KenyaOnAShoeString: Real Advice for Real Kenyans

There’s a strange ache that creeps in when you’re doing your best, struggling to make ends meet, yet everywhere you look, people are going on weekend getaways, attending international concerts, upgrading their cars, and living what appears to be their best life. You’re not jealous. You’re just tired. You’re not bitter. You’re just exhausted from constantly feeling like you’re playing catch-up. You’re not ungrateful. You’re just wondering when your turn will come—and if it ever will. We’re in a season where “everyone is struggling” is the common language, yet the matatus are still full, the roads are still jammed with cars, and even midweek concerts are packed. The malls aren’t empty, and data bundles are still being bought. So what gives? The truth is, Kenya is a country of multiple realities. Some people have always had money. Some people finally got lucky. Some people are in debt. Some people are silently drowning. Some people genuinely don’t have responsibilities right now and...

How do we find peace when our past still follows us around like a shadow? There’s a kind of exhaustion that no amount of sleep can fix. It’s the kind that lives in the chest, not the bones. A heaviness born not from long days, but long memories—of what we did, what we didn’t do, what we should have said, what we can’t undo. In Kenya, we speak often about forgiveness in religious spaces. We quote Bible verses, sing worship songs, and talk about letting go. But in real life? We carry regret like it’s a form of atonement. We believe that if we suffer enough under the weight of what we did wrong, we’ll somehow earn peace. But what if real rest is learning to forgive yourself ?  “If I Had Just…” You know the script: If I had gone to visit before they died… If I had stayed in that marriage, maybe the kids would be okay… If I had gone for that job interview, I wouldn’t be struggling this much now… If I hadn’t snapped at my mum that day… Regret sounds like a constant ...

There’s a kind of tiredness that doesn’t show on your face. You go to work. You show up. You laugh with people. You move through the motions. But inside your head—it’s chaos. There’s the to-do list. The bills. The unspoken fears. The small, constant calculations. The weight of everyone else depending on you. The pain you never had time to process. The dreams that quietly died in the background. You sleep, but you’re not rested. You take a weekend off, but your mind is still sprinting. You sit down to rest, and your brain opens a spreadsheet of everything that could go wrong. That’s not just stress. That’s mental exhaustion. The Storm We Don’t Realize We’re In In Kenya, we’ve normalized mental fatigue so much that we barely notice it anymore. You're in your 30s or 40s, and it hits you: you’ve been running for two decades straight. Not just physically—but emotionally, financially, mentally. A single mother works two jobs but still finds herself sleepless at 3 a.m., not because o...

In Kenya, survival is not just a phase—it becomes a personality. A way of life. We know how to stretch a coin, how to skip meals, how to walk instead of board, how to delay joy in service of something bigger. We know how to sacrifice . But no one ever teaches us how to stop . You fight to build a life. You give up weekends, comfort, health, joy— even yourself —so your child can finish school, so you can buy that plot, build that house, survive that disease, leave that bad marriage, or finally be free of the debt that has followed you like a shadow. Then the fight ends. The child graduates. The house is done. The cancer is in remission. The toxic relationship is over. The money finally makes sense. You made it. But now, you find yourself staring into the quiet… and you don’t know what to do with it. What Does It Mean to Live After You’ve Been in Survival Mode? A man once said, “I sacrificed everything so my children would have a better life. I don’t even know what I like anymor...

There’s a kind of grief we rarely speak about in Kenya—the grief that comes not from loss, but from survival. Many Kenyans know what it’s like to give up entire decades of their lives for the sake of family. We raise children who aren’t ours. We care for ageing, ailing parents when healthcare fails. We build homes from scratch while still repaying loans. We battle court cases over family land, support siblings through school, and somehow still show up to work, church, harambees, and funerals with a smile. We are excellent at pushing through pain. We endure. We provide. We hold everything together. And so we often tell ourselves: “I’ll rest when I’m done.” But what if done never comes? Even after the chaos ends—the illness, the debt, the heartbreak—we don’t rest. We move the goalpost. We chase another opportunity. We dream of new lands and new starts. We keep running, because stillness feels foreign. We are a nation that knows how to hustle, how to survive—but we don’t know how t...