I have spent my adult life in a constant, predictable way.
Since leaving college, I got myself into the rut of career, wealth, and family building. Getting a job in town was a milestone in realizing the common dream of every young urban African man. Graduate from college, get a white-collar job, marry a beautiful girl and sire two English-speaking kids. Then buy a home in town, build a bigger one in the village, build a barn and some rental houses, and breed a Zebu herd. Retire from the profession, nurse a debilitating lifestyle disease, and die sooner to give your wife and kids a well-deserved break. To date, I am still struggling to break free from this exhaustive societal trajectory.
This predictable self-actualization routine demands sacrifice. Abandoning what you genuinely value and brings joy to you and your loved ones. Switching to spending time on economic and egoic gains at the expense of physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Devoting endless time in office, travel, and social places. At times, being in places you do not like and with people who do not like you. Leaving little to no time for rest and recovery or for loving and caring for you and others. This life trains you to put money and possessions as the most essential of things in life. While your humanness and well-being are dumped, sometimes never to be reclaimed.
Recently, I decided to take things in a different direction.
I wanted to have a less glamorous way of celebrating my true half-life mark. I longed to go back to the days of my youth when I was a human being with a deep, loving, and happy soul. The days I trusted my life with God and people. When nothing was within my control because I had no money and no power. Back then, I lived with little judgements or prejudices about people I did not know. I was eager to socialize, travel, and live in communities that were not mine, without anticipating any social or economic benefit. I loved and embraced everyone and their ways of life. But all that disappeared with a career and financial advancement.
So, this time, I decided to strip myself off social status and get a humanistic experience. I planned to travel and live in a remote rural community for a few weeks. No air travel, no hotel, no personalized attention. I wanted to visit a part of the country and community that I did not know much about. I would live amongst its people. In a homestead of strangers and become a member of that family. Eat, drink, walk, work and sleep there for a good number of days.
I longed for newness and freedom from the jail that is my daily life.
I wanted a change of dwelling. To live in a home with elderly parents who did not know me and did not speak my native language or practise my culture. I wanted to learn about their family history and its journey to understand how alike and different it was from mine. I hungered to be welcomed to a home but not treated specially. I wanted to belong without being honoured. Because people who do not know you will hardly know how to treat you in a particular way. I wanted to be human for once. To be taken for who I am and to live a different life from the bubble I have spent years blowing around myself.
I wanted to enjoy green spaces and sink into the meditative tranquillity that they invoke. I longed for fresh air and water tapped from the source. I wanted to eat fresh food from the garden and drink milk from the kraal. I craved to chew sugarcane and pick berries and fruits from the bushes. I wanted to walk endlessly and enjoy morning and evening sunshine. I yearned to speak to strangers and allow them to test my stereotypes and prejudices. Most of all, I longed to be vulnerable and confront my cultural blindness. And to get this host family, I needed referrals from friends and family.
That is how I ended up in Mzee Elisha Ruto’s home in Kaptumo.
Sarma village in Kaboi is tucked in an endlessly green landscape of tea plantations and luscious tree canopies. Its undulating hills are dotted with sparse homesteads surrounded by scenic hedges. Its laid-back quietude and emerald peacefulness are calming beyond expectation. Because I come from Mwea, an arid flatbed of a countryside, the feeling of Sarma’s aura was largely surreal. Compared to my village of birth, Sarma is God’s own backyard.
Mzee and the family welcomed me that evening. I used to be a roaming village volunteer in the days of my youth, so I know well the subtle camaraderie of settling in a strange homestead. Not to speak too much nor withhold information. Coming clear of the intention of being there without appearing to be a spy. Or a troubled adult soul running away from his domestic demons. Seeking to genuinely belong and not project a burdensome stay.
On arrival, I was given a comfortable place to stay, overlooking the tea lands leading to Nandi Hills Town. I settled down to unpack and arrange my room, knowing that this was my home for a while. My phone had to go off, and my car permanently parked. No aimless driving, no personal shopping, no communication outside that village. There would be no hidden food, drinks or anything else of personal preference. I was to be a member of Arap Ruto’s family in its entirety.
The stay was a resetting experience.
For the first time since leaving college, I had no responsibility for someone else. I had the freedom to make or not to make any plans. I could cancel my day plan without consultation or guilt. I could wake up feeling energetic and go for a walk, or tired and opt to bask with Mzee or read a book. I got the opportunity to listen to how my body responds to high altitude sunlight. I observed the inhales and exhales of the unpolluted air in Nandi Hills. I spent time in the homestead listening and talking about people and places, events, and experiences.
I patiently watched people pass by the homestead and keenly listened to the noises they made, coming, and going. Reconnecting with my favourite childhood pastime of living by the road in the countryside. Observing the fade-in and fade-out sounds of passers-by and their mobility machines. Often, I strolled in the neighbourhood while listening to Andrea Bocelli and Carly Paoli. The same songs that I play on my car stereo in town, this time, sounded all different and spiritually uplifting. The chords, vocals and lyrics hammered the base of my soul like never before.
I often got lost in my walks.
Ending in dead-end pathways, staff quarters or strange homesteads. Where I had to explain who I am and how I am related to the Arap Ruto family. Forcing me to concoct all manner of schooling and working relationships with his children. “You know so and so? We work in the same profession.” I would say about his daughters, while they nodded slyly. On my part, observing my inquisitor’s tepid reactions and trusting that they would lose interest and let me take my weary body home. Sometimes, I was cornered and forced to coin a shemeji (casual and conniving marital relationship term) narrative about his family and ours.
