KenyaOnAShoeString: Real Advice for Real Kenyans

Africa is not a country. Love is not one thing. Africa is not a country. We’ve heard this phrase used to challenge oversimplified narratives — to remind us that the continent is vast, layered, and irreducibly complex. The same, I believe, applies to love . In many homes and relationships across Kenya, “love” is treated like a catch-all. “My mum loves me. She paid my school fees.” “My dad loves us. He built the house.” “My partner loves me. They send money.” These statements are often shared with pride, and sometimes with pain — an attempt to make sense of affection that felt either too conditional, too distant, or too one-sided. But provision is not presence . Obedience is not connection . And saying “I love you” is not the same as showing up in ways that meet a person’s emotional needs. What we often call love in our culture is vague, generic, and sometimes hollow. To truly heal, connect, and grow, we must learn to name love differently — in the language of care , ...

There comes a time in many Kenyan homes when love quietly morphs into duty. The birthday calls stop. The small affirmations of care fade. Support becomes transactional, and affection is reserved for funerals and emergencies. We know our people are “there for us,” but we can’t feel them anymore. “Love is not the meal prepared, it’s the warmth with which it’s served.” In many Kenyan homes, love is measured in chapatis made, fees paid, and water fetched from the borehole. It’s graded in sacrifices, sleepless nights, and school trips funded just in time. From the outside, these are clear signs of care — but are they love? Maybe. But maybe they are duty dressed in love’s clothing.  From rural homesteads in Kakamega to middle-class apartments in Nairobi — emotional generosity is a rarity. We know how to provide, to protect, to discipline, to demand. But many of us, including our parents and their parents before them, never quite learned how to be emotionally generous. In many Kenyan fam...

We marvel at the wealth of dynasties abroad and wonder how empires are built. Yet right here in Kenya, we bury thriving businesses with our parents. From duka za mtaa to five-acre farms, from mitumba stalls to successful mjengo supply chains—legacies are abandoned, forgotten, or intentionally shut out. Why? “In Kenya, we hustle hard for our children—then leave them out of the very thing we built for them.” Walk through Gikomba, Toi Market, or any roadside vibanda and you’ll see stories of Kenyan resilience stitched into every tarp, stall, and sack of waru. Businesses started out of desperation became lifelines. A woman begins selling mutumba clothes under a tree, and twenty years later, she owns three stalls. A man starts farming in Eldoret on inherited land and now supplies a local supermarket. A couple opens a kiosk in Umoja and expands into a mini wholesale outlet. The narrative is inspiring—until it ends abruptly. Not because the business wasn’t viable. Not because there wasn’t po...