who had to make sure that the beauty of the compound was maintained.
According to the countess, if the flowers were destroyed, the constructors would pay for the damage. "As a precautionary measure, the construction materials were brought in from the back of the house," says Alan Tulip, who has also tried to maintain the beauty of the estate.
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