The natives did not know the Christmas but they would like to have the gifts.

In 24 years from 1939 to 63 mrs. Eli Kühle had her home in Kenya until she last year settled down in the expatriate danes quarter in Fredensborg and although she often had to carry a revolver in Africa she is still missing a lot of things for example that she all the year round could pick flowers in her garden.

Translated by Gitte Buhl

 

The December day is waning. Today it is almost an advantage that one from the apartment in the expatriate danes quarter in Fredensborg only have a view to the landscape through the "gun slit" in the yellow wall surrounding the small garden. Mrs. Eli Kühle has placed her worktable in a way that she can catch a glimse of the wood through the walls one and only opening only one meter broad. Although the place is called "The dessert fort" or "The arab village" it has not much to do with the Africa where mrs. Kühle had her home in the 24 years she was away from Denmark.

My visit to mrs. Kühle was unannounced and I was a stranger to her but It did not last long before she asked me to take off the coat and take place in the big living room. She noticed that I looked from the one painting to the other and that I would like to have an explanation. Why was a painting of brewer I.C. Jacobsen hanging here?

My husband’s father was the manager at Carlsberg explained mrs. Kühle and the painting to the left is him at the right hangs the painting of I.C. Jacobsen. They are painted by the famous August Jerndorff, the famous painter who also painted the portrait of Jacobsen as hangs on Frederiksborg Castle.

Mrs. Kühle made a little pause and looked then around at the furniture.

The furniture has been in Africa. I had them all with me in Kenya, so they have passed the Equator twice. It is told that it is good for wine to cross the Equator but I do not think it has been good for the furniture.

When we had come so far we got the story from the beginning. Mrs. Kühle was born in Kielland and comes from the well-known Norwegian Kielland family. Her husband was a batchelor of laws but as he was interested in agriculture he was educated on South Funen and they had an estate in Sweden and later on a lease on Langeland later on they lived in Birkerød. Mrs. Kühle became a widow early she was only 55 years old. Today she is 80 years old – and she decided to move to Africa to where three of her sons had immigrated and the fourth came later. In 2^nd world war three of her sons participated on the English side and she lost two of them in the war.

She got her house down there close to the farm of one of the sons and she still has it because it is not easy to sell a house in Kenya today. She has been told that the natives since she left has broken most of the windows and committed vandalism in the bathroom. She went home when her son moved to South Africa and it was troubled to live in Kenya. In longer periods she as well as most of the other foreigners were carrying a revolver but the police advised them not to do so as they did not mean the mau-mau would attach her house. They were going after mens clothing, veapons and money and she had none of these things.

This is in broad outlines the background that mrs. Kühle today lives in Fredensborg very far away from the two sons and their family, however last summer they have all been visiting their old mother she says with a quiet smile. She also has friends from the old days in Denmark. They are so touching and welcomed her affectionally. She likes Fredensborg – but is a bit lazy to go for a walk she admits.

And I miss so much the lovely climate in Kenya mrs. Kühle admits. All year round one could pick fresh flowers in the garden and always have fresh flowers in the vases.

It was the only thing I did in the house. It was taken care of by my boys. I had two boys a cook who I think was in age of fifty and the young boy I think was in the age of twenty. They don’t know themselves how old they are. I trusted them and told them that they had the responsibility that nothing disappeared. I had my cook for nine years and although we didn’t speak the same language - he could not speak English and I could not learn the native language – everything went well. He learned to cook danish food and both of the boys took care of what they had to do.

How was the Christmas celebrated in Kenya?

We celebrated a Danish Christmas with a Christmas tree. We could not get fir trees like them we use to have in Denmark but we had a green three with candles and we had Danish Christmas dinner. At Christmas time it is high summer in Kenya and it could be a little difficult to feel the Christmas spirit before one came to the tree. Christmas eve started in the way that the boys got their presents. The native had no idea of what Christmas was and they certainly thought it was rather crazy that we had a tree with candles but they wanted to have the presents. That side of the Christmas they could understand. They came with their baskets and got coffee, tea, and sugar or different articles of clothing. Most of them used to get drunk later in the evening but my boys were sober and that made me very proud.

The time during the mau-mau terror?

It was of course very nasty. One never felt safe and I have also experienced an ambush but we managed thanks to god. One never knew where the mau-maus were. I experienced a very typical case. I had a neighbor who had had a boy in 17 years. One day one of the dogs which she loved very much got sick and died. The boy showed his sympathy when the dog got sick and died but later on he was exposed as a mau-mau and he then told that he had poisoned the dog.

They were cheap to have. My cook had three wives which also means three families and he had 100 kr. a month – as things are now I pay the same to have a domestic help 45 minutes twice a week. The native had often two or three wives and the wives get on well together. They have each a hut to their children and the youngest wife has the most work therefore the elder ones are interested in the men buys a younger wife to help.

It is terrible to see as the women are back in development. The man is the suzerainty in the family. He walks ten steps ahead of the wives who have to work hard for him. The women are really uneducated but they have got the right to vote, though the steps forward have been enormous in the 24 years I have experienced Kenya. When I came down there the native could not visit a proper hotel. They can do that today. Few men are very well educated today but very few woman.

How is it to be back in your homeland?

It strikes one when one comes back that everything in Denmark is so well maintained and beautifully. Indeed there is much to be pleased about – but of course I miss my family … especially my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Is there anything to say about it?

Back to Eli and Carl Gustav