Thursday, February 4, 2016

Hold Up! What The Huh!?

Some months ago I started noticing some weird things among my age-mates. This may have been noticed by those older than us much earlier but I think my eyes opened fairly recently. The concept of value and responsibility seems to be a conversational concept, and idea or philosophy to be floated around in company just to show how ‘learned’ we are. Many of us however do not seem to actually understand the day to day applicable meaning of these words.

See, for a long time I did not believe in the hoola-baloo around weddings and much less the whole marriage thing. What used to happen is that we go for all these seemingly joyous meetings and ceremonies that lead to the big day then one month, 5 months, 10 months, 1 year, 3 years max there is silence ice and talk of moving on. I heard of a marriage that lasted less than a month in this here Kenya, Nairobi even. And we think it’s only Kim Kardashian and the like who pull such stunts.

We are 28, 29, 30 and I dare say 35 year olds running around town with childish ideas of what life is about. Ho now does a man with children by more than one women, one possibly being an ex-wife who couldn’t live with an overgrown child still find that a conversation with peers about how they romped around Eldoret over the weekend is the highlight of the week! And if you corner the guy and remind him of his paternal responsibility, he might just share his strategy to spend everything he can on himself so that those mean, nasty baby mamas do not see a cent from him. True story.

This is not a man bashing post. There are women, my riika if you may, who all they aim for is to be married upper middle class. First the wedding needs to be of the standard, and must impress all the girls. Then they must live in an apartment in Kilimani, Westy or if things are hard maybe south C. Once the ring is on it and the child has been produced, it’s a competition to see who can Instagram their baby the most in the cutest outfits at all the right places… until you get to the other side of the lens and hear  ‘aki huyu mtoto husumbuuua.’ As the child is put to a corner in the latest fashion stroller as the girls have their wine. This lady might hold down a good job and her money is hers. To spend on looking good and being seen at the ‘right’ places, doing the ‘right’ things.

So I take a step back and mourn for all the things these overgrown children are destroying, I mourn for the old tired and lonely people who just might discover in their 60’s or 70’s that time cannot undo itself. I mourn for a generation that will never know what they are missing out on until they can do nothing about it but get lost in their own sorrow alone.

Real wealth that carries is not in property and fat accounts but in people, the people around you and the relationships we nurture. Relationships are hard and not always about smiles and laughs, there are tears there are fights… but the end goal is worth it.


At the end of the day, parents will try, and they will tire and their time will pass, friends, should there be principled people in your circle, will try until your antics will be too embarrassing for them to associate with you and they will quietly and surely melt away (as you nurse your drink in Malindi begrudging the haters you thought were friends), you will have destroyed the relationships you tried to call family and then what. Like I told someone a few years ago, the cars and the big houses and rental property will not nurse you when you are ill, will not be your companions when age slows you down and will definitely not bury you. So, I’m I talking to you?