If you continuously compete with others, you become bitter, but if you continuously compete with yourself, you become better

anonymous

Life welcomed me with some kindness.

I was born in a beautiful homestead sandwiched between a tarmac road and a canal. We lived there until I was nine years old, when greedy politicians grabbed my father’s land. Being a man of little means, my father had no recourse but to accept moving to a remote, desolate village. There, his life and that of his family began afresh. This relocation was distressful and disorganized my life in a way I never imagined.

It meant leaving behind my friends and neighbours. Changing school and getting new classmates and teachers. Speaking a different language and adopting a new culture. For the first time, I began living with my father. A man I hardly knew. He had moved to the new village when I was very young to clear bushes and build new shacks for his family. The only parent I knew was my mother, and she was not with us then, having been hospitalized for months to nurse a deadly snake bite.

Greatness comes from the inside, and once you believe you have it, it’s yours to share with the world

Chris Burkmenn

Whenever I find myself stuck in life, I ask God for another talent.

Then I look more in-depth, and I find that my need is not a new gift. The time this feeling strikes is a moment of torment. I strongly feel I want something that I do not know what it is. Life seems to lack something new, exciting and super rewarding. I may not be tall, handsome and athletic, but surely, the universe cannot be so discriminate to grant me this nothingness. If I am not gifted, who on earth is? Is my inner struggle about lack of a special gift, or is it something else?

To get out of this confusion, I take my head back to my village. And remember one of our good neighbours. My father’s late close friend. A short, humble, bow-legged man. The second shortest adult man in our village back then. He faced the God-given constraint of a lack of good stature. You know, height is always an advance disadvantage. It creates a negative perception on first sight, because it is the first thing people notice and size you upon. And for him, just like most of us, this was his mighty portion.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you

Lewis B. Smedes

The entry-level city landlord reminded me of a village shopkeeper.

A demigod, the bloated version of our rural affluent. Back then, a village shopkeeper had a unique demeanour from the rest of the men and women. Aside from their elitist lifestyle, they were people of few, measured words. As a kid, I found this behaviour puzzling. I wondered whether they were terse and rude because I was a child of a poor father and mother. Or whether it was because making more money ate into their ability to release words. Whenever my mother sent me to a shop, the person behind the drab wooden counter hardly responded to what I knew to be most basic of human interaction. Greetings.

And when you begin real life in the city, you acquaint yourself with the haughtiness of a low-grade estate landlord. They live in the same property with a wife and several well-nourished kids who do not school in the hood. You are lucky if they use a different bathroom and a toilet from yours. They know every move you make. The time you come in, and the time you leave. Your family and friends and your next-door enemies. Your piousness, your transgressions, and your hypocrisy. First, the landlord does not know the boundary between property leasing and parenting. They treat you both as a tenant, and a son or daughter who needs discipline. You are subjected to the rules of their household. But I was somehow lucky to escape this one.

Guard your heart, mind and time. Those three things will determine the health of everything else in your life

ANDRENA SAWYER

A villager does not belong in town until they get a paid job.

Walking from the campus hostel with my bags felt like ultimate freedom. But the following months proved that I was a captive of poverty, and almost lived on the streets. There was no one ready to house or feed me. My luck for hopping from one family or friend’s house to another, had run out.

I had to get a job and save my urban dream fast. But my ego complicated the search because I could not settle for any employment. I was not particularly eager to work for a broke and shamelessly corrupt government. I never saw myself showing up in a drab office full of tattered furniture and miserable people. In the name of serving the nation. Neither could I work for the condescending Indians building bad roads that they never completed.

The order I found was the order of disorder

william saroyan

Landing in the city opened the door to my world of fantasy.

The food was plenty and tantalizing, without the terror of hard chewing. The owners of the city must have sympathized with my long mealtime suffering. That is why they cooked everything soft and friendly to my jaw. There were eggs for breakfast, a rare and random village snack in an everyday meal. I wondered how many hostile, brooding chicken they battled to snatch all of them.

