The Rural Story

Stories have been told about the rural story and the slum stories but my opinion is that they are not always balances. They outline the high levels of poverty, unemployment, unhappiness and despair. But has anyone ever thought and focused on the victorious moments experienced in these environments. We have doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers and many other people in our society who make it from these places. I grew up as any other typical child in the rural area. My life was very simple, I lived with my grandmother and it was either I was at school , grazing our cattle , fetching firewood , fetching water , captivating our shamba or playing with my friends. These were very positive moments and I enjoyed every bit of them. We were happy and there was so much love from my grandma. She always bought us ‘Mandazi’ any time she visited the market or a banana and that we looked forward to. My mother was a teacher far away from the village. My father was ‘unknown’. I didn’t know what it felt to have one so I never missed him. The environment was tough, but I don’t remember any day when I ever felt the toughness. All I felt was happiness and love.

Going to school was an elevator to our dreams, we learned about our country and the big cities it had. Our awesome village was not one of them .Among many other things that were fascinating, I remember wondering how it felt not to use a lamp at night. Our teacher told us the city was lit all night and that there was no darkness in the city.  Our life was the opposite; darkness meant less activities, it meant we all sit in the kitchen to wait for the food as grandma cooked. Don’t get it wrong we still enjoyed it. We packed the same food from previous night cooking to school in plastic tins mostly those from cooking oils for our lunch. Never mind we took it cold and at times it went bad due to the storage condition not to mention the hygiene conditions. But we never got sick. Everything seemed normal and ok .Going to school without a shoe was the norm otherwise if you had shoes you did not fit. We ran several kilometers to get to school and it was fun ! All the same school was fun at least the government provided school milk and this kept us in school. Either sick or not we had to be in school to receive that one packet of milk. It was a great motivation to be in class.

In the midst of all this there were many victorious moments. Dreaming was one of them; we dreamt of the day and how it would be when we grow up and move to the city. Not that we hated the present life. No. We loved every bit of it. Many of us had not been to the city and we were curious. This was our dream. Making it through education and getting good jobs. Today when I look back, I am more balanced in my view on the environment I grew up. This life taught me how to be happy, to be ambitious and to dare dream big and dream of the impossible. 

Sadly some of my friends and classmate never made it to the big dream. They gave up along the way. They settled for our happy life at the village and know not of any different life. The reality is lack of opportunities and unemployment is high in the rural areas. My friends got married at the village; they have more children than they can manage to rise. The most interesting part is that they feel sorry for me. Anytime I visit they tell me that I should have a dozen of children by now. …And then I started to critically think about my happy rural life again and what I could do to keep the trapped dreams alive! And this was the afterthought. http://www.youngjewels.org

Written by Ms .Dinah Muthuka