Porwolls’ Scouting Pilgrimage to Kenya
June 1999
During our family’s "vacation of a lifetime," a three-week visit to Kenya, we included in our itinerary three Scouting-related diversions in the town of Nyeri that made the trip even more special:
- Visit to Baden-Powell’s gravesite
- Tour of "Paxtu," B-P’s last home, at the Outspan Hotel
- Shopping at the Kenya Scouts Association regional Scout Shop
Nyeri
One of the largest towns in Kenya (the map says its population is between 100,000 and 500,000), Nyeri (pronounced "Near-ee") is the administrative headquarters of the Central Province and one of the liveliest highland towns. A former military camp, it emerged as a market town for European coffee growers in the hills and for settlers on the ranching and wheat farms further north. Located beneath the Aberdare Range, a dense mountain forest home to lion, leopard, bongo, buffalo, rhino, and elephant, Nyeri was on the front line during the war for independence in the 1950s. We found the road leading from Mount Kenya to Nyeri the roughest one of our entire trip, and that’s saying a lot! We recorded the bumping and jostling in the Land Rover for posterity on the VCR; otherwise, no one would believe us.
Of more special interest, Nyeri was also the last home of Robert Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, whose Paxtu cottage, now a small museum, stands on the grounds of the Outspan Hotel. The Outspan, with its beautiful gardens, is the stately base of operations for those visiting Treetops, a famous lodge set on stilts in the forest nearby, whose salt-lick and lake attract wild animals for viewing at all times of the day and night. B-P’s grave and memorial are found on the north side of town. (Special thanks to our trusty travel guide, Kenya: The Rough Guide.)
Baden-Powell’s Gravesite
B-P’s final resting place is located on the north side of town, in a small cemetery right off the main road into Nyeri. The entrance is marked by two 6’ tall, white, square, concrete pillars that support a black wrought iron gate. Tall trees border the cemetery, a burial ground for British colonials and others of years gone by.
Upon entering, a left turn takes you to the burial site of approximately 20 British soldiers who died fighting in the Mau Mau rebellion of the ‘50s. A right turn soon takes you to the gravesite of Baden-Powell and his wife Olave. A single white marble headstone marks the spot. At the top left, the Boy Scout fleur-de-lis emblem is etched into the stone, and at the top right, the international Girl Guides (Scouts) emblem. Engraved in black are the memorials:
ROBERT BADEN-POWELL
22ND FEBRUARY 1857
8TH JANUARY 1941
OLAVE BADEN-POWELL
22ND FEBRUARY 1889
25TH JUNE 1977
A bulls-eye is located at the bottom center of the marker. It represents an old Scout trail sign for "I have gone home."
The headstone faces Mount Kenya, at 5200m (15,600’) the highest peak in the country and second highest in Africa after Mount Kilimanjaro in nearby Tanzania. B-P recounted lovely views of his favorite Mount Kenya from Paxtu, and his gravesite with this view is more than fitting. Unfortunately, on the day of our visit the mountain was lost behind a dry afternoon haze.
Like so many other public sites of interest to tourists, the cemetery was accompanied by a local who met us at the site and provided a factual narrative of B-P’s life at Paxtu and his burial site. The man said he was a teacher and a Scout leader, and we tipped him for his knowledge and trustworthiness. He is shown posing in the picture with Matt and Mike.
Paxtu
As the carved cedar plaque affixed to the outside back wall of the cottage indicates, Paxtu was the "cottage [that] was built for Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell O.M., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., K.C.B., founder of the Boy Scout movement who lived here from October 1938 until his death on 8th January 1941." The KSA pamphlet "Paxtu: Baden-Powell’s Home at Nyeri, Kenya" provides an excellent history of the site. Although not dated, it appears to have been printed in the 1960s.
"B-P first visited East Africa - each of the present countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania - in 1906, and he recorded his impressions both in words and pictures in his book Sketches in Mafeking and East Africa, published in 1907.
"He did not come here again until late in 1935 when he carried out inspections of Scouts at rallies organized throughout the country. He then visited his old friend, Major E. Sherbrooke Walker, M.C., who had been B-P’s first private secretary after the founding of the Boy Scout Movement and who still has in his possession the first Scouter’s Warrant ever issued. After numerous adventures Eric Walker had built the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri and the still more famous Treetops. [The original Treetops burned to the ground in 1955; a larger building has replaced it.] B-P once again fell in love with ‘the wonderful views over the plains to the bold snowpeak of Mount Kenya,’ described after his visit in 1906, and so when ordered by his doctor to rest in the winter of 1937 it was to Nyeri that he came.
"’When he left us,’ wrote Eric Walker in his book Treetops Hotel describing B-P’s departure from Kenya in 1938, ‘Lord Baden-Powell was getting on in years.’ (He was, in fact, 81.) ‘The nearer to Nyeri, the nearer to bliss,’ he said, ‘I am coming to spend the rest of my life at the Outspan.’
"’And he asked us to build him a cottage before he came back for what he said was to be the third and last time. He picked a site in the garden. ‘What,’ he said, ‘will it cost to build a little house with a sitting room, a large veranda, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and two fireplaces?’