There were modern sausages for breakfast every day. It confused me much because our blood-stuffed mutura, was only available upon the rare slaughter of a goat for an important celebration. I wondered how many animals had to die to avail mountains of offals. There was unlimited bread with margarine and meat in every meal. Without a doubt, this city appeared to hold a feast for me every day.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers

robert green ingersoll

My true urban mates, do you imagine how I ended up in the city?

I am sure you think it was as easy as packing a suitcase and boarding a matatu. And voila! I became a city dweller, same day. Today I confirm that this transition is hell on earth. It is untold misery to leave abject poverty in a remote village and get a life in a distant town. The gods of a rural community love to keep their own. Just like a possessive lover, they make it hard for the one who wants to elope.

There are all manner of barriers and setbacks, all unknown to a rural folk. Because the fantasy that lies in a villager’s head about town life, is laughable. The ever bright lights, riding in cars, living in the sky, working in shaded spaces, cooking without smoke, eating without chewing hard, and all manner of urbane fantasies.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

thomas jefferson

Why did my father choose to live at the tail end of the remote village?

I know somewhat he had good reasons, like the convenience of a river frontage. Perhaps saving his wife and children from a long, back-breaking journey to fetch water. Or maybe nearness to the source of fish because he loves to eat it. But still, was choosing the farm location a wild ballot, or a deliberate choice? Did he consider how far my siblings and I had to travel to school? I do not think so. Despite his smartness, his consideration may have lacked in this sense.

The journey was long. Living farthest from school meant we were the first to leave home, and the last to get back. Waking up earlier than all families was our only way to cope. We had to milk cows and give my mum the breakfast milk before daybreak. And then in a hurry, begin school preparation. A big splash of cold water on the face was the least grooming, even for the poor. Usually to get rid of sticky stuff around the mouth and the eyes. I no longer see this slimy dirt on city kids when they wakeup, and I keep wondering what used to happen to us in our sleep back then.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

SENECA THE YOUNGER

Social class status symbols were real in my village.

Affluent families possessed a light blue rickety Renault or a tiny deep blue and silver Yamaha motorbike. The middle class, like ourselves, owned humped cows, and their precious accessories. Like an ox cart or a plough, to show prosperity. They also produced their own milk despite the mean volumes from bony zebus.

Morning milking session at home was a stressful chore—half asleep and cold. While thinking about the gruelling run to school afterwards. But the evening one was a bliss. My brothers and I squatted under tethered cows, squeezing the milk into old cooking fat tins. Competing to finish at times, but in most cases, sharing the big stories of the day. Evening milking was a lot more enjoyable. It marked our close of business and ushered the starry night with all its fun at the family courtyard.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Ralph Waldo emerson

I do not remember any sober adult pastime at an early age.

The only thing I recall of adult men and women was drinking. Everyone appeared drunk most of the time. Particularly a notorious binging group comprising of my grandmother and her mates. There was no breakfast for them. The girls made their mandatory mid-morning call during her routine sunrise bask. Which I later discovered was the natural treatment of a hangover. I now know that sunlight on human skin cures many health problems.

They passed by our fenceless homestead and shouted or beckoned her to join the entourage. She did so without hesitation, and off they went. Until lunchtime when they showed up staggering and with old sisal baskets loaded with foodstuff. In the beginning, I always assumed that they bought it from the market. Until one day, a neighbour showed up at home complaining of his losses due to everyday stealing of his green bananas by granny and the gang. The case closed, but their pilfering behaviour, even though exposed, ever lasted.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness and the happiness of others

israelmore ayivor

Money has always made sense since I was tiny.

I grew up near a small rural trading centre with a few shops. It was easy for my mother to send me on buying errands from a tender age. To get stuff that would not spill. No sugar, salt or any liquid. It had to be light and portable like a matchbox or paper-wrapped cooking fat. Sending a little boy in the village needed an incentive for him to run fast, not forget the item nor lose the coins.

The incentive for running was a basic village toy. Like a used bicycle rim, old car tyre or a handmade wire car. Not forgetting, it meant buying only the same item in a particular shop all the time. And to keep the cash safe, the coins were strapped somewhere around my body. But most often, my mother knotted them in the torn hem or edge of my polyester shirt. Tight enough for only the rude shopkeeper to get it out of my body.