Je ne sais quoi...Kenyan style.

Kenyans are a very resilient people. Africans in general, in fact, but I can only truly speak for Kenyans having spent so much of my waking life with them. They have a phenomenal capacity to believe, even when the signs are that the cause is not worth fighting for. I think it has something to do with the religious fervour that Africans are known for, because even I sometimes shake my head at myself (you know, out of body experience way?) when I am holding onto something that didn't even make sense in the first place, and it's five years later, but you know, there's always perhaps.

It's like the night watchman (guard, not batsman in test cricket) that chats you up as you walk home from school/work. You are affronted that he thinks you could ever be interested in him, but, spare a thought for that man. He actually believed he had a chance with you; he could see the probabilities, not the impossibilities.

Or the lady that lives in the slum, growing vegetables in a little patch of abandoned land (technically squatting). She has never stopped believing in her dream of a better life, of children that can read and write. My mum works with women in slums and visiting them always warms my heart. They go through every effort to make sure that they cook for you, and have all their sofas covered in beautifully crocheted spreads, with the decorative calendar occupying a place of pride above the wall. It's just like being at home.

I can't decide whether this belief is a good or bad thing. I mean, surely it means we spend far too much time chasing piped dreams: that job that one really can only fantasise about, or that person that you love that really doesn't even know you're alive? Or perhaps, and this is just a thought, we are pretty incredible people :-D There are few people in the world that would still be able to dream, smile, laugh and play, despite all the challenges that life throws at them, including the threat of war, natural disasters and all that badness. The best bit about that is when the stars align and people get what they deserve: like the watchman who eventually gets a girlfriend (and simultaneously discovers soap, water and body lotion), or the lady from a lowly place who takes her child to school, being illiterate herself, and makes sure 'he/she becomes a doctor'. 

I think everyone in the world should have an 'African' upbringing. We have this capacity to deal with the bad things in life, smile at challenges and figure things out for ourselves. When it's really bad, and it does get really bad, we know who to call (not an ode to Ghostbusters, even in the slightest), and they come running (aaah, too many songs on radio influencing this post). Many of my friends would benefit from this: they've been shielded from life's little struggles, which is a parent's prerogative, but they are a little on the weak and needy side. My parents didn't put me through hardship, but they certainly never shielded me from it. So I have a little of that Kenyan 'Je ne sais quoi', that inexplicable belief, and I think I am better for it.