"’I made a rapid calculation. ‘Twelve hundred square feet at ten shillings per square foot,’ I replied, ‘comes to six hundred pounds.’ (Would that we could build for that cost now!)
"’He accordingly took up shares in our little company to that value, for which we built the house, furnished it, and made him a private garden, gay with flowers, and with a fountain, and bird-bath in front of the veranda. He had a discussion as to what he would call the cottage and thought of a number of names. Finally he said: ‘I named my home at Bentley ‘Pax’ because we bought it on Armistice Day after the First War. [Armistice Day was the day the war ended: November 11, 1918. Pax is the Latin word for "peace."] I think I will call my cottage here ‘Pax,’ too.’
"’After that it was always known as ‘Paxtoo,’ or ‘Paxtu.’
"B-P and Lady B-P had celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of their wedding in 1937 and Scouts and Guides all over the world had subscribed for a present for them.
"’We have utilized part of the Silver Wedding gift from Scouts and Guides,’ wrote B-P in The Scouter for May, 1938, ‘in building for ourselves a cottage at Nyeri. We have named it ‘Paxtu,’ since it will be a second ‘Pax’ to us, and a permanent reminder of the generous goodwill of the Movement.’
"In October, 1938, he came back to Nyeri to live in Paxtu, and never left East Africa again.
"A description of the house was given by B-P in a letter to the actor, Cyril Maude, in 1939:-
"’We sit here in incessant sunshine (with showers to water our garden) and never since we came, four months ago, have we failed to have brilliant sunshine for a breakfast on the veranda. I enclose a photo of the shack we had built for us and we find it in every way excellent. Sitting-room in the center with the whole front open, with folding glass doors. On each side of it a bedroom with dressing-room, bath, cloak-room, etc., and servants’ pantry at the back, with a covered way to the hotel 200 yards away, whence come all our meals. We have hot and cold water laid on, with electric light and heating, a delightful garden (much grown up since the photo) and a glorious view across the forest and plain up to Mount Kenya with its snowy top.’
"The cottage remains very much as it was when he first had it built, though the old makuti roof has been replaced by an iron one, and the garden which in recent years had got out-of-hand was rather drastically tidied up in 1964, but the fountain and bird-bath remain. The cottage is now joined to the main block of the hotel with a series of apartments."
Additional insights on B-P at Paxtu can be found on page 412 of Baden-Powell: Two Lives of a Hero by William ("Green Bar Bill") Hillcourt:
"For the first time in their many married years, B-P and Olave were completely alone together, without the interference and interruption of thousands of people. ‘We are utterly and supremely happy here,’ Olave wrote to her children, ‘and almost every other minute we keep saying to each other how heavenly it is and how lucky we are to be here.’
"For the first time in B-P’s life he was not under pressure of deadlines he must meet, appointments he must keep, conferences her must attend, rallies he must review, of things that needed to be done. When he finally accepted the fact that his enforced retirement was permanent [due to declining health], he pushed all anxiety aside and choked off all qualms of his conscience telling him he must do this and that.
"He could not be idle, though. When he no longer felt ill, he had a block and paper at his side at all times, so he could scribble things. He established a bird bath and a bird feeder in front of his verandah and spent hours watching the bright-coloured birds that descended on them. He adopted a couple of hyrax as pets and greatly enjoyed their antics.
"When he was well enough again to walk in the garden, to take short motor trips, to spend an occasional night at Tree Tops, he started to write up his experiences with African ‘birds and beasts’ and to make sketches and water-colours of the animals he saw on his excursions. Most of his articles he sent home to England where they were published in The Daily Mail or in The Scout. They were afterwards collected and edited by Eileen Wade and published in book form with reproductions of some of the water-colours: Birds and Beasts in Africa, Paddle Your Own Canoe, and More Sketches of Kenya."
For 100 Kenyan shillings ($1.43) per person, we had the hotel open up Paxtu for a visit. The only rooms open to visitors are the main sitting-room and a tiny alcove immediately to the right of the entry door. The main room is quite small (perhaps 12’ x 12’) and is a shrine to B-P, with Scouting memorabilia of all kinds - especially neckerchiefs and framed photos - hanging from the fireplace mantel and walls. B-P’s old black telephone was resting on a high table stand near the fireplace, and even had a dial tone! One wall included some of B-P’s original pencil illustrations, a real thrill.
The alcove was only as large as a good-sized walk-in closet in a new Atlanta house, but its walls also were decorated with interesting memorabilia left as gifts by grateful Scouts and Scouters.
Five steps lead from the cottage to the garden, now fashioned in plants and flowers in the Boy Scout and Girl Guide emblems. In the nearly 60 years since B-P’s death, tall trees have grown up at the property line, cutting the view of Mount Kenya (although the haze may have prevented us from seeing it that day.)
In the main sitting-room, I placed on the mantel a red BSA neckerchief with gold embroidered piping on top of a group of 10 other scarves that had been arranged there from Scouts and Scouters from all over the world. The hotel attendant arranged two other neckerchiefs I brought with me (a green one and a black one - with the red one forming the Kenya national colors) on one of the walls.
