Lonely camp life blamed on Thika Road’s ‘Chinese babies’

It’s a solitary life for the Chinese hired to work on the new railway. Well, almost.

The 1,000 China Road and Bridge Corporation workers have limited interaction with Kenyans within or outside the project.

They were cautioned against it when they set up base.

“We are not allowed to come out of the camps or bring in visitors,” explains Zhang Tei, a human resource officer at the Section 6 Chinese workers’ camp, just outside Mtito Andei.

The “Chinese babies” that were born during the Thika Superhighway construction project, he says, made the Chinese workers be warned against “mixing” with the locals.

“We have also heard the stories of British soldiers who raped Samburu and Maasai women for the time they were here for their training.

“Many half-caste children were born and the British government got into trouble for this. So we are avoiding a repeat of the same,” he says.

But Mr Zhang adds, as an afterthought, that there is nothing wrong with “any of us” taking a local wife.

FREEDOM TO MARRY

He says the single men among them have the freedom to marry local women as long as they follow the proper legal channels.

But life is not so bad within the administration camps, as the contractor has ensured that the workers have everything they could possibly need.

The Chinese employees live in white polyurethane foam insulated prefab wall quarters.

In neat rows with impeccably manicured lawns and flower gardens, the one-room, self-contained cubicles all installed with solar powered showers and air-conditioning, stand glittering in the Kamba hinterland.

A communal kitchen manned by a chef from China, grass-thatched gazebos from where to relax after a hard day at work, basketball courts and a swimming pool at the Voi Camp are among the amenities that have been installed for the comfort of the workers. But while they live in fenced compounds, their Kenyan counterparts are accommodated away from the Chinese enclosures.

DUSTY GROUNDS

There’s a stark contrast in the way the two communities live. Kenyans live on dusty grounds, with iron sheet cubicles that seem to have been put up in haste.

The visit to the camp brings to mind memories of the stories of the man-eaters of Tsavo during the construction of the Kisumu Uganda Railway a century ago.

A Kenyan worker, upon realising we were journalists, beckoned us to go over to their living quarters. The sewage had burst and was overflowing with human waste.

“It has been like this for over a week now,” he says.

Other than the occasional basketball competitions between these two communities, everything else is done in segregation.