Straight Talk with Njoki Karuoya

Mercy loved…. and wanted…. her friend’s life. Her friend, Tanya, lived in South C with her family (parents and two siblings) while she lived in Komarock. They met at the University of Nairobi two years ago and became friends as both were pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree and living in the same block.

But for Mercy, getting to interact with girls like Tanya made her begin to dislike her lifestyle and crave a more posh, lavish one. She’d visited Tanya several times and every time she did, Mercy hated that while her parents didn’t have a car and used public means, Tanya’s parents had two — her father drove a Toyota VX while her mother drove a Subaru. Tanya’s parents were even contemplating buying their daughter one of those small cars so she could move away from the campus dorms and commute from home.

Shared bedroom

To make matters worse for Mercy, while Tanya and her siblings each had a room to themselves, Mercy shared her bedroom with her sister, and when relatives visited, they were either moved out of their room to accommodate them or forced to share with them. It was a situation she took for granted until she met Tanya and her friends, for whom life was a lot different and privileged.

So with time, Mercy grew to be ashamed of, and hate her parents’ poverty-stricken status and their kawa lifestyle that had much to do with sacrifice and struggle. She was no longer proud of their accomplishments, which amounted to none, in her eyes.

 And when her childhood friends, who were also receiving the same treatment, began to call her a snob, she took it in her stride. She had new friends and she didn’t need them, or so she thought.

Thankful

What Mercy forgot was that she was better than many girls in the country, nay, the world, who did not have as much as she did. Let’s count the blessings that Mercy should be thankful for:

1. Her parents were still together, when there are so many young people without parents, who had either died, separated or abandoned them.

2. Her parents were still ‘struggling’ to put food on the table and cater for the needs of their children.

3. Mercy’s parents had guaranteed that the family had permanent shelter by buying that house in Komarock, which was a middle-income estate.

4. Mercy’s parents had ensured that all the children received quality education, up to university level. Many parents were unable to take their children beyond primary school level where the free education programme was effective.

5. Her parents were forward thinkers. If they were strict traditionalists, Mercy could have been pulled out of school after Class Eight, been circumcised and married off to an older man. At this point in time, Mercy would probably have been a mother of three children, which is the status of many girls in rural setups.

6. Mercy had good and bankable friends from childhood who understood and appreciated what they had in life. These kinds of friendships are those that survived till death, as they checked each other’s backs and supported each other, especially through the harsh times in life. Abandoning them would mean she would be a loner. And what made her so sure that her newly found friends, girls with more loot and perks than she did, would want to stick by her when she was incapable of matching their lifestyle? And in her desperate desire to catch up, what lengths would Mercy feel compelled to go to, including sleeping around to make quick cash on the side, or engaging in questionable trades, like selling drugs?

7. Her good health.

8. Her high IQ. Being in campus meant she was intelligent enough to pave her way in life without having to prove herself any more.

9. Some material possessions. Thanks to her parents, Mercy had some equity in the Komarock house, clothes and other belongings that many other children did not have.

10. God’s immeasurable love. That God saw it fit to grace her with good health, a loving family, a stable home environment, a moderate lifestyle and great intelligence that saw her get to campus, alive, is the biggest of all blessings, for which she should be thankful every day. God could have seen it fit, any day, to swing her a major life challenge like, God forbid, a debilitating road accident, the death of her parents and the steady source of income they provided, and so forth.

Over the fence

Often, we forget to look at what we have in our hands and prefer to look over the fence at what others have, then begin to hate ourselves and our lives. We fail to realise that those people we so admire also have their share of problems, which could be worse than ours, and that they too, could be dissatisfied with their lives, craving the lives of others.

Instead of leading a lifetime of longings, cravings, frustrations, unfulfilled desires and self-hate, why not begin to appreciate whatever you have now, no matter how small. Believe you me, the sun will begin to shine in your life when you turn back and thank God for the one pair of shoes you have…. many people don’t even own a pair; and so on. Don’t insult God’s wisdom by showing how dissatisfied you are with His blessings, no matter how small you perceive them to be — He just might decide to take them all away. Then what?