living the dream

hopes and dreams, reality and facts

inseparably intertwined

forging formidable goals and acts

I have dreamed incredible dreams

I have lived incredulous realities

Growing up in Nairobi, there was not really much to see. Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful city in its own right that I will love to the death, but in all honesty Kenya is too young a country (nation) to have the kind of things I speak about here that I would love to see. It does not have historical marvels like the Colosseum in Rome, architectural wonders like the the Eiffel Tower, it has no wonders of the world like the Wall of China, it has no Renaissance museums like the ones in Milan. Yes it has art, history and architectural masterpieces, but none as grand as the ones found else where (not an less important though). Anyway, growing up in Nairobi with little to see, the world was opened up to me primarily through books. From the day I picked up my first Hardy Boys I was fascinated by other cultures and societies and the way the lived that seemed so different, so alien to me. Books transported me to a world beyond what I knew. Through them I lived in New York, chased bad guys and brought them to justice, fell in love with some of most beautiful damsels in distress, rescued them and lived happily ever after, raced cars, even operated on patients and saved lives. Through books I did anything and everything. Through them, dreams were fostered; dreams that before we inconceivable and beyond any stretch of my imagination. Slowly my imagination ceased being; now I needed to actually walk on the streets New York and interact with these strangely different people, I needed to rid the world of 'bad guys', I had to hold a man's barely beating heart in my hand and help bring him back from the brink of death. I dreamed simpler dreams of merely visiting a foreign land and living among its people and experience their different way of life for a little while. I had dreams.

Two particular books focused, if you may, my dreams; Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons' and 'The Da Vinci Code'. These books opened up two of Europe's greatest cities to me and I silently and solemnly swore I would visit this cities if ti was the last thing I would do. I needed to look at this famous buildings and visit those historical sites, to marvel at well-known pieces of art laden with centuries of history. I needed to visit Paris and Rome, not to live there, just to walk through the galleries of the Louvre looking for the Mona Lisa, visit the 109 churches in Rome just to see the sculptures so vividly described in the books, go to the Vatican and enter the Archives that hold the secrets of the very church I was born and raised into, follow the trail the Illuminati used all those centuries ago in such of enlightenment... Oh such a simple dream, yet such a monumental task to accomplish. As fate would have it, I somehow made it to Europe. The excitement was palpable! I was within reach of places and things I only read about and envisaged in the eye of my mind. For the past 12 months or so, I have made a point to and have traveled to several historical cities and seen countless memorabilia from different times through history. Through my travels I have discovered a new dream, a dream I grew up surrounded by but ignored as I didn't share the dream; a dream that is now, as I see it, a nightmare.

I guess I had seen manifestations of this dream since the day I set foot on foreign land but ignored them. My awakening came when I was visiting a friend in Atlanta, Georgia. The land of milk and honey. The land of opportunity. The land of the free and the home of the brave. The land where opportunity can be created from thin air. Or can it? I had been aware of many Africans in Europe but never really thought of the circumstances that got them here. I think I must have assumed that we all got here for the same reason through the same means. Then I had the chance to speak (or rather listen) to a few Kenyans living in the States. The general consensus was they would rather stay there and make a living than 'hustle' in Kenya. My first assumption was they must be really successful as this is AMERICA after all, only to find out that they work in pizzerias and such kinds of odd jobs merely to make ends meet (I am not speaking of the ones working such jobs whilst in school trying to complete their various degree programmes, no these are there stable jobs). Needless to say I was shocked, I could not fathom how someone who was once somebody in Kenya would chose to be less than nobody in America, happily accept the kind of suffering I saw and not demand more. According to one, a horrible life in USA surpassed an okay one in Kenya. At least there he could afford to drive and afford his own place. What he failed to mention was that he would be paying for the car all his life and the house he lived in would put to shame the shanties in Kibera. I imagined him bragging to his friends and relatives how he was living in AMERICA, not telling them he needed 3 jobs just to barely keep his head above water. Then I remembered that growing up the dream that most had was to leave poor Africa and never come back. As my brother aptly put it, Kenyans had 2 dreams, to go to heaven and to go to America.

Fastforward to April 2011, I have finally made it to Rome, the city of my dreams. The countless books I have read and the movies I have watched trying to picture how this magnificent city would look like. I get there and head to my hostel room which happens to be next to the main train station. First thing I notice is the number of people of African decent there (there are as many here as there are in Paris if not more) roaming the streets aimlessly (it is easy to spot someone who is walking towards a particular destination). On our way back from dinner which is pretty late, I see a long line of the same Africans I had seen earlier lying along the wall of the train station sleeping under blankets. There must have been 150 of them. I remember the Kenyans in America and feel pity. Is this really the dream? Is it really worth living in Europe only to live in abject poverty, maybe worse than you did back home? I try to think of all the reasons one would come all the way here simply to hawk necklaces and other 'authentic' African articles just to get by. I could understand those who leave war-torn countries as any life may be better than death. But looking at these desolate-looking people reminds me of the people I knew in Kenya who would give life and limb to live in America in search of the American dream. I think of the advice I keep getting, people asking me to swear a blood-oath not to go back to Kenya. I wonder if Kenya is a prison and I am one of the lucky ones to have escaped. I think now of all the Kenyans who willingly left and are now struggling to make ends meet, too proud to go back home to poor Africa even if it means better quality of life. I think now that maybe they are all living their dream.

After countless debates concerning this blog post and its self-righteous tone, I have been requested to add a statement that clearly states my point of view of the whole issue. So here goes; this is not about the successful people living abroad and making something of themselves regardless of the work they are doing, this is not about those who were forced out of their countries by circumstances like poverty or war, this is for those who believe the 'western' world to be the pinnacle of success and Africa to be the gutter no matter their circumstance, this is for those who would rather suffer abroad than lead a relatively comfortable life back home.