Sikiliza

  One day you wake up from the reverie and madness of your life and realize that, somewhere along the way, you lost huge parts of yourself. You look at your reflection in the mirror. You hear yourself in conversations with those around you. You go over messages and emails you sent over time, and you struggle to recognize that person from the core that you are. Mentally, you give yourself a look over; you touch your cheeks, a touch on the neck, shoulders, tap your chest and tummy just to see if you are all there. How did things get here? How did I get here? Sounds familiar? Well, this was me coming into the Moyo Tulivu  Silent weekend retreat. I was both recognising and not recognising whole parts of myself as I wove into every day. Some of these internal knots and ties paralysed me, while others swept me away. Both were oddly uncomfortable because I did not feel like I was in the driver seat of my own life. The much-needed noble silence offered a great pause—an invita...

26 January, 03:54 The date always sneaks up on me, bringing with it that familiar January range of emotions. It is a tough month. Between the being the birthday month of you and Swes, my heart often feels a little heavier, filled with a handful of mimories of the gift of having you both in my world—and then not. Today, Babs would have been turning 85. As I sit here trying to conjure up the right way to pay tribute to his life, his attention to detail, and his unending kindness, my mind keeps drifting back to something surprisingly simple: text messages. Specifically, two exchanges that I treasure as the final traces of his voice. The most recent one happened just days before he left us. He had asked me to run an errand for him in Nairobi, which I did happily. I didn't think twice about it, but two days later, my phone lit up. He sent me 500/- via M-Pesa. Accompanying it was a message thanking me for, as he put it, "ua trouble." I smiled then, and I smile now remembering i...

Dear Swes, I woke up last night calling out your name. Sweeeeeeeeees… The world knew you as Binya, but for me, you will always be my beloved big brother whom we nicknamed Sweswe—though to this day, I am not sure who started it or why. My childish voice traveled noisily everywhere seeking you. It was just the way we used to do it when we were kids—shouting to the rafters, like I was trying to reach you somewhere far off in that huge, expansive setup that was home in Naks growing up. I wanted my voice to meet you, to embrace you, and to shove you—in that specific way in which siblings love and irritate each other in one sweeping movement. Last evening, I spoke to an acquaintance who lost her brother in December 2022. She told me that she only managed to breathe calmly again in December 2025, when her friends and loved ones marked her birthday by spoiling her with love and gifts. I quietly told her: I can relate. There is nothing as horrible as losing a sibling. You miss them, you fiercel...

This past year, I realized that for most of my career, I was a master at building houses for everyone else while my own foundation was cracking. Stepping into independent consulting and jewelry making wasn't just a business decision; it was a desperate, beautiful act of self-preservation. I’ve spent 365 days unlearning the ‘hustle’ and relearning the rhythm of my own breath. I have had to confront the uncomfortable truth that I was often the first person to advocate for someone else’s rights and the last person to advocate for my own rest and wellbeing .      The rituals have been my anchors. When I smudge my laptop and phone, I am not just clearing ‘energy’;I am setting a boundary against the noise of the world. I am saying that my peace is not for sale.  Whether it’s the discipline of a gym session that honors my body’s strength or the simple joy of trying something new on a menu, I am finally learning to be present.  I am no longer running away from my past; ...

'I am a community leader. My phone is always ringing—it is always one crisis after another. My community expects me to have the answers, to be the solution. But when I have been depleted for far too long and running on empty... who can I call? My comrades are just as busy, and the community I serve cannot help me back. So I ask, who can help me?' This candid question, shared by a courageous activist during a recent session I was leading, hit the virtual room with profound silence. It is the unspoken reality for so many of us in social justice, advocacy, and community work. We are the healers, the fighters, the supporters. We give, and give, and give... until we have nothing left. One leader described it as 'giving out, out, out' until you are drowning. For decades, we have been told that burnout is a personal failure. That if we were just stronger, more organised, more passionate, more determined, more more more..then maybe we would not break. But a recent gathering of ...