Okay, okay fine…we get it. Your life’s a mess. You’re miserable, you’re frustrated, annoyed, sad. You feel like the world is against you and everyone’s turned their back on you. So why is that? Why do you feel so drained? Oh that’s right, because your alarm didn’t ring this morning. Because your bath tab’s clogged and you had to use the shower. Because the butler made eggs for breakfast and not bacon. Because your range rover won’t start and you have to call an UBA to work. Because your rival got the promotion you’ve been busting your ass for. Because the office coffee machine is jammed…..No, really we get it. 😆 We ‘understand’. Life’s awful….your life’s so awful you can afford a bed to sleep on, it’s so awful you can at least afford a decent breakfast. It’s so awful you have more than a pair of shoes. So awful you’ve got both feet where those shoes go, oh it sooooooo awful. November 23rd, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, all stressed ….of course over petty issues like the Crack on my phone’s screen. Haha…sorry I can’t help but laugh at my level of ignorance. Si I got a text from a friend, but this wasn’t just any text. It was what broke me emotionally and changed me. So the friend had sent a link and a text below saying “please go read! now!” I of course said “I don’t like reading” but my curiosity got the better part of me and I opened the link. So it was Bikozulu’s page and I instantly developed interest considering how good a writer the guy is. So picture this, a girl standing in the middle of an open field, and suddenly being torn limb from limb an invisible force. You see it? …..this is exactly what was happening to me emotionally. What I read broke me down emotionally and I have never been filled with so much guilt all my life. This was the story of a female refugee who found herself in Kenya after years of unimaginable torture. You know what, torture is an understatement. One minute she was peacefully hosting members of the church in her little house and the next minute, one of the pastors and her husband are dragged out of the hut and shot before hers and her children’s eyes. Taken hostage and forced to walk for days without food, without water, without rest. Beaten up daily and Sexually abused as her children watch. Forced to cook man for a man and as if that is not enough trauma, forced to cook her own child for a man to eat. Images she can’t unsee, screams of terror she can’t unhear, the sputtering of blood she can never forget, days without a ray of sunshine under the roof of the enormous Congo forest trees. She lived certain she was gonna live this earth any minute, any day. Heck she wanted to leave this earth. All the human had been forced out of her and she became a lifeless shell, to be bathed and feed. I sat there reading this lady’s life story and asked myself so many questions. Funny how I was unable to answer them all. As humans we have become so selfish, so self-centered, we think the world revolves around us as individuals. I miss me when I was young. I miss how I’d see a beggar in the streets and feel so sad to the point of tears. I miss how I’d dream of going to the Nairobi CBD with a big truck, pick up all the beggars and their children and take them to an exotic mansion where they’d get all they needed, including love. Funny how i thought i could buy them love. See, the beauty of a mind not moulded by society is amazing, heck it’s spectacular. It’s…it’s…there is no word for it. Now it’s traumatizing, to see what man can do to man. We get so used to life we forget to give thanks to the Almighty coz obviously no one is Here by their own might. All we do is ask, all we do is want, all we do is work hard for more but never do we slow down, relax, and just say this one word ‘thankyou’. This lady would have given anything just to sleep with her family in that small bed you keep complaining about. Just to share that meal you have no apetite for with her family. Just to feel the sun shine in her face again.
We forget how fortunate we are just to have a bright day to wake up to. To open the tap, and watch water gush out. To open the fridge and find food inside. To have a variety of clothes and shoes to choose from. To have enough bus fare daily. To come back home tired and have a bed to collapse on. To have a dad whose foot steps sends you all to your rooms. I keep complaining about how loud and controlling my mum is but you know what, I don’t care anymore coz all that matters is that she’s here. I treasure all the moments she shouts, all the times she embarasses me before my friends. ..they are priceless. Someone out there would kill to have that mum you keep complaining about, to have that old car you keep cursing at, to be able to stand on those two legs you think are ugly. I don’t know about you but I think it’s time we stop being selfish and just take a minute or two to give thanks to the Almighty. It’s time we realized it’s not normal to just sleep and wake up next morning all healthy and enthusiastic. It’s time we learned grateful living. Just take a minute, slow down, take a look around, and imagine what life would be like without your taste buds….
