A couple of weeks ago, I was in a meeting with a fellow journalist—one of my many desperate attempts to regain gainful employment, more on that another time—and after I gave my best elevator pitch and we exchanged a few professionally coated, but ultimately shallow, chuckles, we started talking about the media landscape in Kenya. It’s in a precarious position, we both agreed, as traditional and emerging outlets struggle to engage audiences that consume news and content primarily through digital platforms, all while grappling with financial realities that make those efforts even more difficult.

“Next year is going to be even worse,” my counterpart quipped. He explained that he and the writers on his team are hanging on by a thread because of the upcoming election year, and he expects to witness a “bloodbath” in its wake that will leave many journalists like me…

Unemployed.

As I left the building, my dreams of once again calling myself a full time journalist bruised, I thought about how our conversation mirrored most of the ones I’ve had about next year’s election. There is a palpable sense of impending doom that’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore or downplay.

Kenya’s fraught history with elections does not need retracing—the country has long struggled with both the personalization and the implementation of a safe, democratic electoral process. But despite politicians’ promises that next year’s election will proceed peacefully, how are young Kenyans—a generation that championed the 2024 maandamano protests and continues to redefine advocacy in the East African hub—feeling about what lies ahead? I spoke to a few of them and here’s what they had to say.

“I’m nervous, seeing as there’s already quite a bit of tension,” Kevin N. tells me via email.

Daniel O. feels similarly, comparing the anxiety surrounding the election to microwaving “eggs and not quite knowing whether they’ll explode when you take them out.”

“There’s a real sense of uncertainty,” he adds. “It feels like we’re standing on the edge of something significant, but no one can confidently say which way it will go.”

For some young Kenyans, those nerves are rooted in the memory of the 2007 post election crisis, during which 1,200 Kenyans lost their lives, thousands more were injured and more than 300,000 people were displaced. I remember the fear from afar—my family and I were living in the U.S. at the time, piecing together what was happening through the news and harrowing calls from relatives recounting the instability that had taken hold of Kenya—but Tanisha M. recalls the violence firsthand, its impact replaying in her mind as we inch toward August 2027.

“I vividly remember what happened in 2007 and I’m anxious that the post-election period next year might also be turbulent because I don’t have any faith that the president has the integrity to accept a loss,” she confesses via email.

A lack of faith in President Ruto is a common sentiment among young Kenyans, as is a broader distrust of political candidates and their commitment to addressing the systemic issues holding the country back.

“A lot of the political language feels very big-picture and rhetorical, but I haven’t yet identified a candidate who speaks directly to the issues I care most about,” Daniel O. shares. “I’m deeply invested in seeing Kenya clean up its administrative structures—having public offices that function efficiently, systems that genuinely serve people and institutions that people can trust.”

He’s also eager to see politicians focus on “building systems that actually work.” So is Kevin N., who says that, while he thinks that “across various seats some people address my concerns,” Kenya’s government does not adequately address rampant corruption and the country’s Constitution “seems to fail to account for that.”

“I also believe that this country can only heal if we accept how little we’ve progressed because of our lack of clear policy,” he adds. “Like every 10 years or five years, we’re inherently selling ourselves a new developmental plan, which seems very inefficient to me.”

The economy is another big issue for young Kenyans. Elevated unemployment is a major problem across demographics, but has hit Kenya’s youth particularly hard—a staggering 30% of young people in the East African nation are without gainful employment, according to the African Development Bank Group. That reality, plus the exorbitant cost of living, has left young Kenyans exhausted by the present and afraid for their futures.

“Our economy is in shambles and this is affecting a huge amount of the population,” Tanisha M. shares. “This should be a priority. We keep borrowing, we can’t pay back, taxes are horrendous, it’s become incredibly difficult for small business owners to operate, and common people cannot make a decent living with the cost of living rising and no jobs.”

Kahenya K. agrees, arguing that though “a lot of the candidates claim to want to address affordability and tackle national debt without taxing everyday Kenyans,” he’s underwhelmed by most candidates’ proposed strategies to do so. Kahenya K. also believes they’re failing to address “diverse issues in their campaigns beyond, ‘Ruto must go.’”

