01/09/2017
Karen, a history.
“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of Ngong Hills”. These were the famous words of Karen Christenze von Blixen. In 1913, the she and her partner moved from Denmark to Kenya with a lot of enthusiasm and high hopes of setting up a coffee farm. Their first years on the African continent, however, were disatrous. The area we know today as Karen was not the first choice of the couple. They tried to set up their coffee farm in M’Bagathi first but the attempt failed because of the brutal World War 1 battles that were fought in the area and the subsequent loss of workforce. Realising the hopelessness of the situation, Karen Blixen decided to move somewhere else.
This time, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The new farm covered 6000 acres of land of which only 600 were used for coffee plantation. About her new home she was quoted saying “this is a new kind of freedom until then one had only found in dreams”. While in Kenya, Isak Denisen (her writer’s name) started her poetic journey. However, it was only until she moved back to Denmark that she wrote her most famous work “Out of Africa” where she richly describes her adventures in Kenya, her contact with the local Maasai and Kikuyu, her friendly and sometimes funny relationship with her Somali hand/best friend Farah and her life in Kenya generally.
Upon returning to Denmark, Karen Blixen sold her land to a developer who divided it into 20 acre parcels. The original farmhouse was purchased by the Danish government and later gifted to Kenya in 1963 for achieving independence. The government named it the Karen Blixen Museum featuring many of Blixen’s own furniture and serves as a major tourist destination in the area today.
