Behind Every Door

I know of a community toxic with crime, drugs and poverty that little children no longer say; “when I grow up I want to be something of worth.” Walking down the narrow paths that separate their community homes, the stench of hopelessness almost drowns you. A community whose walls lie in ruins, whose homes are broken, whose dreams are shattered and the past so painful that the peoples back are bending over from the weight of their loads.Like cows tethered in a wasteland and still expected to fend for themselves, these people feel trapped and suffocated. The neighborhoods have nothing to fortify themselves with for the future. It is a place where people live for the next meal, get by without the passion for life and people live in their own land like strangers.

Every door behind a home has a story; stories that well up your eyes with tears and hang on your heart ready to pluck it. The old men hang out in age groups, they call themselves “wazee barazani’’. They look back at what was a land of a great heritage, a place of international trade and diversity of rich culture and regret having lived to see this dilapidation. They would recall how, as a young men they had given themselves and their strength to serving their land; as dock workers, others traders and fishermen, and how they would rise up early to make a difference. But now at 60, the memories of the life they hoped for and the life they are living tears them apart. The land expects them to be done with life by 58 years, and living beyond that is equivalent to stealing that which is not yours.

Why would someone want to turn what is a blessing in long life into a curse? And after investing all they had to this land, these men have no health insurance, yet all the ailments that come with their twilight years has caught up with them. They live on dependent on medication. They feel like they have become a burden to their children. They feel neglected. And the bitterness and regret is slowly taking them to the grave. They are longing, just like they did for independence when they were teenagers, a new freedom, the liberty that will allow them to rest with their fathers when the time comes, in total freedom. As they reminisce on the life they dreamt they would have as they finalize their journey on earth, they feel cheated. Many having no pension or any form of livelihood for  their retirement. Hope is scarce for what life there is inside of them. Was life all this, to end in nothingness? Was their life’s harvest a handful of emptiness?

Yet these men are full of wisdom, wisdom that surpass many PhD holders. They know what the problem is. And listening to them, I hear bits and bits of solutions to the problems in this land. But who seeks the wisdom of old men anymore? These men have so much to offer this land, but they have been left to waste away.

The women in the community have not been spared. Theirs is a cry for mercy, a cry for justice. The things they see happening to their children and to their land has made them spend sleepless nights weeping in prayers and lost in depression. For how long, they ask, will our own seed produce no harvest? It feels like we are barren, for having had children and seeing them die in vices. For how long will we rest and await our children to bring good news home? All we see is their struggles, their limitations and their potential going to waste. It pains us as mothers, to find no peace in our own living rooms because we are not sure anymore what will happen to our own children. For how long will fear of the unknown and insecurity in the lives of our offspring pierce our hearts? For how long???

The young people made me weep. None of them would speak in pride of the life ahead of them. Though young in age, they still have regrets for the short life lived. They feel like they are stuck in an egg. No doors no windows. And better a larva in its cocoon, for there is hope in becoming a beautiful butterfly, than these young ones, who feel like their egg is rotting from within, and they are feeding on the smelly yolk. Will we ever find our way out of this? Are we doomed? Who will come to our rescue and discern the treasure bestowed within our beings? Like a hen broods over her eggs to produce her chicks, who will brood over us until we emerge in the newness of what we were meant to be? Who? Who? They ask in pain knowing how they have been ignored, unappreciated and abused. For how long will we die full of untapped talents and potential?

I Tendai Mtana, bleed in my heart as I listen to these stories. Behind doors, I sit in these homes listening to their stories. Neighborhood to neighborhood, the story is repeated. The story is retold. It moves me into action, it stirs my heart into a new life. It is my moment of the burning bush, when God who calls Himself, I Am, is looking for a servant to use to redeem his people from slavery. These stories awoke my reason for existence.

We must like Nehemiah, rebuild the walls of this city. We must pick up our tools and our weapons and get started. We must know that, no one will come from afar and do this for us, we have to do it ourselves. We have to make our hands dirty, we must build this city ourselves. Men, women and children, we have to get out behind our doors and declare ‘enough is enough’. We have to encourage each other, shoulder to shoulder, my hand in your hand as we rebuild our walls, rebuild our city. MAMBO NI SASA!