KenyaOnAShoeString: Real Advice for Real Kenyans

People think they marry for love . But more often than not, they marry to be safe, to be seen, or to be saved. In Kenya , marriage and children are presented as the natural checkpoints of life. You grow up, finish school, get a job, marry, and have children. This sequence is rarely questioned, because to question it feels like rebellion against culture, religion, and even family. Yet if we strip away the social scripts , the reality is unsettling: very few Kenyans choose marriage or children freely. Marriage as Escape Look closely at the stories around you. Many people marry to escape poverty . For women, this often means marrying a man who can provide more stability than their families could. For men, it may mean marrying into opportunity, or at least a semblance of respectability. The marriage certificate becomes a survival tool — less about romance, more about relief. Others marry to escape abuse . A young woman grows up in a home where beatings and insults are daily bread, and...

The Quiet Votes We Cast Each Day You say you hate your job, but you never apply elsewhere. You say you want a partner who respects you, but you keep going back to the one who breaks you. You say the government is corrupt, but you don’t vote—and if you do, it’s for the familiar thief who gave you a branded leso. You say you want change, but you’re still here, in this same place, in this same story, just older. There’s a popular saying that goes, “What you allow, is what will continue.” But what if we pushed it further—what you don’t change, you choose. Not passively. Not accidentally. But willfully. Repeatedly. In Kenya, we are a nation built on the art of waiting: waiting for government reforms, waiting for better leadership, waiting for our bodies to stop hurting, for relationships to fix themselves, for that magical promotion, for change to come and tap us gently on the shoulder. But the harsh truth is this: every time you choose to not change something, you have chosen what exis...