Benjamin Mwenda Nkangi, a 26-year-old nurse from Nambi Hills village in Meru County, walked away from a stable Nairobi nursing career, completed a six-month medical contract in India, and returned home to build Haven Farm Adventures at the foot of Nyabena Hills.
Born and raised in the village, Benjamin attended Kikaro Primary School, then proceeded to Gitia Boys High School before joining Mount Kenya University’s Thika campus to study nursing.
Benjamin spent a year working at mission hospital in Thika
After graduating, he spent about a year working at a mission hospital in Thika, then five months at a chemist, before landing a job at a nursing home in Backasi, Nairobi, where he stayed for three and a half years.
Early in 2026, something shifted. Benjamin had already been running small farming projects back home — poultry, leased tea bushes, and vegetable plots — all managed from a distance.
He walked into his employer’s office and gave notice, telling them simply that he had to return home.
Benjamin pressed by bosses
His bosses pressed him for a reason, but there was no workplace grievance; he had a vision pulling him back to his roots.
“I have a dream which I have to accomplish, but I can’t do it in the city,” he said.
He spent about five months settling back into village life before his former employer connected him with a six-month medical contract at a hospital in India.
Benjamin struggles to breathe in India
The experience was eye-opening. India’s monsoon humidity left him struggling to breathe on arrival, a sharp contrast to the cool, forested air of Nyabena Hills.
He survived largely on eggs, mutton, rice and chapatis, since no ugali or beef was available, and the hospital observed meat-free Tuesdays and Thursdays across the country.
He was struck by India’s automated hospital booking systems, its instant-delivery app Blinkt that could bring groceries to the door in eight minutes, and roads where camera-enforced traffic lights replaced police officers entirely.
Benjamin lands back in Kenya
“When I landed back in Kenya, the first thing I said was — oh my God, I really missed this fresh air,” he recalled with a laugh, adding that what he missed most about India was having everything delivered in eight minutes.
Two weeks after returning from India, Benjamin was filming his story at Haven Farm, the brand he is steadily building on the village land.
The venture already spans internet connectivity for local schools, clinics and homesteads, poultry farming with around 120 improved Kenyan chickens, commercial kale and spinach farming supplied to traders at Kangeta market, and a growing camping site positioned as the first of its kind near the Nyabena forest.
What does Benjamin grow?
Benjamin also grows tea, coffee and miraa, cash crops central to the Meru economy, and has leased additional tea farms on six-year agreements running to 2032.
He currently pays pickers 30 shillings per kilogramme, with farmers in his region receiving up to 48 shillings per kilogramme from the factory — down from 56 shillings last year.
His advice to young Kenyans is pointed:
“Don’t go to school planning to be employed. Go there to get knowledge, to open your mind. You can be employed for 15 years but do nothing. There’s life beyond a pay slip.”