In a scrapbook lying on a center table, I inserted a business card with the notation, "From the Scouts and Scouters of BSA Troop 764, Dunwoody, Georgia," an Atlanta Area Council shoulder patch, and a large oval patch bearing B-P’s likeness and the words, "Boy Scouts of America - Atlanta."
In the guest book, we signed in, and when I turned the page back one page, I was astonished to read an entry made two days prior: "Joe Pugh, Atlanta, Georgia," with the comments: "A Pligrimage Fulfilled." Joe was one of my instructors for Wood Badge course 92-36!
Of the limited items for sale, we bought the "Paxtu" brochure, two different postcards of B-P’s illustrations, and a Girl Guides patch (white square with red country-map and Girl Guide emblem inside, a giraffe, and the words "Karibuni (Welcome All) Kenya").
It was hard to believe that we were actually here. Prolonging our stay, not to mention feeding a big hunger now that it was 3:00, we ate lunch of pizza and Coke at an outdoor table at the Outspan Hotel.
KSA Scout Shop
On the way to the Outspan, we by chance passed right by the provincial shop and district office of the Kenya Scouts Association. The building is a long, one-story, structure with corrugated metal exterior painted blue and yellow. Naturally a stop was in order, although limited to only an hour.
Ms. Grace Wanjiru graciously helped us with our shopping. The shop itself was tiny (8’ x 8’) with merchandise arranged behind the sales counter on wooden shelves. Ms. Wanjiru let us come back and pick out the items we wanted. We leaned quickly that Scouting adapts itself to the culture and needs of each country, and that patches and ranks we’re so familiar with in America and totally different in Kenya. (For example, there are four levels of Scouting in Kenya, from youngest to oldest: Sungura Scouts, Chipukizi Scouts, Mwamba Scouts, and Rover Scouts.)
One of the walls was covered entirely with Scouting photographs, many taken during annual commemorations of Lord and Lady Powell’s joint birthdays (February 22nd), attended by Socuting officials from around Kenya and the world. We’ll send Ms. Wanjirua a photo of her with Matt to add to the Scout Shop’s collection. A poster-size, 1999 KSA calendar with B-P’s picture outlined in the middle of a large, looped square knot was tacked to another wall.
Matt bought a leather belt, green beret, and khaki Class A shirt for himself (at a men’s medium, my size was too large to be stocked!), and we also purchased maroon Mwamba and royal blue adult leader neckerchiefs, circular leather slides, green leather belt pouches, Leaders’ Handbooks, Mwamba Scout "Membership and Progress Record Cards," and various patches:
- "Kenya Scouts" shoulder strips (arc-shaped, purple with yellow embroidery), one worn at the top of each sleeve.
- "Kenya" country emblem (white, red, and black), worn on the right shirt pocket).
- Africa region emblem (black, white, blue, with purple International patch emblem), worn above the left shirt pocket.
We also purchased a copy of the Kenya Scouts Association version of the Scout Promise and Scout Law. Note the similarities and the differences with our own:
The Scout Promise
On my honour I promise that I will do my best:-
To do my duty to God, and my Country,
To help other people at all times, and
To obey the Scout Law.
The Scout Law
1. A Scout’s honour is to be trusted.
2. A Scout is a good Citizen, he respects God, his Country, his parents, his employers, his Scouters and others.
3. A Scout’s duty is to be useful and to help others.
4. A Scout is friend to all, and a brother to every other Scout, no matter to what country, community or religion the other Scout may belong.
5. A Scout is kind and has respect for others.
6. A Scout is kind to animals, learns about nature and is concerned with its protection.
7. A Scout obeys orders of those in authority without question.
8. A Scout is cheerful and brave in all difficulties.
9. A Scout makes good use of his time, his money, and everything he has,
10. A Scout is clean in thought, word and deed.
The Scouting part of our trip gave me pause to reflect on some very basic aspects of life. It reinforced the magnitude of Scouting throughout the world and the true greatness of the man who started this movement. Who would have thought that a general, who in his time achieved the same stature that Eisenhower did after World War II, would turn his attention when he was in his 50s to a completely new journey -- and create a system to engage boys in purposeful fun at a time when so many were being offered only the mean streets of turn-of-the-century industrial England! To see how this great man lived in such simple, humble accommodations at Paxtu, surrounded by his version of wealth - nature -- provides a stark contrast to our end-of-the-century obsession with material wealth.
If you want to read a book that will truly inspire you, whether you’re in Scouting or not, read Baden-Powell: The Two Lives of a Hero. It’s a great read but hard to find outside of amazon.com. I’ve used it as a gift at Wood Badge award ceremonies. The $21.95 price through amazon is worth every cent. It will be a gift treasured - for yourself or a friend.
For those of you who have also had the pleasure of visiting Nyeri, I’d love to hear about your experiences and perspectives. You can reach me at: pporwoll@na.ko.com
Yours in Scouting,
Paul Porwoll
Troop Committee Member and ex-Scoutmaster
Troop 764, Dunwoody, Ga.
Unit Commissioner
Hightower Trail District
Atlanta Area Council
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