Elizabeth Nyaribatware, 93, the oldest Rwandan national living in Kericho, Kenya. She has lived in Kenya for 72 years and is registered as an alien. PHOTO | TOM MATOKE | NMG
Elizabeth Nyirabatware, 93, recalls her arrival in Kenya from Rwanda in 1945, accompanied by her now deceased husband Joseph Rwasa Nyabenda.
Nyabenda and Nyirabatware, then 21 years old, newly married and still childless, were excited and hoped for better prospects in the “foreign” land. They had been recruited to travel to Kenya by Belgium colonialists to work in the expansive tea plantations in Kericho and Bomet owned by white settlers.
