I’m writing this with a niacinamide sheet mask stuck to my face, sipping tea, and eating Naivas’ carrot cake with nuts (a discovery that deserves its own love letter, honestly). Yummm. This is the kind of multitasking life my girlies would hype me for in the group chat. And it got me thinking about them, about friendship, about what it means to be held by your people.

Today one of my girls texted me asking if she could call, and two hours later we were still on the phone. You know those soulful conversations where you listen intently, and hope that what you’re saying is actually edifying? That’s what it was. I hung up feeling really grateful for friendship; such a beautiful concept.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting more on how much my girlfriends mean to me. I don’t actually have many close guy friends. It’s usually the man I’m seeing and my girlfriends. Most of the boys I’ve been friends with have ended up hitting on me (destroying the friendship as it was, sigh). But my girlfriends? They’re constant. They’re the chopping board I’m cutting onions on right now, the one they bought me when they came over. They’re the late-night calls, the shared playlists, the emergency ‘send me 10k urgently I’ll refund in the evening’ M-Pesa loans, the ‘tell me the story again’ on repeat because some stories just deserve to be heard over and over again.

Our WhatsApp groups are a universe of their own. They hold it all: the dumb memes, the oversharing, the voice notes where one of us is walking down a noisy street and ranting about work or the hunting of it, the screenshots of texts from men we have no business entertaining, or from the ones making us happy, the sadness we sometimes don’t know how to carry alone. We talk about money, boys, work, skin care, God, grief, the price of bread, and everything in between.

And maybe this is why ‘The Bold Type‘ is my favourite show. Those three girls’ lives are a reflection of ours: somewhat in a similar phase of life, yet all of us carrying different victories and challenges. Sometimes one of us is soaring while another is in the mud. Sometimes all of us are in the mud at once. But no matter what, we’re together. That, I think, is what friends are for; people to do life with.

We live in a world where the pace is always speeding up, where the loudest voices on social media scream about ‘networking’ and ‘collaborations’ and ‘cutting people off who don’t serve you.’ But real friendship? It’s not always grand. It’s in the ordinariness of buying clothes together. It’s in the carrot cake recommendations. It’s in the ‘call me when you get home.’ It’s in showing up, again and again, not because you’re trying to optimize your life, but because you love.

So here I am, mask on, tea in hand, carrot cake on the side, writing a love letter to my girlfriends. To the people who make the bad days survivable, and the good days worth celebrating. This is what friends are for. I love you all, deeply and truly, and thanks for loving me too, friend! Are you grateful for your friends? Please tell them you are; many times, and loudly.

See you soon, reader, and thanks, as always for being here.

Yours, sweetly,

Njoks.

I’ve been painting lately. Yeaaaah, acrylic on canvas. I like it. The colours, the strokes, the accidents that end up being the best part. It feels freeing, and Picasso-ey, lol.

The other day, I was on a call with a friend and they said, ‘Wow, you actually paint well. Can you sell me one piece?’, and for a second, I was tempted. Because who doesn’t like the idea of ‘free’ money? But then I said no. Because I don’t want to monetize everything I touch.

There’s been this viral clip of a woman saying, ‘Don’t love your job, job your love.‘ And of course, the internet took off with it. ‘Don’t fake your death, death your fake.‘ ‘Don’t follow your dreams, dream your follow.‘ The internet is undefeated. But beneath the mockery, I got what she meant: make the thing you love your job. And that can be good advice, sometimes: make the thing you love your work.

But do we have to?

Sometimes work is just work. And what you love can stay a hobby. You don’t have to start a bakery just because you bake a good cake. You could, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to publish your poems, or sell your paintings, or turn every Sunday passion into a side hustle. You can be an accountant who writes songs no one will ever hear. You can be a teacher who sketches flowers. You can be a doctor who dances alone in her kitchen. You can be a nurse who plays the violin badly, but happily.

