This week, I had an interesting conversation with a colleague. Apparently, he and a group of friends are fundraising to buy a piece of land on the outskirts of Nairobi City, where they plan to put up their retirement homes. I was fascinated, even though this wasn’t the first time I was hearing about such a concept.
A few years ago, a visiting preacher where I go to church mentioned that he and his wife had sold their home, a home they had raised their children in, as well as the surrounding land and bought a new, smaller house in what he referred to as a retirement community.
In his late sixties, the man explained that they arrived at this decision after realising that the effects of loneliness had been creeping up on them ever since they retired and their three adult children moved out and got busy with their lives. He explained that they only got to see their children and two grandchildren “properly” once a year during the December holidays when they briefly visited for Christmas.
With neighbours they hardly knew and who they glimpsed through car windows along the common access road where they lived, they mostly only had each other for company. When they therefore heard about an upcoming gated retirement community for retirees like them, they jumped at the idea, already looking forward to getting to know and spending time with retired couples just like them.
The development, he said, featured shared amenities such as communal gardens, a gym, swimming pool, and restaurant and bar where residents could socialise day and night, and also a clinic where one could have general check-ups and get treated for minor ailments. It did sound like a good idea and one, I thought to myself, I would definitely consider in old age. I even visualised myself in retirement, having a cup of herbal tea under an umbrella surrounded by flowers, sinking my bare feet in lush green grass, watching the sun set with a bunch of fun fellow retirees.
The fact is that loneliness in retirement is common, given that when you clear your desk one last time and hand over the company tag, you say goodbye to daily interactions you had been used to for years, and office friendships and routines that lent structure to your daily life. If you hadn’t figured out what to do with your time once you stopped working, chances are that, (according to research) feelings of isolation will set in, followed by depression and a multitude of other negative psychological effects.
It gets worse if your children don’t live near you, and therefore don’t visit as often as you’d like, or if you’re always the one calling them. Think about it, if you’re at a stage where family or work commitments are eating up a chunk of your time, leaving little to no time to do anything else, leave alone visit relatives, how often has your mother or father complained that you never have time for them, making you feel guilty or feel like an ungrateful child?
Now imagine your elderly parents lived a stone’s throw away from several other elderly people, like happens back in the village, where neighbours casually stroll into your compound or knock on your door and make themselves at home. Your parents would not be distressed or feel abandoned if you rarely called or visited because they would have an active social life.
But with greater rural to urban migration, many of us live in cities where single dwellings are encased in high walls and gates, effectively shutting out neighbours, and in the process, a social life. Now imagine what retirement life will be like if you cannot afford to move into a retirement community in old age, like the preacher I talked about.
