Kenya’s next big public health issue may be loneliness. I have no statistics to prove this, only the growing number of people who say, “There is no one I can turn to.” And those who have no real sense of belonging beyond the drinking mates at the bar — and I have nothing against drinkers — or the one or two club-hopping friends with whom they find themselves stumbling out of nightclubs at 3am.
If we were to stop for a moment and ask ourselves, “If something happened to me, who would I call?” I wonder how many of us- baby boomers, millennials, Gen Xers and Gen Zs, would have a ready answer. For those of us who grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, I have a feeling the list would be long. Parents. Siblings. Cousins. Cousin of my mother. In-law to my sister. The auntie who is not technically my auntie... and the list would keep growing until one person picks up the call.
Reason? We grew up at a time when life forced us to be communal, to talk to everyone, to have little time to wallow in loneliness because the vitu ni nyingi, masaa ni machache saying seemed to make perfect sense then. There was always something to do, somewhere to go, someone to see.
You woke up at 6am or earlier to milk cows. There was really nothing like “I am not a morning person”. Morning had already decided who you were. You were at the cowshed, half-asleep, your body already smelling of milk and cow, while your sister was in the kitchen battling with the near-wet firewood and a cloud of smoke. The two of you talked. Or rather, the three of you: the cow, your sister and you. Because we also spoke to “Blackie” the cow, trying to sweet-talk her into agreeing to be milked.
At 10am, you went to the shamba to till with the rest of the family. There we also socialised. There was always shamba banter, and if you were a slow tiller, your mother could scoop up a heap of soil and throw it at you, and everyone would burst out laughing. In the shamba, even punishment could become entertainment.
Woe unto you if it was harvesting time. You would spend the morning in the shamba, then carry the harvest to the homestead to dry it. Your cousins or neighbours could come help.
And when that was done, there was still water to fetch. You would push your wheelbarrow, jerrycans in it, four or six brothers, cousins and friends in tow, all the way to the river. If you were lucky, or tiny enough, you escaped the pushing altogether and became the one being ferried on the wheelbarrow.
By evening, families gathered around the fire to listen to tales. If you were from Kisii, the latest would be about the neighbour witch spotted riding a hyena at night. At school, you had your little tribe of friends, who helped deal with bullies.
Even when you were out in the fields looking after the cows, you were rarely alone. There would be three or four other boys with you. You couldn’t afford to disappear into your thoughts for too long. The moment you became distracted, the cows would have wandered into somebody’s maize field, and you would have a bigger problem than whatever was troubling your mind.
There was no other form of entertainment. It was outside. We caught grasshoppers. Put insects on our tiny bosoms. Swam in a raging river. Stole Father Hallelujah’s lemons. Walked to very far villages to watch cars pass by.
There was nothing like “I’m an introvert.” Your mother would send you to stay with an aunt in Moiben, while a cousin from Busia was sent to your home; what we called an “exchange programme.” The following holiday, you would find yourself in Matunda, Kitale, staying with another aunt. Your cousin automatically became your brother or sister because of the familiarity.
Now we have a younger generation that seems to be surrounded by thousands, even millions of people, especially online fans, yet starved of having someone who truly cares. I blame insecurity, capitalism and the school system. Our young children can no longer socialise unsupervised without somebody worrying about kidnapping or molestation.
They are always busy, but busy alone. On weekdays, children leave school at 5pm only to sit at another desk at home, doing homework until 10pm. By then, they’re too exhausted to talk. We live in apartments on the 10th floor, and our children never know the names of the children in the next block. There are no fields where a group of children can disappear for an afternoon and return home muddy, hungry and shouting. If you want your children to have that kind of community now, you have to pay for expensive football, basketball, orchestra or rugby academies.
If not, they remain indoors, with their phones, learning loneliness as a way of life. They are growing up into young adults with phones that have hundreds of contacts, but really nobody to call. Not even home.
What happened to home? In the 80s and 90s, wherever you went, you eventually went home. Home was not necessarily beautiful. Sometimes it was an iron-sheet-and-mud house where the rain found its way through the roof and onto the thin mattress where you slept, squeezed beside your siblings. Home food was nothing fancy. Perhaps boiled veggies, a huge piece of ugali and fermented milk. When city life became tough, we went home. Home was not a reward for having behaved well. It was simply where you belonged.
How will we teach our children that it is not that loneliness did not exist then? It did, but in other forms. There were disappointments, heartbreaks, quarrels. But there was little time to sit with it, to let it marinate until it became a permanent feeling of loneliness. How do we ensure that as our children grow, they know some people know them beyond their names? Because loneliness is not the absence of people.
It is the absence of people who know you, people who notice when you are missing, people who will come when you call, people who will call when you don't call.