We live in a culture that’s obsessed with productivity. Monetize this. Monetize that. Turn your hobbies into side hustles, your skills into streams of income… And maybe that works for some. But I think it’s also okay, necessary, even, to do things just for just; to do things because they bring you joy, even if they’re messy, even if you’re not good at them, even if no one ever claps.

That’s what painting is for me right now. Not for money. Not for claps. Not for a gallery. Just for just. Just for my joy. Just because.

And maybe we all need a little more of that: things in our lives that exist outside of performance, outside of productivity, things that are not for sale. Do you agree? Yeah?

May the rest of the week be great, and may you find something to do just for just🙂

Yours lovingly,

Njoks.

Have you ever thought about how much of our conversations about the future are steeped in fear? Climate change. Artificial intelligence. Collapsing food systems. Vanishing jobs. Even YouTube ads sound apocalyptic these days: ‘Teenagers are using AI to build multimillion-dollar businesses while you’re using ChatGPT to send emails…‘ (In my head I’m always like, ‘Imagine let them just build the businesses. Please let me be.’)

Both climate change and AI are real. The soil is warming. The glaciers are melting. Algorithms are reshaping economies faster than governments can regulate. But have you noticed how most of the language around them isn’t just information, it’s anxiety? Panic? The simulation of horrifying futures until they feel like inevitabilities?

And in that loop, where we live rehearsing disaster in your imagination, something is quietly stolen: our agency in this moment.

Let’s talk about climate change. Yes, the reports are dire. Yes, the projections are terrifying. But if all you do is scroll headlines about a world on fire, you’ll forget that your small actions still matter; that you can compost, plant trees, pressure your leaders, teach your friends, neighbours, and children to love the earth.

Take AI. If all you consume are stories about teenagers becoming millionaires while you ‘fall behind,’ you’ll forget that you can choose how to use the tool; whether to build, to learn, to make your art more possible. Fear convinces you that the ship has already sailed, and you’ve missed it. But most of the time, the ship is still docked, waiting for you to board.

Fear doesn’t mobilize us into action. It paralyzes, and makes us give up in advance, forgetting that the doomed future isn’t here, at least not yet.

And here’s the thing: the future is not written. Not by tech billionaires. Not by climate models. Not by politicians. It is written in the texture of our daily lives, in how we decide to show up, in the creativity and courage we dare to express now; in what and how we cook, how we work, who we love, what we choose to plant, what we choose to protect. You cannot plant anything in tomorrow’s soil. You only ever plant in today’s.

So yes, read, learn, listen, stay informed, but don’t surrender your imagination. Don’t hand over your agency before the story has even unfolded. The future is not a horror film waiting to play out. It is clay in our hands. And if that feels like a fragile hope, good. Hope has always been fragile, and somehow, it has always been enough, to begin again. You don’t need to build a multimillion dollar business with AI like those teenagers.

Be well, reader. We’ll see each other again very soon, I promise.

Yours, softly,

Njoks.

There’s this funny little thing life does. You think of something, say, climbing Kilimanjaro, and suddenly the world won’t shut up about it. You haven’t Googled ‘Kilimanjaro routes’ or searched ‘best hiking boots in Nairobi'(yet), but somehow. suddenly every other billboard is selling boots, your YouTube ads are all about hydration packs, and your neighbour’s cousin’s uncle (whom you’ve never met before) casually mentions how transformative his Kilimanjaro climb was. It’s like the universe goes into overdrive, shouting: ‘So… are you paying attention?’, and you think, ‘What in the synchronicity is this?‘

I know the scientists call it the ‘Baader-Meinhof phenomenon’ or ‘frequency illusion.’ The moment your mind tags something as important, your brain starts noticing it everywhere. But to me, it feels more sacred than that. It feels like energy. Like when you start aligning with something, the world joins in on the chorus.

Maybe that’s how life nudges us forward, showing us echoes of what we’re secretly longing for. A thought becomes a whisper, then a sign, then a whole drumbeat around you. Almost like God saying, ‘I heard you. Here’s a little wink.’

