THESE TIMES

Sometimes you read things that make you question life. For example, about Yida camp in South Sudan. Or saladef from Mt.Elgon . Or of raped two year olds. Of the matatu crews assaulting women. Other times you hear things. Like the campus girl who is pregnant but has no idea who is the father among all the one night stands she had. Of the man who is against abortion as though the choice or body belongs to him. Just to search deeper and find that it is because he financed one and it has been haunting him since. Of the starving people in some counties in Kenya. Or of the women trampled down by men in the pretense of being their husbands or boyfriends.
Other times you see things that make you question people’s sanity. Like the friends who go quiet. Don’t they know that relationships are the things that keep people alive? Or the human beings who slave off their asses just to buy a certain car or live in certain places. I have never understood the obsession with material wealth. Maybe that explains why my ex used to get pissed when I referred to underprivileged people as poor people. Or hear of the people in power who misuse, abuse and overuse those below them? Have they never heard of karma?
The times we live in make me question if I was supposed to be born this generation. Find people waiting in a room and all of them will be busy scrolling through their phones. Until it has become normal to do so. I walked into a person’s office and they requested me to wait for while as they finished up on something. Seeing I had a few minutes to myself, I took a seat and started scribbling important things to my notebook. And I could see the shock on the glances sent my way after every five seconds and the effort to try and see what this young girl(at what point do we stop being girls to people our parent’s age?) was doing. It was obvious taking out my phone was the most expected thing of the moment.
Have you ever wondered what the people of the seventeenth century used to do when free? And do you think it is a coincidence that almost all our philosophers are from the years behind the twentieth century? My generation throws caution to the wind and only lives once. Me, I have this life and the next that will be determined by the actions of this one. And while on this one on earth, I believe in reaping what I sow. Which farmer does not love good harvests? Certainly, not me. I think before I do. I love plans. That explains why I rarely go with the flow or flow with the crowd. Maybe I am no fun. Or maybe I was accidentally was placed with the y generation or the millenials.
I don’t think at my age people are supposed to seat on stools while observing the setting sun and mull over life. That sounds like what my ninety nine year old great-grandma does to pass time. But I also don’t seem to fit in to the aspirations, goals, attitudes, actions and of these times. And so I will sip my tea, while looking over the dry Ukambani hills and shake my head, while thinking… these times…

Advertisement