The village had captivating stories about the big city.
None of my older siblings had been there, but they were the primary source of capital tales. They talked of tall buildings, ever shining bright lights, and many cars. They described some strange foods eaten by the people there.
Some tasty potatoes called chips that were chopped and cooked strangely, unlike my mother’s over boiling or mashing. They were eaten with some small delicious pieces of meat that somehow looked like mutura. Our village version of sausage made from animal intestines stuffed with blood and offal. The description of the look and tastes of these treats were beyond my ingenuity.
You could only get to Nairobi by bus. I had never been into one until my maiden trip at age 12. Luckily enough, I was privileged to see buses quite often. The village across the river was the terminal stage for some famous bus line known as Riakanau. Famous for incredibly low fares, snail speeds and deafening rumbles.
After the end of the trips, the buses came for washing at the ford in our river. My brothers and I would walk down after dinner to enjoy the scene. Turnboys howling idiocies and teasing each other. Swinging bucketsful of water from the river to the top carrier. We listened to the rev and marvelled at the magical interior lights of a bus. It was very captivating and different from that of a lantern. Our wish was to take a bus ride one day.
But the biggest mystery was about the journey.
My big brother was our most reliable source of knowledge about things outside the village. The guy was such a good storyteller. The stories were a complete distortion of reality, but I didn’t know then. It could be the reason I never fancy Hollywood movies and novels in my adulthood. My big brother gave me enough of village fiction.
I loved it most when he narrated about the trip to Nairobi. His exaggeration of the journey made me yearn to travel to the city. The story started with the process of boarding and sitting in the bus. The sounds and the kind of people in there. The goods in the aisles and on its top carrier. The power and throttle of its engine. The comfort and expansiveness of its seating.
He had an answer to all my questions. I have never known his source of information because he had never travelled in one. I suspect it was all out of his imagination. Or his lies compounded with those of his ignorant friends.
I was fascinated by the story of the famous hill on the way.
The tale was a hill known as Kambiti. It is a small market after Sagana Bridge, on the way to Nairobi from Mt. Kenya. Today, the place with lots of women lined up along the highway, selling large sweet mangoes on the season. Where motorists stop to buy fruits at triple the cost, they would pay in Nairobi.
According to him, the buses were super-fast until they reached the climb. The hill was so steep such that one could not see its top when standing at the bottom. It would mean looking upwards like facing an overhead sun. When the buses got to this hill, he said, their speeds reduced to a near stop. Passengers had to alight and hike to reduce the weight on the bus.
The muscled turnboys descended and inserted huge rocks behind the rear wheels. Stopping the bus from rolling backwards under the insurmountable force of gravity. The engine overheated, covering the coaches in vast clouds of smoke. The turnboys running and pouring cold water to cool for a while. Restarting the climb only after the driver was able to see through. It was such a mind-boggling narration for a child from a flat plainland with only anthills.
This gruelling stage of the journey made me want to visit Nairobi more than anything else. I wanted to witness the action and the steepest elevation under the sun. I imagined trekking upwards, sweating and panting. While watching the turnboys do their heavy lifting and shouting work. I craved standing on top of the hill and marvelling at the landscape of the entire earth. This is what I longed to experience and not seeing the city.
My day to travel to Nairobi finally came.
It the first trip organized in my school and my father paid for my kid brother and me. The planning was quite exciting. But the eve of the trip was the real sensation. That night, I promised myself not to wet the bed. I even had the confidence to sleep in my full school uniform and shoes. We barely slept telling stories and fearing that we could oversleep and miss the bus.
My father woke us up in the wee hours of the morning and put us on his bicycle. It was the only day I enjoyed the ride in my school life. The bus was already there. The first time a citybound coach spent a night in my village. There were kids and a few parents, all wrapped in heavy blankets, milling around it. Then one by one, we were called to board, and the expedition began. Like all our other school trips, we sang church hymns loudly all the way out of the belief that a car or bus ride was sure death.
Our loud singing would be interrupted by our teachers. Describing places and features along the way. Eventually, one of the teachers announced that we had arrived in mysterious Kambiti. My heart started racing in anticipation of the drama.
I was very disappointed.
I looked out of the window to see the spectacle of its steepness. All I saw was small undulating hills dressed in dryland bushes. Nothing more. I waited for the alighting and hiking action. Nothing. The overheating engines and thick clouds of smoke. Nope. All I noticed was the slowdown and loudness of the bus engine. We proceeded to get to Nairobi, and I experienced a new world that I longed to.
For the first time, I ate ice-cream, visited a museum and saw tall buildings. There were no rickety cars nor dusty roads. On our way back, we stopped at the bakery that I always longed to visit. The one that made city bread. That long loaf that everyone knew as kumanyoko, a corrupted bizarre insult in the village. I have never comprehended why every villager used this absurd profanity in the name of bread. The huge loaf was a powerful symbol of arrival from the city. Anyone tucking it under their armpits did not need to announce where they were coming from.
The fact is, I have been raised in a society of believers.
Today when I pass Kambiti, it reminds me of how silly I was to believe my brother. It rekindles my awareness on how we foolishly take in things that are given to us. Beliefs that we carry all through our lives with pride. Flaunting them like badges pinned on our lapels.