So now I’m wondering; what’s been following you around lately? What idea keeps showing up at your bus stop, in your dreams, in the mouths of strangers?

Your desires are your compass. What is being brought to your attention suddenly? If it’s not too personal, let’s engage in the comments section. Perhaps one of the readers has the ability to make your dreams come true, haha.

Thanks for being here, reader. Stay well, until next time (hopefully soon).

Yours, attentively,

Njoks.

I’ve been on a quiet quest lately; to visit different churches and hear faith expressed in ways outside my own. It’s been humbling, refreshing, and perspective-shifting. Stepping into a new congregation always reminds me of how varied faith can look, sound, and feel, and yet how each community is convinced that theirs is the truest expression of God.

In governance, we’re taught that all knowledge is situated and partial (basically, knowledge is like standing at one window of a house; you see part of the view, but never the whole landscape. What do you know? How do you know that what you know is the ‘truth’? Or is it ‘the truth’ because it’s what you know? Now you claim Christianity is the only right way, but if you were born Muslim, you’d be saying it is the true religion. Knowledge is situated and partial; what we know is shaped by our own context, experiences, and perspective; and we should allow others to have their own, too). No one person or community has the full picture. And yet, so many of the world’s problems, whether quarrels with neighbors, divisions in families, wars between nations, religious hate, or the exclusion of certain groups, stem from the belief that my way is the only way. It shows up in phrases like: ‘How can you be Buddhist?’ ‘How can you be gay?’ ‘Christianity is the only right way.’ ‘Being straight is the way…’ When we cancel people out because they do not fit into our preferred worldview, we shut down dialogue and reduce people’s humanity.

But here’s the thing: it’s possible to stand firm in your faith or knowledge, and still leave space for nuance. You don’t lose your identity by questioning your assumptions; you only deepen it. Neither do you have to be gay to rethink your views on sexuality. You don’t have to convert to another religion to appreciate the truths and beauty in it. And you don’t have to abandon your convictions to show kindness and love to those who live differently.

Even Jesus moved among people who were rejected, shamed, or condemned. He sat with sinners, dined with outcasts, and touched those others considered unclean. I sometimes think He would be found at a gay parade, not to endorse labels, but to embrace people, to remind us that ‘kila mtu afanye mambo yake’, and that love is always greater than judgment.

This reflection isn’t about watering down faith. It’s about remembering that humility, empathy, and compassion open us up to God’s vastness in ways that rigidity never will. Faith is not weakened by nuance; it is strengthened by it. Maybe the invitation is simple: don’t think less of someone because they live differently, and don’t think yourself better because of how you live. When we approach life with love and humility, we begin to see that God is far bigger than our categories, and His love stretches wider than our divisions.

Kwa hayo mengi, may the new week be great! Thanks for being here:-) 💛

Yours,

Njoks.

I read something in 2020 that has not left me since.
In Spain, when a dancer struck the perfect pose or a singer’s voice soared past what human skill could explain, the audience would cry out ‘Olé!‘ Not as in ‘bravo’ or ‘well done’, but as in Allah. God. The word traces back to the Moors of Northern Africa, who ruled Spain for nearly 700 years. In their celebrations, when an artist’s performance reached such grace and intensity that it seemed heaven itself was breaking through, the crowd would exclaim ‘Allah!’ Over centuries, the sound softened to Olé, but the meaning, ‘God is here‘, remained. I think it’s also what they chant during La Liga soccer matches, ‘Ole! Ole! Ole1 Ole!…’ God is here.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? The truest moments of beauty feel like they’re not of our own making. They feel borrowed. Breathed in. Given.

Elizabeth Gilbert, in ‘Big Magic’, talks about creativity as a force that lives outside of us, visiting us, offering ideas, moving through us when we are willing to be vessels. I believe that force is God. Not just an impersonal ‘universe’ or ‘energy’, but the same God who spoke galaxies into being and then, unbelievably, decided to make us in His image and likeness.

We often read that verse and think ‘image’ means appearance. But what if likeness is about function, not form? What if one of the clearest ways we mirror God is when we create?

