😭 Here lies the ruins of a country destroyed by greed... 😭😭 Kisumu would have been a super-city by now... think of the very many people would have been employed if Kicomi was running as envisioned 😭😭
Underrated life advice: Speak to yourself with more belief. You would never talk to someone you love the way you sometimes talk to yourself. Encourage yourself. Back yourself. Your mind is listening to every word you say.
If you're a millennial it's time to pick your midlife crisis:
1. Quitting alcohol
2. Running 10 miles before work
3. Divorce
4. Panic baby at 35 with wife you hate
5. Pickleball
6. ADHD diagnosis
7. Dressing like you did in 2004
8. Blacking out every weekend like you’re 21
9. Weekly hinge dates
10. Ice baths and saunas
11. Board games and craft beer in the suburbs
12. Getting into tattoos
13. Quitting your job to explore your “passions”
14. Plants and the environment
15. Traveling
“Transforming Africa”
“Accelerating Africa”
“Untapping the potential”
“Unlocking Africa’s potential”
Please, it’s enough. Africa is tired from all the transforming, acceleration, untapping and unlocking. Leave her alone!
Africa is being killed by its greedy leaders.
Dear @bienaimesol
"Presence is not submission" is a great line. But the African chiefs who signed away our land to colonialists were also just "present at a meeting." Didn't end well for us.
This is France we're talking about. The same France that still forces 14 African countries to pay them money every year for being colonized. They named their summit "Africa Forward", forward into whose pocket exactly?
They didn't call you because they value your African voice. They called you because nothing makes an exploitation party look innocent like a talented African bald man with a guitar and a big smile. You were the decoration. The proof that everything was fine. The vibe.
While you performed, the real business was happening in the next room and your presence told the world "don't worry, the Africans are happy."
Now we all love you Bien. Nobody wants to say it. But when you're the only African smiling that hard in a room full of French officials, Uncle Ruckus starts feeling like a close relative. The man also believed he was simply "building bridges."
You were not a guest at that table my friend.
You were the entertainment.
There's a difference between having a seat at the table and being served *as* the meal. Next time find out which one you are before you tune your guitar.
Dismas wa Tabu. Dreaming in installments. Billed in full.
For fucking sake why do I have to apologize for speaking Kiswahili in a formal setting with other Kenyans 😭😭 it’s also our national language !!! Can we decolonize
I stopped yelling at my kids for a week.
Here’s what I noticed:
we were late to school every single day
they didn’t clean up a single thing
they didn’t shower
they didn’t do their homework
they looked homeless
I tried gentle parenting.
They responded like tiny union workers on strike.
Turns out my “yelling” was really just the family notification system.
we live on a planet where trees warn each other of danger through underground networks. where octopuses dream. where elephants return to the bones of their dead and stand over them in silence. where bees communicate through dance, showing each other where to fly. where flowers bloom...where crows remember human faces -especially those who were cruel to them - and pass that memory on to their young. where ants build entire cities. where cats purr at a frequency that can help heal bones. where forests, after fires, grow flowers first.
It is easy to say karibu Kenya. Kenyans are raised to be welcoming and many people will mean it sincerely.
But there’s a harder side to this story that doesn’t always make it into relocation threads.
We’ve already seen what happens when fluid capital and mobile professionals flood places like Bali and Barcelona. Rents skyrocket, neighbourhoods gentrify overnight, and locals slowly get priced out of the very communities they built. What looks like “growth” from the outside often masks stagnant wages, rising inequality, and shrinking space for ordinary citizens.
When people earning 10–100x local incomes enter a fragile housing and services market, they unintentionally distort it. Landlords optimise for foreign dollars. Schools, healthcare, and lifestyle services tilt toward expats. Locals are told to “adapt” or move further out.
The danger isn’t foreigners themselves. It’s unmanaged inflows into economies with weak protections for residents.
So yes, Kenya is welcoming. The thorn is how do we make sure foreign influx doesn’t come at the cost of dignity and access for locals.