Almost everything around us has been built on myths. Our spirituality, religion that is, revolves around belief. Death is superstition. Our modern-day weddings and funerals are ritualistic in avoidance of cultural abomination. In Africa, well-educated people turn to bogus medicine men in solving marital, career, wealth, political and health problems. Witchcraft and curses are still known to be the cause of infectious and lifestyle diseases.
Traditional healers promising to tackle promiscuity and erectile dysfunction are prominent in our newspapers. Casting and watching witchcraft movies is our creativity and leisure. If you look closer, most people stick to their faith, not because they want to know God. But to seek protection from superstitious fears. And that is one thing conniving preachers of today know very well. That is why the comedy of chasing demons is the crowd-puller in church sermons and open-air crusades.
Anything inexplicable to our forefathers was interpreted as witchcraft. Then our colonizers came, and brought us other beliefs that were ostensibly superior to ours. We ditched ours and replaced with theirs. Today, we have a potent fusion of both, and proudly practice many western beliefs whose originators ditched decades ago.
Education and access to information has not helped much.
In the entire history of mankind, we are the first generation to live with so much information surrounding us. It is in our hands and pockets, but has done little to extinguish our ignorance. We spend most time reading toxic news and enjoying meaningless entertainment. We remain hooked to ignorance, just like our predecessors.
We have remained a belief-driven society despite rising levels of education. The doctrines introduced to hoodwink and weaken our forefathers to allow the plundering of our indigenous resources, remain our spiritual devotion and societal solace. We are preserving oppressive ideologies and nonsensical myths as our culture, religion, entertainment and socialization.
Beliefs are inherited.
Beliefs are never ours. They are given to us, to take and not question. Else we risk becoming ostracized by the tribe. Being cut out of the clan is something none of us ever wants. Compliance to the society’s belief system is seemingly mandatory. We all want to be seen to belong. Even if deep inside, we know we do not or should not.
Not performing rituals risks facing certain curses. If some offerings are not made, there are prohibitions. Not complying to some mythical restrictions attracts anathema. There is a belief, not sense, behind almost everything we practice in our African society.
Beliefs form our contemporary identity and value judgement.
Today, beliefs are no longer premised in our hearts. We want to be seen and identified with them. So, we proclaim to all those who have ears. And show it off to all who have eyes. We take our children to that school and wear that expressive outfit or jewellery. We display the book, blast the music and paste the car bumper sticker. The more we exhibit our belief, the more favourably the society judges us.
Fear of judgement makes people continue to pretend and fit in. That is what drives the hypocrisy permeating all echelons of our society. To put it straight, if you do not identify with one belief, you are with the other. If you are not seen to be with the lord, you are with the devil. The judgment is instant and straightforward.
Beliefs cherish ignorance, and fear.
Most if not all, faiths, are either a deliberate distortion of the truth or hapless expression of ignorance. Beliefs are for explaining why things are the way they are. Not illuminating how things indeed are. The moment you start to question and deconstruct beliefs, they begin to fall apart. Since they are driven by fear, the same fear prohibits us from digging into facts. Fear maintains and perpetuates a belief system.
I have spent most of my life with a high level of ignorance despite being reasonably educated and exposed. In recent times, I gathered enough courage to start questioning most of the things that I believe in. Then the myths I held so true started to shatter. Including the illusions, I held about myself.
New facts have emerged, and many truths have shifted. New knowledge has enabled me to piece many disjointed things together. The conflict in my mind continues to reduce as I deepen understanding of my past and present experiences.
Build an arsenal of knowledge by adopting a Beginner’s Mindset.
This zen concept is the contrast for an expert mind. It starts with the admission that you do not know much. What you think you know has never been true. Or maybe the truth has shifted over the years. It is always possible that the perfect beliefs and solutions acquired from our background or past experiences are no longer relevant. This approach frees one from misconceptions, judgements, and expectations. And opens the door to a curious world with unlimited possibilities.
Start to know who you indeed are. Dig into the facts behind everything you think you know or believe in. Observe things the way you have never done before. Listen to other perspectives. Move from the common practice of listening while awaiting a turn to speak. To elevate your game in life, ditch the company of perpetrators of fear, ignorance, and fallacy—those who make you believe that things around you have no other perspective.
Stand out by debunking the common myths.
Because the majority believes in something, it does not make it real. Seek new knowledge to understand things the hoi polloi believe in. That is what has separated the highest achievers from the ordinary folks. Leadership in business, religion, wellness, or any other aspect of human development has been a reserve of people with an unlimited desire for a deeper understanding of life and the universe—the ones who continuously practise a beginner’s mindset.
The liberation of the self, the African society and the black race, will only take place through a radical transformation of our corrupted psyche. Deviating from the culture of believing without scrutiny. Challenging the common false beliefs that we have held true for generations. Breaking the past and present moulds that constrict our understanding. And making our race and our continent lag in perpetuity.
We are who we are because of the beliefs we hold of ourselves. Our limitations and inability to exploit our potential are a result of self-limiting beliefs. The ones we have made for ourselves or others made for us.
Transformation begins with increased awareness.
Convince yourself that you know nothing and everything around will start to look different. Your life will be rid of the curse of experts. Your perspectives will expand, and so will your courage and opportunities. And your problems will start to have new solutions.
Creativity and joy will begin to become your second nature. Whatever you do will become more achievable, fun, and fulfilling.
Always remember Martin Luther King Jnr. words, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
Decide what will define you and your future generations.
Considered knowledge or shackling beliefs.
