Who is wealthier and happier: Villagers or city-dwellers?

Happy man with his two wives. [PHOTO: ISTOCK]

I've heard it said before that the village boy with his one-bedroom hut is much better placed in life than the Nairobi man renting a bedsitter. That village boy got married at 19, or to be more accurate, he got someone pregnant and allowed them to move into his house. Two years later, he has three children and is officially a family man. If someone were to press him into expanding his family, he would not be mad at them.

He has a couple of 'machines'; a bicycle for making quick runs to the shop and a boda boda for going into town. Both are parked in his garage, which is to say they are leaned against the guava tree in front of his house. He is independently wealthy. You will not see him listed on any Forbes list, but he is not a hustler by any stretch of the imagination.