Maybe It’s Time We All Quit The Rat Race

This morning I woke up and everything felt so different. The night before, I had “beaten” stories with my mom till late. Before we both realised it, it was 2 in the morning.

I just came to the village a few days ago, you see, to attend the funeral of a close friend’s father. I had no prior plans of coming home to see my mom but decided why not? After all, schools were closing. So I came with my daughter.

For the first time, I was not in a hurry to go back. I wanted to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I wanted to breathe in the fresh village air and drink the almost sweet village water. I wanted to drink tea that had milk straight from our cow and eat vegetables plucked directly from our shamba.

And boy am I enjoying every moment.

This morning, I woke up to the aroma of mandazis coming from our kitchen. My mom has just milked our cow and my sister was making the mandazis. Our youngest had closed school the day before and all my nieces were around. It was a full house by all means.

My heart is full. The laughter is genuine and the inhouse jokes are unmatched..literally, no joke comes close. This….this is joy. This is happiness. This is what life is all about.

As if the ambience is not enough, I have not spent even one single shilling since I arrived here! The milk comes from the cow and the vegetables, onions, and pepper come directly from our shamba. Misheveve, managu, sagaa and my favourite – mchicha. All growing with reckless abandon in our farm.

Guys, the abundance of avocados makes me want to shed tears of joy. Sugarcane right, left and centre, pumpkin kule, guavas on the tree, natural medicines by the edges of the farm….I mean, if this is not life then I do not know what is.

The Future Is Rural

Jana I ate kienyeji chicken that my mum has been rearing, marinated with rosemary from the farm. After every few minutes, I am eating something. I literally have to tell my mom to stop lest I die from over feeding.

I can’t stop but wonder sometimes what exactly I am doing in Nairobi, spending thousands on rent, food, drinking water, tokens, entertainment and what have you. Is it worth it? No really, is it really worth it?

This rat race we all willingly get into (although if we are being honest, do we have much option?) what is the end goal? As someone that has loved and lost, I am not sure what exactly would give me the type of joy I crave in this world.

I do not want much. My ambitions aren’t grand or anything. I just want to be….happy. Is that too much to ask for? I am – as I have pointed here severally before – a simple girl with simple needs. Top of that list is to live a life that is not hand to mouth, or paycheck to paycheck. I want to work on the things that give me simple pleasures. I want to be able to read books from different authors around the world and see different cultures through their words. I want to be able to write, something I almost let go of when I lost myself and forgot who I was a while back. I want to travel the world but most importantly, I want to spend time with my mom, my sisters, my nieces and my daughter. I want to spend time with the people I love.

I want to love a man wholesomely and fiercely and get to be loved back. No conditions – only the realization from the both of us that life is too short and tomorrow is not guaranteed.

A simple girl with simple needs, that’s who.

Being in a constant rat race does not give me the space to do all that. Instead, all it does is give me anxiety, panic attacks and fear of the unknown. So yes, maybe it is time we reconsidered participating in the rat race. And hopefully in the next few days, I will write an article on how.

Maybe happiness isn’t in the city lights, or in the paycheck. If we are being honest, when were the paychecks ever enough? Maybe happiness is in the laughter echoing through a smoky kitchen or the scent of tea brewing on top of three stones.

Or maybe it is in quietly coming to terms with the fact that money, fame and everything else in between is all vanity and that for once you are exactly where you’re meant to be.