When you paint, when you bake, when you design a garden, when you choreograph a dance, when you crotchet a mat or scarf, when you write a song… you are echoing Genesis. You are stepping into the family business of ‘Let there be…’

For me, that thing is writing. I can write with tea and a candle in the early morning, or while the matatus scream outside my window, and still feel it; that quiet sense that something bigger than me is pushing the words forward. And when someone writes to say, “What you wrote encouraged me”, I imagine the angels leaning in to watch. I imagine God smiling because His message, somehow, came through my very ordinary, rusty fingers.

And maybe that’s why the best art, in any form, feels holy. It’s not just about skill or talent, it’s about presence. The Spanish were right. Sometimes beauty is so alive it makes you want to stand and shout Olé! because you can sense Him in the room.

So, create. Create badly at first if you must. Create when you’re tired, create when you’re afraid, create when you think no one is looking. And when you see someone else make something beautiful; a meal, a poem, a photograph, a kindness, recognize it for what it is. Whisper ‘Olé!’ God is here!

Have a great, restful weekend. May we feel Him close. He is here.

God is here, and He loves you.

Be well.

Yours, loved by God,

Njoks.

I recently heard something in a podcast that made me stop and sit still for a while:
Whatever choice you make, your life will grow around it.

And I thought, ‘Heck yes!’
Yes. That’s it.

We talk about decision-making as if it’s a one-shot at the ‘right’ life. As if choosing wrong will end it all. As if one closed door means every other one disappears. But really, most choices, even the hard, loud, heart-heavy ones, are things we grow around.

Say you choose Husband X. Five years in, it hits you that maybe you should have chosen Y, and you mourn that a little. You sit in the ache of what could have been. And yet, your life continues. It adapts. A new dream forms. A different version of peace comes. Maybe you even leave Husband X and start over, and again, your life wraps around that choice too. Rebuilds. Blooms again, even if the soil is different. You could even choose to stay married to Husband X. \your life will grow around that decision, too.

It’s not just about husbands. It’s the degree you picked. The one you dropped. The cities you left and the ones you stayed too long in. The job you took out of fear. The friendship you didn’t fight for. The one you should have let go earlier. The child you had when you weren’t ready. The child you didn’t. The Sunday you slept through instead of showing up. The fight you escalated instead of pausing.

Whatever it is, your life didn’t end.
It grew. Twisted, maybe, but it grew.

I think of all the hours I’ve wasted in the prison of ‘what if.’ What if I had chosen that one? What if I had waited? What if I’d spoken, stayed, said yes, said no? And it’s valid to feel the weight of those things. Regret isn’t sin. But to stay there forever, flogging your own decisions, waiting for the perfect ones, that’s where joy goes to die.

Most days are made of a string of small choices; what to eat, how to speak, when to stop scrolling, how to use an hour… and some days come with the bigger ones. But either way, I’m learning to release the pressure. To choose the best I can with what I know now, and trust that my life, stubborn and soft and spirit-filled, will grow around it.

Because it always does.

Are you still being hard on yourself for a decision you made and can’t undo? Yes?
What would it mean to finally let it go? Answer that on your journal.

I’m about to wash my beautiful hair, take a loooooooonggg shower, get a sexy pedicure, and enjoy the hell out of this weekend. I hope you do. Enjoy the weekend.

Talk again, very soon, reader. Thanks for being here.

Yours, with love,

Njoks.

Also, the ‘Nitakumbuka’ song by Bekah Dawn is on repeat in this house of mine. I lover her, and the song, to bits! Which song have you been loving? Let me know in the comments section. You don’t have to journal this one, haha.

I’m listening to mini-podcasts by Michelle Buteau, my favourite stand-up comedian. She makes me laugh sooo hard, and I often think about how lovely it would be to have a friend like her. Someone who’s bold and unfiltered, and knows how to laugh at life without being careless with it. Someone with freckles, too. Yes, even that part.

