• Anyone avoiding protests won't understand what it feels like to risk dying for an idea
It feels like it’s the first time my Uber driver is driving. Everything is alarming. It's not as alarming as logging in to Twitter and finding out that more than 10 bodies have been found dumped in Kware. Some chopped up. It reads like a conspiracy thriller. We’re all asking who done it, but with a side-eye. Just picture it.
Everywhere I go now, the whispers are complaints of a people heartbroken. The President has failed us. Same way my Uber is failing me right now; who drives like this? We’re at a roundabout now. Roundabouts in Kenya scare me the most. There is no sense of control, everyone is scrambling, and no one is winning. We, my Uber included, are all stuck now.
I went on TikTok and said it’s not the fault of Kenyan women that we have women leaders and representatives. The men, for some reason, were outraged. I unlocked a new kink, angering men on the Internet. I got over 100 comments, 99.99 per cent by men, mad. Angry that I, a vagina holder, dared to have an opinion. I still blame Ruto.
One of them said the Lord told them I will get pregnant with twins before the year ends. What does that even mean? Is this a threat? A prophecy? Is motherhood a punishment? Some men have been known to impregnate women to trap them in toxic relationships or to punish them because they leave them after. It sounds like mummy issues, but I don’t value every man’s opinions enough to care.
My grandfather slurps his tea when he drinks it. We are sitting in a dimly lit room that serves as my grandparents' sitting room. When I ran away from home at 16, I came to this house. I slept in this room on the couch. The cushions were there for vibes, it felt like I was sleeping on wood.
He slurps his tea and expresses how disappointed he is in Ruto. Life has become so hard since he came to power. My grandmother sits next to him, agreeing with everything he is saying. She is chewing on a piece of dry bread and her face hasn’t changed one bit. They are older but they look the same as the last time I saw them. Looking at the village, you can’t tell if the people are aware of the protests. The village is calm and quiet, and it’s so peaceful. This is the norm. I love it here. I feel so safe.
Lately, I’ve been feeling very unsafe. The bad thing about awareness is that you know when bad things are happening and you know that you are actively risking your safety and your life for a cause you believe in. For your principles. Your humanity. You know this but knowing this doesn’t shield you from the bullets, from the abductions or the goons. It distorts your whole reality. Yet the passion to keep going is somehow there, still strong, a little scared but still pushing.
I don’t know if anyone who is not actively trying to yell out for change will understand what it feels like to be scared and in pain, to bleed with strangers and die for an idea. For hope. To know that all that stands between you and a better future is the decision of a person so detached from your reality that it shakes you.
It’s the lies, the gaslighting, the in-fighting, the propaganda so poorly thought out, and the political mind games. Who has time for this? How many more lives should be lost? How does he think this ends in his mind? The people are so loud and clear about where the protests could end for them, aren’t they?
I’m so tired. I can’t watch people die in Gaza, in Congo, in Sudan, in Haiti, and then watch them also die in my country. My self carries the grief like a shadow that never leaves.