The Nights That Never Ended

Life wasn't that smooth as it was several years ago, and there is not one chance that would go by without me remembering how it would be hard to make the Kenyan delicacies and street food like chipo mwitu, and mandazi plus kaimati for sell. Life might seem hard for some of you, but that is something many of us do for a living, some get lucky and move to a prestigious university via scholarships, while others just go and look for money to educate their siblings so that they can at least get to finish high school.

As the firstborn, 

during my school years, you had to be responsible and also, look out for your siblings so that they may not end up with nonmoral behavior as they grow up, like being a co-parent when you are still finding out who you are. Hard, difficult? yes, it was. it was so hard because you just have to own up mistakes that you never did, there is no justice in any place where you have to grow up, in unavoidable circumstances. No happiness, who cares?

Waking up, making street food, hawking chips, and cassava crisps along with school gates and when they start torturing us to get away from streets and stop hawking, the city council giving us fines that will take a month to pay plus interest while they sleep on lavish beds with silky sheets, quite the life. 

Life, for us as hawkers, people with no employment, and street kids aren't as simple as it seems. It is hard, and very hard to start a life that will be full of wealth as many have a dream, but it cannot be possible for we live with what we have, we live with hand to mouth. 

That is how life is.

That is how we live.

So when you walk down the street and see that someone looks like they need your help, be kind, help them. 

They need that help, they need to rely on new hopes that one day life will be better, and even if they don't live to see that day, at least they have hope, and at least one day, they would have hoped for a better life.

Be nice and kind, it costs you nothing.