Michelle Buteau aside, there’s a man I see near my house almost every day. He’s elderly, maybe in his late seventies or early eighties, with grey hair and a walking stick. I don’t know his name, or who he goes home to, but I know he walks daily. Without fail. Always at 4:30 p.m.

I imagine he has a timetable. Or maybe just a deep understanding of rhythm, of structure, and how it protects you when life doesn’t. I wonder if he was in the military once, or if discipline just found him early. I want to talk to him one of these days, cos he looks like someone who carries stories and lives in his bones. I’d like to sit with him, walk with him, maybe, and ask him about the world he’s watched change, and what’s kept him steady through it.

I don’t always feel steady. Most of the time I do things when I feel like doing them. If I don’t feel like writing, I don’t write. If I feel like resting, I rest, and there’s nothing wrong with that, I think. But lately, life has been showing me that there’s a place for discipline. A place for consistency that doesn’t depend on how you feel. You can’t just sleep all day because you want to. You can’t avoid the hard things because they’re hard. You can’t keep saying ‘tomorrow’, expecting life to wait for you.

May the gods of discipline attack.

Maybe that’s what adulting is: being willing to structure your life not because it’s comfortable, but because it’s necessary. Maybe the point is to build small rhythms that keep you anchored – that steadiness isn’t a feeling, but a practice. I think that’s what adulthood is teaching me right now.

What lesson is adulthood teaching you in this season? Let me know.

Yours, curiously,

Njoks.

I have always had this strange feeling that I’m not alone in this life, not just in the spiritual, ‘God is with me’ way, but in a physical, present, sometimes-creepy way. It’s either that I was born deeply connected to God, or that my ancestors are truly with me – a concept that goes against everything I was taught as a Christian: that the dead know nothing and aren’t involved in the affairs of the living (Ecclesiastes 9:5)

But how do I explain the moments I’ve been helped in ways too specific to be coincidence? How do I explain the prayers I’ve whispered into the universe that are answered with shocking speed and precision? How do I explain that when I was named ‘Njoki’, meaning the one who returned, it wasn’t just a name, it was a prophecy?

My father’s mother died in 1997. His sister, Aunty Muthoni, in 1996. I was born in 1998, a Rainbow Baby, conceived after loss and born after struggle. It’s like I came with a message: I returned. Hindus would call it reincarnation, a concept I do not believe in because I am Christian? The Kikuyu people also believed in reincarnation, a concept I do not believe in because I am Christian?

I remember the first time I felt this otherworldly support. I was in Class 7, crying outside the headteacher’s office because they wouldn’t let me sit an exam that had been done on Saturday. I’m Adventist, so I never went to school on Sabbath. I was once tempted to cos of all the scolding I’d receive from teachers on Monday, but my mother, bless her soul, would not allow it. She was a staunch Adventist, who believed firmly that her and her house would serve the Lord, on Sabbath. Saturday. That day, outside the headteacher’s office, after wiping my tears, I whispered a prayer: “God, if you’re there, and I know you are, please work something out for me.” Her name was Mrs. Muchiri – the headteacher.

The very next day, unbelievable as it may sound, a nationwide teachers’ strike was announced. People broke into the school and stole books, and papers, weirdly, and I didn’t send them. It was the strangest thing, but it happened, and the strike lasted two weeks. When we resumed school, we had to resit the exams, not on a Saturday, and Mrs. Muchiri was like, ‘Njoki, you must be happy now’, and she was right. I was elated. They never forced me to go to school on Saturday ever again, and I was top of my class even in the final exam. It was the first time I realized that I can tap into something, someone, and be heard. I’ve said the same prayer many times since. Then, I was only 12. Now I’m 27, but I still find myself saying, “God, if you’re there, and I know you are, please work something out for me.”

There’ve been many other moments since then. A perfect friend showing up when I needed one. A scholarship granted in two days. A voice nudging me toward a stranger who’d buy me lunch worth a month’s groceries. A dream arriving during a low season, not from my mind, but as if I was being visited. Or taught. Or reminded.

