Elementaita Shepherds, Dagoretti Dodgers, Juvenile Flamingoes and the Drink That Loosened Tongues (In vino veritas)
Same Forest Different Monkeys.
I was staring at this old tablet — the battery blinking low, the screen grainy, the cursor mocking me — trying to write this story.
Three hours late already.
The fire was lit.
Not a blaze. Not even strong embers.
Just enough heat to keep the cold at bay.
Somewhere in the background, the dogs were already narrating their own story.
Same fire.
Same family.
Different monkeys.
Big R and the Fire: Leadership Before the Truth
Big R was by the fire — heavy boots, heavier thoughts.
He wasn’t lost in contemplation. He was practicing stillness.
That’s leadership after noise.
After performance.
After the year’s chaos.
Christmas in Elementaita makes leaders quiet.
Not empty.
Just calibrated.
This is where the story really begins.
THE DOGS
There are four dogs here.
Riggy — the rough go-getter — was born the year his erstwhile namesake was impeached.
The name stuck.
It fits.
Riggy doesn’t walk.
He moves with intent.
Always sniffing the perimeter, always alert, always acting like something important might happen any second.
Tina is Riggy's mum. She was born the year Tina Turner died.
Classy.
Black on her back.
Part deerhound, part spitz.
Old money energy.
She doesn’t rush for space.
Space comes to her.
Pepe carries deerhound and spitz too, but with a different temperament.
Less drama.
More curiosity.
The kind that checks everything twice but commits to nothing.
Then there’s Sadaam.
A pure-breed Elementaita Shepherd.
A distant relative of the Dagoretti Dodger, the Pumwani Pointer, and the legendary Kikopey Clencher —
a Kikopey Clencher’s defining trait being this:
if it grips a nyama choma bone in its jaws, it never lets go.
Hence the name.
In other parts of Kenya, Sadaam is called Mutina.
Or Bosco.
Same dog.
Different names.
Different cultures.
Same behaviour.
It feels like the United Nations of dogs here —
where old settler bloodlines, Kenyan professionals, Masai herders and working-class survival instincts meet on neutral ground.
Nobody asks where you’re from.
They just observe how you behave.
ELEMENTAITA
Elementaita itself feels like a meeting point.
Old mzungu settler families who never really left.
Kenyan professionals looking for a sanctuary.
And then the flamingoes.
The juvenile flamingoes that stop over on the lake to feed on algae so they can turn pink.
Lake Elementaita is a slay-king/queen’s heaven.
The flamingoes hatch in Lake Natron, in the Tanzanian Rift Valley.
They’re born white (odiero).
They then fly here, feed on algae, and their feathers slowly turn pink.
These are not mature flamingoes.
These are the Gen-Zs of flamingoes.
Rambunctious.
Rowdy.
Showy.
Flying in a straight line, six inches above the calm waters of the lake like an aerial display team that has just discovered attention.
Same lake.
Different birds.
Same forest.
Different monkeys.
And then you return to the fire.
Because that’s what Tuliza Cottage does.
It lets you go out — into dogs, into lake, into birds, into memory —
then pulls you back to embers, adult drinks, stories, laughter.
Christmas doesn’t really begin until the In Vino Veritas hour.
After the formal family meeting — financial talks, planning, chores assigned — people start partaking of alcohol and that’s when truth to the word is spoken.
In wine, the truth.
When the remaining Viceroy hits the bone marrow then the tongues loosen.
Even the bible-thumping brother who doesn’t drink has been mixing Viceroy with his “turungi” — the black tea boiled over the jiko where all that’s added is more tea leaves and water.
Pastor Karis (that’s what we call him) is a drunk.
He’s been mixing Viceroy with turungi — and suddenly the brother has started preaching.
I always wondered how he could become suddenly eloquent.
His eloquence — brewed by Van Ryn’s distillery in Stellenbosch, delivered by the local relative called Kwa-something on Enterprise Road Nairobi — is now part of the Christmas ritual.
And when Pastor Karis starts his Viceroy-inspired sermon, he tells us about the winners and losers in the Nairobi Stock Exchange.
Here’s what Passie's BD summary says:
Investor's cash at the NSE has risen by Sh972.7 billion this year, a 50% jump in market valuation — the best performance in over a decade.
Last month alone, the NSE lost over Sh201.8 billion in wealth
Major gainers were real estate, financials, and selected blue-chip counters, while several stocks lost value as investors rotated positions.
Pastor is an encyclopedia his photographic memory is what we call in sales “highly developed mnemonic retention”.
To the rest of humanity….the person who remembers everything.
That’s the Christmas bourse story.
Ups and downs.
Noise and profit.
Faith in markets much like faith in life.
EPL AT CHRISTMAS — THE TOP 10 (for the soccer die hards)
Because every family party gets distracted by football:
Here’s how the English Premier League top 10 stood as Christmas approached:
Arsenal — 42 pts
Manchester City — 40 pts
Aston Villa — 39 pts
Liverpool — 32 pts
Chelsea — 29 pts
Manchester United — 29 pts
Sunderland — 27 pts
Brentford — 26 pts
Crystal Palace — 26 pts
Fulham — 26 pts
NBC Sports
Arsenal reclaimed Top Spot with grit.
City keeps breathing down their neck.
Villa continue surprising.
And the rest are jockeying for Europe or survival.
Reuters
Same league.
Different monkeys.
My fellow Arsenal fans….kina Prof, Boozer & Radull
Our Elephant prepares to break the bow again 😞
As a Gooner faithful, I was incensed by this corrupted baby rhyme from our Man U frenemies:
Rock a my baby, on the tree top,
When March blows The Elephant will drop
And down will come Arteta, Bukhayo and all…
No wonder they're called Red Devils…Saitan, shindwe, Riswa….
ONE LINE ON RUGBY
Rugby gets a mention only because sevens is the sport that teaches exhaustion and choice — decisions under fatigue, trust in teammates — but the focus here is Laughter, Christmas, and the foundational truths of family and friends.
Save the date….Valentine’s weekend 2026
Sherehe
FAMILY AT 8 PM — WHEN THE TRUTH LANDS
By 8 pm — two hours later the family vibe isn’t about tasks anymore.
It’s about:
who speaks
who listens
who laughs
who tells stories
who holds the centre
There are five kids now circling the conversations:
The quiet one
The leader
The real leader
The skeptic
The choleric troublemaker who always says no
Who's advice will work in 2026…..
The fire dims.
The drink warms.
The dogs settle into sleep.
Same forest.
Different monkeys.
And Christmas doesn’t end with announcements.
It ends with truth in laughter, stories that stitch the year, and quiet people who carry the weight without asking for applause.
This is last Sunday of the year.Perfect.
25 articles.
25 Sundays.
Not content.
Conversations.
Written between chicken lunches, road trips, bad Wi-Fi, adult drinks and belly laughter.
Some were light.
Some uncomfortable.
All honest.
Thank you for walking the forest with me this year.
For reading.
For disagreeing.
For staying.
The dogs settle into sleep.
The fire dies down.
Same forest.
Different monkeys.
Tuliza Cottage www.tulizahomestays.com