Gachaba -Just one more time.
From the across the road the road, a cockrel sculpture is a sure guide that this is one place that has a rich hold of knowledge and it belies the fact that we are on our way to meet a great innovator. The earth road littered with trash is a quite the decoy from what the small homestead around it holds.
For the man who walks with a limp that was caused by a crash in one of his makeshift gliders. It may be easy to dismiss the man assuming he is an ordinary villager if you were to meet him in his daily activities, but one step into his front yard and this is completely changed. Numerous machines litter the small area and one would be forgiven for thinking that this is a scrap yard.
Gachaba has never been to a school for any formal training but the level of innovativeness that is well presented in this small piece of land takes one through a walk in time. A small Red vehicle that resembles an early 1930’s wagon which he has built from scrap with various bits collected from various sources stands unfazed by its surrounding. He says the inspiration to build this one come from one of the vehicles he saw in the early years that was owned by an Indian who had employed him. He drew a sketch of the vehicle (which he still has to date) that has been his blueprint all along. On another corner of the plot lies a small two wheeled tractor plough, this is powered by an engine that is used in power saws. A chaff cutter also has its place in the small plot.
The artifact that gets most of our attention is the glider plane that he is building (Kenya 2); bit by bit he says that he knows he is soon going to finish its construction. Listening to the octogenarian, one is left without doubt that he knows what he is doing. Like a professor of physics, he takes us through its construction explaining why he is using the various materials such as aluminum (the glider is pretty light for its size) and even goes on to show us one of the propeller blades made of wood that he is currently carving and why it is different from another one already fitted on the glider. Powered by the engine of a water pump he talks so fondly about it that we felt like we were on a journey into time. He tells us of the first airplane which he flew to kiganjo although it developed mechanical problems and had to return to Nyaribo airstrip where he had a rough landing which caused injury to one of his legs. His glider then was powered by the engine of a power saw and he had christened it Kenya 1. He is building Kenya 2 and he says that he learned a lot from his first trial, he plans to fly to his maternal home in Karatina and back to Solio ranch and this time he is sure he will at least for one more time.
Listening to his talk one is tempted to think that this may just be a revelation of just how much talent goes to the dogs. His first encounter with planes was in his youth when he co-piloted his employer a white man to Turkana for a fishing expedition with no prior experience, he said after watching how the plane flew he thought of how he would come up with his own.
This kind of curiosity is not without repercussion as he has had a brush with the law for one of his other innovations. He has created a cross- bow which he fondly remembers seeing it first, in the Rambo movies and after assessing the Kamba bows coming up with his own, which he sells to willing buyers.
As we leave with a promise to be back when the glider is done, we notice a unique bell on his gate that is so well hidden and notifies him when he has visitors as well as neighbors who he is already used to.
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