I’m sure it’s God who hears my prayers. The dreams and nudges? Sometimes they feel ancestral. Like there’s a woman walking with me. Guiding me. Whispering her unfinished dreams into my ear. And I wonder: is it Aunty Muthoni? I thought of her a lot today.

A few years ago,when going through my dad’s books, I came across a picture of a woman who looked exactly like me!!! I was sooo shocked, because I had never seen her, and I asked, ‘Khai, daddy. Huyu ni nani ananifanana?’ and he said, ‘Si huyo ni Muthoni…’ and I was like, ‘Mbona hujawahi niambia tunafanana??’ and he was like, ‘Aah. Wewe ni exact copy ya Muthoni…’, and it’s funny also because some other people tell me that I look like Aunty Wanjiru, another of my dad’s sisters who died a few years ago. I used to think I look like my dad, whole time I look like his sisters, particularly, Aunty Muthoni.

One of my father’s brothers, Uncle Muhoho married Aunty Winnie, who was their neighbour in Landimawe, where they all grew up (my grandfather and Winnie’s father worked for the Kenya Railways Authority, Landimawe is where the staff quarters are, somewhere close to Nairobi’s Railway Station). Sometime, casually, I was talking to Aunty Winnie, and cos dad doesn’t talk about his siblings, Aunty Winnie gives me information about what my aunties were like, cos they were playmates. Aunty WInnie was like, ‘Wewe kwanza unafanana Muthoni kabisaa, hata hutwo tumiguu twako tunono’ (You look like Muthoni, even with your fleshy legs). ‘Muthini alikuwa chopiiiii!!! Number one kila saa, hata time fulani aligonjeka, hakuwa shule for two weeks, akarudi tukifanya exam, na akatushinda wote. Kwanza English yake ilikuwa ya highway, na alikuwa anapenda kuandika ma-composition…Kama hangekufa akiwa mdogo, angekuwa jina kubwa kabisaa…’

I was taken aback. I love writing, just as me, Njoki, but sometimes, when I get ideas from nowhere, I’m like, ‘This idea is really pushing me. It needs to get out…’ and I think that Aunty Muthoni lives in me. When I stay up at night thinking about running my Scarlet magazine, I imagine that those are Aunty Muthoni’s desires as well. She loved to write. She couldn’t stay in school long because her father went back to Kisumu after retirement, leaving my grandmother with their many children. She got kids young, because she could not stay in school. She died young. I’m sure she would have loved to write longer, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. My grandmother sold alcohol, and had a shop in Kimende…she tried – multifaceted and tall. I’m like that too, in many ways, I’ll design journals, and do sustainability consulting, and I’ll write, and try to paint… (I’m multifaceted and short-ish. My grandfather from Kisumu was short, and my grandmother, from the pictures I see, was taaaaaallll. A very hot babe, that one.)

Is it delulu? I don’t know, but I know I love to think of myself not just as my own person. I carry the women who came before me, and even more importantly, the women who will come from and after me. I put a lot of pressure on myself to not make the mistakes they made – marrying a Luo man with a first wife in Kisumu, for him to leave post retirement, without taking care of the kids we had together. I’m enjoying privileges they never got to enjoy, and I think of it as a reward, from them even, as motivation to do and be everything they never got to be -because of their mistakes, sheer misfortune, and just, life, really.

And I feel that pressure. That privilege. That responsibility. Not just to break generational curses, but to fulfill generational prayers. To write what they couldn’t. To say what they weren’t allowed to. To live the life they might have dreamed for me when they whispered blessings into the ether.

Yes, trauma is inherited. But so is strength. So is wisdom. So is hope. They didn’t just pass down their pain – they passed down power. They walked so I could fly, and when I soar, I carry them with me.

This post is for Aunty Muthoni. I never met you, but I honour you. I have your face. Your fleshy legs. Your love for words. Your fire. Your dreams. My Scarlet Magazine will be in your honour. It will be ours.

