There are moments in history when silence is no longer an option. When watching the news, scrolling through updates, or even stepping outside feels like holding your breath, not just for yourself, but for your people, your children, your friends, and the future you once believed in. When your spirit feels too heavy to hold in the pain.
What’s happening in our country right now, the fear, the unrest, the rising cost of simply surviving, can’t be reduced to headlines or hashtags. When a land we once called home starts to feel like a battlefield, our hope becomes both rebellion and survival. And for many of us, it’s terrifying.
As a mother, as a young woman, as someone who still dreams of a better tomorrow despite the odds, I feel like I’m carrying not just my hopes, but the collective exhaustion of an entire generation. A generation that’s angry, overlooked, underestimated, and tired of begging for dignity in a system that continues to ignore our cries.
This isn’t just a reflection on politics or governance. It’s about humanity. About the soul of a nation and the hearts of the people who make it what it is. It’s about the mothers trying to feed their children, the youth trying to start businesses, the citizens trying to believe that their vote, their voice, and their life still matter.
I don’t have all the answers. I just know what it feels like to carry this weight, to love a place so deeply and still feel afraid, disappointed, and angry at what it’s becoming. Writing this was my way of breathing through the heaviness, of trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense. Maybe you’ve felt it too.
There are wounds that don’t scream.
They swell like silence beneath the skin.
They live in our throats,
thick as uncried tears.
This pain?
It is inherited and earned.
It has a mother tongue
and a national anthem
we sing only in our minds
because to speak it aloud
might cost our lives.
And still,
we speak.
We walk on roads
our taxes paid for but never fixed.
We dodge potholes,
corruption,
and bullets with the same grace,
quiet, agile, exhausted.
We step over bodies,
not just the fallen ones,
but those still breathing
but long since broken.
It’s not just grief we carry.
It’s rage.
It’s watching your people
protest with nothing but cardboard signs
and leave in body bags.
It’s knowing their names won’t trend,
their killers won’t be named,
and their blood will be washed
with water from the same fire trucks
that never come when our homes burn.
We are a nation mourning in secret.
Every citizen, a silent funeral.
Every protester, a prayer wrapped in risk.
But the fire did not start in the streets.
It started in the offices
with too many zeroes
and not enough conscience.
It started with forged signatures
and sealed contracts
inked with blood we never agreed to spill.
The fire started when
they handed power to men
who speak of God
but act like gods.
Who hold Bibles in one hand
and steal land with the other.
Who kneel in church
while stepping on our necks.
The fire started when
truth became treason,
and protest was branded terrorism.
When a pastor refuses
to open church gates
to a girl fleeing rape,
where does she turn?
Where do we run
when God’s house is locked
but State House is wide open
for the wicked?
They loot in daylight
and tell us it’s rain.
They bury the truth
in televised lies,
and we are told to clap,
to pray,
to trust.
But how do you trust
a country that trains its children
to whisper even when they weep?
And yet,
the rot runs deeper than Parliament.
We must admit this.
We must name ourselves too.
For what of the mwananchi
who throws trash in the streets
and blames the flood?
Who skips the queue
but screams about justice?
Who sells a vote for sugar
then starves his neighbor?
And what of the ones who loot their neighbor’s bread
then blame the leadership for their hunger?
Those who burn a shop built on sweat and years,
just because the smoke makes them feel seen.
They chant for justice in the morning
then cheat the queue by noon.
They raise fists against corruption
but pocket bribes in the shadows,
dividing kin with tribal knives,
forgetting that poverty speaks no dialect.
We shout that our leaders rob us,
but what of the rot we choose,
when we steal from each other
and call it revolution?
How can we birth a nation of virtue
when even our wombs are compromised?
Too many of us
have normalized the abnormal,
called survival wisdom
when it’s actually decay.
We’ve made corruption
a national love language.
We speak in bribes.
We romance shortcuts.
We dream of power
not to serve,
but to steal better.
We send our youth
to apply for jobs
requiring 10 years’ experience
before they’re even 25.
And when they fail,
we call them lazy.
We stuff CVs in drawers
lined with names that matter more,
names with titles,
tribes,
and ties.
We deny visas
to the hungry,
but stamp passports
for the thieves in suits.
We call it meritocracy.
But it’s only merit
if your uncle works in government.
If your last name
opens doors
your grades never could.
We see girls go for interviews
and return with broken souls.
Not because they lacked skill,
but because they wouldn’t trade flesh for a seat.
We call them failures.
But they were fighters
in a war no one warned them about.
We are not lazy.
We are tired.
We are bleeding from invisible places.
We are building from the bottom
with bricks made of borrowed hope.
And then,
there is the woman.
Always the woman.
Told to shrink,
to smile,
to survive.
But never to lead.
Not unless she is “humble” enough
to make the men feel taller.
We’ve buried daughters
for loving wrong.
Blamed them for the blows they took,
the deaths they didn’t choose.
“She should have dressed better.”
“He must’ve paid for her dinner.”
“As if she didn’t know what men want.”
