Rooted, Anchored Wanderer

I just read Aleya's piece (Not Yet Kenyan) and I have that uneasy silence, akin to the calm before a tempestuous storm.

I cannot even pretend to relate to the victimization of fellow Kenyans that is happening. I feel that the following words will trivialize an issue that is so complex. 

I feel compelled to stay silent, but if I betray my need to communicate what I feel, I will feel my resolve break to smithereens.

Someone told me that we as 'Kenya' are so quick to give citizenship to all and sundry, unlike the rest of the world that guards that right religiously. Thus everyone who is not "black" is not Kenyan. Doesn't matter if your great grandparents, and every ensuing generation was born here.

Not having a sense of belonging is haunting. Even worse, is constantly being reminded that "you will never belong because..." They have a problem because you do not fit the mould with which belonging is freely dished out.

The one thing I have heard all my life is I don't look, speak or act like a Kikuyu. I have been told that ad-nauseum in Mombasa where I was born, in Nyeri where I schooled, and Nairobi where I live now. I have been told that so many times it stopped irking me.

Try getting an ID in Mombasa, when you speak "Swahili with the fluency of a native, your birth certificate says you were born in Mombasa yet you claim to be Kikuyu and your dad is light skinned and has worked at the port all his life..."  I was given a myriad of reasons why I was "Swahili (of questionable descent)", even told that the ID would delay. It did.

That sadly, will IN NO WAY EVER compare to the feeling that one day you can be kicked out of a country, on a whim. Certain regions yes, that has happened quite a bit. During the elections ethnic tensions are whipped up, and people "shipped from one corner of the country to the other" by fear, trepidation and circumstances. Sometimes forcibly.

I belong to the very 'few' that think a human being is a spirit having a human journey. Almost everything else is vain, what is most important is being true to what you consciously accept as your "humannness". Thus home is where your weary heart finds rest, comfort and protection from the vagaries of this life.

Sadly, not everyone agrees. There are demarcations, and I am constantly told to "accept" things as they are, not as they should be.

Will I though? I choose to "revolt." In my silence, in my speaking, in my thinking, in my being. Yet even though I consciously choose, I don't know how to. I am not a rebel, not in the way that I perceive rebels to be. I am just me, it's all I know to be. I hope everyone else can let people be, and be extended the same courtesy.

Maybe that will solve all the problems in the world, sadly there are no guarantees in this life.

These are my sentiments, I am no expert on these matters, nor do I purport to be.