The pain that permeates adult life has little to do with where but how you were raised.
A village life is blessed with one thing – unlimited wishes for the trappings of a town life. As much as we enjoyed the fun of a rural outback, we forever wished we were born and raised in town.
When I look back, most of these wishes were based on the limitation of my exposure. A town life was full of our imagination about a good, happy life. And it was all that ignited a desire to excel in school and land a good job, make loads of money and lead a happy ever afterlife.
I imagined myself wearing shoes every day.
And not on Sundays while going to church, or on a random school day to signal teachers that you had been to the clinic the previous day, for them to give you lighter duties. I saw myself eating BlueBand (a popular margarine by Unilever) and bread every day. I figured out living in a house with a concrete floor and a running tap that would save me from fetching water from a river infested with crocodiles and snakes.
I imagined the joy of cooking with a kerosene stove while watching television every evening.
I dreamt of sitting around a table in a room lit by a pressure lamp, or even fluorescent lights! I looked forward to freely drinking tea and porridge with unlimited spoonfuls of sugar. And most of all, I yearned to eat from a plate full of meat and with exotic smells like the ones I would sniff while cycling near some affluent homes in my rural town. Or even from the tiny kitchens of our village shopkeepers.
Going to high school away from the village and meeting boys from town was a new experience.
Their feet were softer than my palms. They spoke fluent English and no mother tongue. Their jaws could not grind Githeri (our local dish of boiled dry maize and beans), and neither could their throats swallow porridge. They were a different, intimidating breed of humans. They marvelled as much as they intimidated me. But they also emboldened my resolve to pursue my urban dream.
I visited Nairobi for the first time when I was 12, and that was one day whose amazement stays fresh in my mind. But coming to study and live here was a game-changer. It first taught me that unlike a village, there is wealth and poverty in extreme measures. I realized that my poor upbringing was not as bad as for some town families.
I came to learn that not all my affluent wishes were experienced by everyone living in a city.
There was a scarcity of basic needs, addictions, violence, and emotional stress in worse extremes than my village.
Today, my stories of childhood trauma, domestic conflicts, eroded family bonds, and the struggles for bare necessities are not any unique compared to those of my friends who grew up in the cities. We are all struggling with the same challenges. Whether rich or poor, where or how we were raised, or currently live in this part of the world. Weak relationships, high levels of stress, addictions, depression, annoying politicians, conniving preachers, and many other problems are what confronts us every day.
Our path to clarity, self-optimization and lasting happiness is the same.
No matter our race, nationality, tribe or gender. The threats of our lives are all the same. The path to attaining physical, psychological, emotional, social, and economic actualization is similar to all of us.
Let us all encourage and support each other and revolutionize our times for the betterment of our lives. Let us avoid the pitfalls of our parents and our forefathers for us to leave this world a much better place for our current and future generations.