And even when the child is a toddler,
or in hijab,
or disabled,
still,
we find a way to say
it must have been her fault.
We are a nation
that shames its girls
and shields its monsters.
And where do we turn
when even the pulpits lie?
The pastors build malls
with our tithes
and schools our children can’t afford.
They say God will provide
as they fly first class
and we walk home hungry.
They demand our coins
for healing prayers,
but offer no mercy
when sickness comes knocking.
They tell us
not to question God’s chosen,
even when he rapes,
steals,
or kills.
If this is faith,
then we need to rewrite the scripture.
If this is salvation,
then hell is already here.
Our homeland,
you break our hearts
and we still show up.
You steal our children
and we still birth new hope.
Because this land is still holy.
Not because of its leaders,
but despite them.
We still believe
in the hum of the matatu,
the smell of chapati on Sunday,
the boda guy who waits when it rains,
the girl who shares pads
with her last coin,
the mama mboga who rounds off your bill
because she can see your hunger.
This is where the real country lives,
not in Parliament,
but in people.
Not in the anthem,
but in the heartbeat.
We still dream.
Of classrooms with chalk but no dust.
Of hospitals that heal,
not just count coins.
Of buses that come on time
and roads without bribes.
Of passports that open doors
because we’re worthy,
not because we begged.
We dream of leaders
who apologize when wrong,
who listen when we cry,
who lead from the front,
and not just the top.
We dream of a country
where children run toward sirens,
not away from them.
Where protests are answered with policy,
not gunfire.
We dream of a land where the roads do not punish but provide
where tuk-tuks and matatus don’t cough out smoke like dying lungs,
and every vehicle unfit to serve is laid to rest with grace.
We see cities that breathe,
where riparian lands are kissed by green not concrete,
where trees arch above wide walkways,
bike lanes snake beside joy,
and mothers stroll safely with babies,
not fear pressed into their backs.
Where vendors no longer play hide and seek with county police,
but are folded into the city’s fabric,
clean stalls, fair permits, dignity in their hustle.
Where small businesses aren’t bled dry by bribes,
but bloom with access to credit,
low-cost logistics, and open doors to global trade.
Where art is funded, not begged for.
Where policy reflects people, not puppets.
Where planning isn’t power play,
it’s care.
And every space, every corner, every curve
is built with the citizen in mind.
We dream of a place
where to speak truth
is not a death sentence.
We’ve bled into the soil
and planted our pain.
But from that ground
will grow a country that remembers.
We are not just protestors.
We are the future.
We are not just statistics.
We are seeds.
This land remembers
every chant,
every placard,
every footstep on pavement
demanding better.
And one day,
She will answer.
Maybe not today.
Maybe not this year.
But the tide is rising
and the masks are cracking.
So we build.
Not with bricks,
but with beliefs.
With words.
With posts.
With whispers that become roars.
With songs sung
from the bellies of brave children
who’ve seen too much
but still know joy.
We will teach them to dance,
to read,
to dream.
Even if the sky burns.
Even if they turn off the lights.
Even if they raise the cost of water
and sell the rain to foreigners.
We will find each other.
We will feed each other.
We will fight,
not just for us,
but for the country that still lives
in the gap between what is
and what could be.
And when she rises,
because she will,
she will wear her scars like regalia.
She will walk tall,
not because of those who looted her,
but because of those who loved her
enough to stay.
She will rise
from the hands of her women,
the backs of her youth,
the tears of her mothers,
the defiance of her fathers,
and the songs of children
who still believe in sunrises.
Even if they burn the sky,
we will build beneath the ashes.
We will name the stars ourselves.
We will not go quietly.
We will not be erased.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
And we are here.
Still standing.
Still rising.
For our country.
For tomorrow.
For all that’s still possible.
In the face of everything, the fear, the frustration, the disillusionment, we are still here. Speaking. Reflecting. Hoping. This isn’t just a poem. It’s a reflection of what so many citizens feel but are afraid to say aloud. A deep, aching cry for systems that work, for leadership that serves, and for a society that doesn’t just survive but thrives.
What we’re witnessing in our country is painful and disheartening. But expressing it, giving language to the chaos, is one of the most courageous things we can do. It means we haven’t lost our sense of responsibility. We still care deeply. We still believe change is possible. That’s where true hope begins, not in silence, not in surrender, but in truth.
As we hold space for our grief and anger, we must also make room for vision. Vision for a country that works for all of us, not just the connected few. A country where opportunity isn’t bought or bribed. Where leadership is earned through integrity, not inherited through tribalism. Where children can grow up feeling safe, women can walk without fear, and hard work actually pays off.
We are not powerless. Our voices, choices, and stories matter more than we’ve been taught to believe. And while we may feel scattered and bruised right now, something powerful happens when we begin to imagine, and then build, the future we deserve.
This piece is a reminder that even in dark times, we still have light. And no matter how heavy the system feels, the people still carry power. Let’s not give up on our country. Let’s not give up on each other. Let’s keep demanding more. Keep dreaming. Keep showing up, not just with protest, but with purpose.
Our country can still be better. It starts with us. It starts with truth.