I am God’s. I am helped. I am supported.
I am not my own.
I am my ancestors’ wildest dream.

Today, I am not yours.

Aunty Muthoni’s,

Njoks.

…which is fine, because she probably doesn’t like me either.

I was warned. I was warned! A sweet neighbour, a prophetess if we’re being honest, pulled me aside a few days after I moved in and said, “Huyo ni mtu wa kisirani. Utaona tu.” At the time, I brushed it off, cos I rarely interact with neighbours enough to have problems with them. I like being civil and quiet. I return greetings. I move in silence like my life depends on it. Surely, what could go wrong?

Well, a week later, things actually went wrong. Karen (not her real name, but also, very much her energy) decided to become my unexpected DJ. On a random weekday morning, when I had two meetings and a very serious deadline, she began blasting Bongo music and Mugithi and RnB, mchanganyiko maalum, at levels that felt like I was inside the speakers.

Usually, I can work even when there’s noise, but that was a little too loud. Thus, I stepped outside, gently, kindly, with the innocence of someone who believes in community harmony. I asked her if she could reduce the volume. She looked at me, blinked once, and turned away. That was her answer. Not a word. I think she even later increased the volume, like ‘Who do you think you are to tell me what to do?’

And that, dear reader, is when I knew: Karen and I were never going to be girls.

Karen has two daughters, and a man who visits her like clockwork on Tuesdays and Fridays in a white Harrier. I’m not judging. Okay, maybe a little, but that’s not the point. The point is how she talks to those girls.

They’re tiny. The eldest is maybe 6. The little one is 4. I know their ages not because we’re close, but because kids tend to tell the truth unprovoked. And I hear her yelling at them like they’re grownups. “Msinikule kichwa kama baba yenu!” she shouts. My spirit crumbles every time.

Sometimes, she leaves them alone in the house for hours. One time there was a blackout at around 9pm and I heard them scream. Another time, I heard the more responsible neighbour, Mary, telling the girls, “Mama yenu alisema mkule hiyo mkate na chai iko kwa thermos, atakuja…”

The eldest girl, sadly, is now known in the plot as the one who fights. She breaks other kids’ toys and neighbours’ flower pots, starts drama, and speaks like someone who has to defend herself 24/7. I don’t blame her. She’s a product of the war zone she’s growing up in, and I really feel for her. I can almost see her 20 years from today crying in a therapist’s office, like, “It all started when my mother insulted me, calling me XYZ, leaving me with my little sister for hours…’

Look, I’m not a mother, and I know parenting is hard. I don’t pretend to understand all of it, but I do think: Karen, my sister in Christ, there must be another way.

I find myself wondering: What happened to you? Did you grow up like this? Who hurt you? Do you think this is normal? Would you ever go to therapy? Do you have good friends? Are you loved at home? Why are you bitter, always fighting with your kids and neighbours?

Because listen. It’s one thing to blast music on a random Tuesday morning like it’s midnight at the club. But it’s another thing entirely to consistently insult your kids, inconvenience your neighbours, and exist in a state of aggression so loud you can’t even hear reason.

I don’t like my neighbour, but sometimes I’m sad for her and her little ones. Sometimes I hope she stumbles across something soft. An old friend. A warm prayer. A full night’s sleep. Something that shows her there’s another way to live.

Until then, I’m counting the days until I move. Because one thing about me? I am a leaver.

Be kind to your neighbours. Be soft where you can, and if you can’t be soft, at least don’t blast Diamond Platnumz when the girl next door is trying to send an invoice.

Take care of your space. Mind your volume. Greet your neighbours. And if you’re the Karen of your plot, this is your sign to try a little tenderness.

Also, if you’ve ever had a difficult neighbour, tell me your wildest story in the comments if you feel like it. Let’s unpack the drama together.

Yours, tenderly,

Njoks.

(P.S.: Soon I’ll write about my other neighbour – she’s incredibly sweet. We went on a long walk together today, and I’m sooo grateful for her. Also, the moon is really showing off tonight. Go outside!).