“I am a shemeji to the larger Arap Ruto family”, stating hurriedly, to avoid any further questions in that direction. In-laws are respectable people in Africa, so mostly, they would just leave it at that. But at times, they wanted to know about my home county. To which, I would honestly respond that I was born in Kirinyaga, and work in Nairobi. Live in Kiambu, plan to retire in Nakuru, and wish to have my ashes spread on the serene, mica beaches of North Kilifi where Sabaki River meets the Indian Ocean. At this point, they would allow me to continue with my journey. If not, ask my opinion about the next president of Kenya or explain why Kirinyaga politics are dominated by publicly aggressive women. I would answer cleverly, without showing that the question alluded to the basis of my family’s relationship with Arap Ruto’s daughters.
I met people that triggered different life questions than usual.
Unlike the hawkers along my noisy urban walkways, weary tea plantation workers spread along my random foot routes. I stopped to ask them for directions and learn the basics of tea picking. What were the long sticks they carried, how much did they pick in a day, and how long and how often did they harvest? I paused at several Turumbare, the tea weighing and collection centres, to observe the dealings and the noisy chaos. I talked to security guards, herders, riders, shopkeepers, school children, milkmen and drunkards.
I plucked and smelt tea and marvelled at the many unique plant species as I walked in the dewy and canopied plantation pathways. Often pondering about the tea pickers’ lives. Where did they come from, and what are their daily struggles? How many children did they have? How much energy was left at the end of the day to serve and love them? I wondered about their level of education and their childhood dreams. And how it was to resign to a life of such gruelling daily slaving. I contemplated how much they earned and how they spent it. I wondered how they will retire and whether they can afford to travel back home to visit or celebrate Christmas.
But the most significant rewards were the life lessons.
I learnt the basics of the Nandi Culture. Starting with food because I love to eat everything that I have never eaten. Because I am Kikuyu. The famed inventors of basic chop, mix and boil recipes. Ones that cannot be written down for the sake of not dishonouring our mothers and further tarnishing our community’s cabbage-and-potato culinary reputation. And limit our sisters and daughters market for suitors.
I spent hours marvelling at the engineering ingenuity of Chebkube. The handcrafted firewood oven that is central to a Nandi household kitchen. I sat beside it for long, enjoying its warmth and greedily keeping youngsters company to grill me some corn on the cob – the ultimate snack for a runaway villager. I watched the women as they skilfully turned and pounded Kimnyet. The ugali made early in the morning and locked in the Chebkube for daylong baking, and only eaten later in the evening. I drank and learnt how to make Mursik, the traditionally fermented milk, flavoured with a generous portion of smoking herbal charcoal adeptly wrung in a colourful, beaded gourd.
I walked down the farm, observing and learning about tea growing, local vegetable gardening, and massaging cows. I crossed over streams and springs. I jumped and crept under farm fences. At times, I drove around with Mzee. To see his farms, shop, sight-see and visit family. During which we talked about serious life things. But mainly shared silly laughs about our events, people and places. Just being boys.
I left with loads of wisdom.
Mzee is the same age as my father, and that made it easier to relate. I was naturally put in the space that I interact with my father. I asked many questions about his history and keenly extracted the wisdom of his life experiences. At the same time, observing the uniqueness and commonality of his and my father’s encounters. I listened to what people said about him, mainly how he saved their lives and focused on giving medical service, not making money. I heard much about Mama Anna Jebyama, his late wife and family matriarch. From him and other people in my random neighbourhood conversations. About her faith, hard work and commitment to the well-being of her family and the community. The talk about her so often brought back the image of my late mother.
I was reminded for the umpteenth time that we humans are all the same. And that the tenets of a strong family and community are similar, irrespective of where you come from. I learnt how Mzee Ruto’s family began and how it got where it was, over the same period with my father’s. It was the same journey, on different paths. Just like the lessons from my own family, I was retold that hard work and persistence pays in the end. That building wealth is a long race, not a sprint. That it does not matter what you do, just do it well over a long time. I was retaught that the foundation of a strong family is a loyal and visionary woman married to a loving and dedicated man.
I recapped the basics of family life and old age.
The fact that having a family and wealth is a continually challenging experience. That every family has its struggles, and so, mine can never be an exception. I saw the effect of long-term vision, toiling, and investment on old age. I reconfirmed that the process of a happy and prosperous ending is the same. Reiterating my mother’s famous statement, “Your old age will feed on the effort and perseverance of your youth”. She would always say this to encourage me not to lose hope in the labour and family struggles of my younger self. Teaching me to remain focused on continuous productivity and investment. Guiding me to avoid the dangers of old-age poverty and evade the pitfalls of greedy wealth building.
In Mzee’s homestead, I came back to knowing that my time on this earth is limited. That one day, I will resign to a quiet, still life. Whether I like it or not, unless I die young. And so, I should relearn the stillness and emptiness of my childhood days. Reminding me that simplicity is the recipe for long, enjoyable life. And that my life will end in simplicity, no matter how fancy or busy I make it.
I will be forced to sit or lie down in the day and at night sooner than later. Without any business to transact, no matter how wealthy or powerful I become. There is a day when my soul will demand that I leave town for a quieter place. The very days I will not need to go anywhere, meet anyone, make or spend any money. The only thing I will need then is to be surrounded by people to show me love and care for me.
And those people are in the family that I am building.
I better do a damn good job.
