If a child grows up to be kind, healthy, responsible, self-sufficient, and decent—but not wealthy—has the sacrifice failed? Most people would instinctively say no. Yet many families behave as though the answer is yes. Not openly, of course. No parent sits their child down and says, "I didn't raise you to be happy. I raised you to be rich." But expectations have a way of revealing themselves. In comparisons with more successful relatives. In questions about promotions, land, and home ownership. In the disappointment that hangs in the air when a child is doing well enough to survive but not well enough to transform the family's fortunes. And perhaps nowhere is this tension more visible than in Kenya, where sacrifice is often treated as the highest form of love. Parents sacrifice for their children. Older siblings sacrifice for younger siblings. Entire generations sacrifice in the hope that the next one will live better. But what happens when sacrifice quietly becomes an...
What happens to a people who believe they should keep receiving without ever renewing? I’ve been house hunting lately, and it’s been a brutal mirror. Not just of Nairobi’s inflated rental prices or neglected plumbing, but of something much deeper and much more disturbing—our collective tolerance for decay, and our strange belief that once something starts giving, it should never stop… even if we do. You walk into a house in Kileleshwa or Karen going for 150K a month. The gates creak. The tiles are chipped. The kitchen cabinets look like they’ve survived three regimes. You mention a leaky sink and the caretaker shrugs. You’re expected to be grateful to live in a postcode, even if the house itself is crumbling. And this is not just about houses. It’s about us. This habit of milking without mending. Of expecting fruit from trees we never water. Of choosing inheritance over investment. It’s a quiet kind of national rot—and we’ve all played our part. Our strange national comfort with dec...