Over the past two years, there’s been something quietly stirring in my soul, and I think I’ve finally started to understand what it is.
I remember the final months at Maseno School. Everyone was writing down their goals and plans for what they’d do after finishing secondary school. I was no different. My top priority was education. I was especially drawn to foundational health sciences(knowing very well that I would readily get into medical school), computer science, and finance. So when I completed school, I dove into those interests.
Around the same time, I had this strong, almost unexplainable desire to be around Kikuyu people. It felt like a pull. So, when the time came for me to apply to universities, I selected schools in Nairobi, Thika, and Nakuru. Eventually, I was accepted into Kabarak University in Nakuru.
Looking back at the goals I had set, I did a lot—but not quite as much as I’d hoped. Still, I left home in Kakamega for university in Nakuru. I had been to Nakuru a few times before with my family and had grown to like it. The only downside was the hot and dry climate, quite different from the cooler, greener Kakamega I was used to. Nakuru is in an ASAL region, if I remember correctly.
Nakuru town, unlike Kakamega, has a significant Kikuyu population. And during my few visits into town, I found myself drawn into the language and culture in a way I hadn’t expected. I now realize that what had been stirring inside me all along was a quiet longing for the language and identity I had grown up somewhat alienated from.
With the free time that comes with undergraduate life, I found myself diving deeper into Kikuyu media: radio shows, music and skits on YouTube. It felt like I was reconnecting with something buried.
With all the free time in my hands, nostalgia hit hard. I remembered the early mornings when my mother would play Coro FM at 5 a.m. while getting me ready for school. The kiigocos she’d play in the car. The Sundays when Inooro FM would interrupt Geria Mũnyaka show to stream live addresses from President Uhuru Kenyatta.
But I didn’t act on the spark right away. I was juggling a lot: a small business, a probable career in software engineering, a nursing degree (which, at the time, I truly loathed), and the confusion that came with all of it. In hindsight, one thing I’ve learned is that you can never be fully certain of the path you’re on. In that “depressive and confused phase”, I still believed I was headed in the right direction. I am still grateful that I did all the things I did even though in hindsight I should have stopped multitasking aimlessly and carelessly.
Since late last year, I’ve made active progress on one of my newest passions: learning a new language. I can now speak Spanish at a basic conversational level. A few months ago, I joked to a friend that my Spanish was now as good as my Gĩkũyũ and that moment shook me. It reminded me of how disconnected I still was from my own heritage.
Around the same time, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o passed away. I felt a strange sense of guilt that I had never truly read any of his works well. To keep in line my new goal, I'd try to read some of his work in native Gikuyu. So, I picked Kenda Mũiyũrũ to read. I knew a few words here and there, enough to follow basic context. But what I found disconcerting was that Ngũgĩ wrote in what I can only describe as deep, cultured Gikuyu. The kind of Gĩkũyũ that my urban, poor-Swahili and-English-speaking self could not grasp.
My biggest obstacle wasn’t comprehension, it was confidence(I still haven’t fully developed the courage yet) or as Luos would say "sikuwa nimepata midomo chake". So that’s my new goal: not to become a master of deep Gikuyu language, but simply to speak it with ease. To have the confidence to use it. These days, I practice by speaking sentences to myself in my room and listening to Kikuyu music and radio just like I did when I was learning Spanish.
This longing for culture and language I believe is something many Kenyans born and raised in urban areas feel. It’s that quiet ache, that sense of distance from who we might have been. I often think of Italian, Korean, and Jewish Americans who try to reconnect with their ancestral roots and eventually become defeated and exasparated. I’m reminded of Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri from The Sopranos who was so proud of his Italian heritage, only to visit Italy and feel like a stranger. The people there couldn’t relate to him. To them, he was just another American tourist.
And so yes, this is what has been weighing on me for the past few years. A quiet identity crisis, maybe. Or a deep yearning to return to something I never truly had.