“This election is incredibly important because we need to vote intelligently, not just out of hatred for Ruto,” Kahenya K. encourages.

As concerns regarding the 2027 elections loom, young Kenyans’ focus and advocacy remain focused on encouraging people to vote. In 2022, 64.77% of Kenyans voted in the presidential election and young people in Kenya feel a strong sense of urgency to make sure voter turnout is much higher in 2027.

“Can we all vote?!?! Hello!,” Kevin N. quips before adding that it’s equally important for voters to “understand why we’re voting for every candidate we do.”

Echoing a similar point, Kahenya K. believes “the only way this next election can benefit the country is if we elect someone strictly based on policy and reject the mediocre conmen that have run this country for the past 50 years.”

But despite the fear and anxiety young Kenyans are carrying, they are also holding onto hope that 2027 elections will be peaceful and mark a turning point for the country.

“My biggest hope is that people turn out to vote and hold leaders accountable long after the campaigns are over,” Stanley K. tells me via WhatsApp. “I also hope everyone exercises their democratic rights peacefully, respectfully and with the country’s future in mind.

Daniel O. eloquently shares that he dreams of the 2027 elections marking “the beginning of a new dawn in Kenya—one that brings fresh perspectives, accountable leadership and a decisive move away from tyranny and politics driven by fear.”

He dreams of a Kenya with public institutions that not only work, but actually serve the people who define the nation. It’s a dream many young Kenyans share, myself included, and something we will never stop fighting for.

Man, is it good to be back.

In preparation for this second letter to the editor-esque essay, I read the first I penned to you (if you’re new here or in need of a refresher, you can check out the letter in question here) last September when I launched Bad African. I told you I was 30, loved strawberry daiquiris and long walks on the beach (laborious, but good for the skin on your feet). I told you why I started this blog, confessed my confusing relationship with my African identity and how I wanted BA to be a place where I could interrogate that, as well as topics and issues in Kenya, Africa and around the Diaspora that I felt were often ignored by the media, both locally and internationally. I wanted to write about relationships freely as an extension of my Vogue essays exploring estrangement in 2023 and 2024. I wanted to include other voices who could speak to the realities here and across the continent. I wanted to open up about how difficult—emotionally, financially and logistically—it is to be a creative in Kenya. And I wanted to share opportunities for other Kenyan creatives that might help combat some of those challenges.

In short, I wanted to do a lot.

And, not to toot my own horn, which is something people definitely don’t say anymore, but I did a lot of what I set out to do. I’m so proud of the content we championed last and early this year—like this essay about whether or not Kenya has an extended adolescence problem or this wonderful piece from a guest writer about how the unhealthy financial habits her mother taught her shaped her own relationship with money. I asked creatives like singer Xenia Manasseh and Memories of Princess Mumbi director Damien Hausser about their careers and any advice they’d offer others trying to make it in their respective fields. I shared weekly (sometimes not so weekly) jobs boards with opportunities for African writers and creatives. And I loved it—I loved the new relationship I was forming with you and how it helped me grow as a writer and storyteller.

But, as I have done so many times before in my career, I overwhelmed myself. I wanted to offer you more content and value immediately while still keeping the foundation of BA rooted in my outsider perspective on African-ness. That quickly proved to be difficult and unsustainable, especially as I got deeper into production on Flip The Script, a six-episode documentary series I directed and produced alongside my producing partner, Will, and Cre8. The series follows creatives in Kenya who challenge gender norms within their respective mediums.

Much more on that experience later.

To say the process of bringing that project to life depleted me would be a gross understatement. And as I’ve started to crawl toward rebuilding my life, my first step—my first thought, really—was bringing back and revamping Bad African. This blog has meant so much to me, professionally and personally, since its inception. And this new chapter of my life and career would feel incomplete without it.

I promised myself I’d keep this short, so let me get to the point: Welcome to Bad African 2.0! Some things are changing. I’m taking a step back from BA’s creative content, including our Ask A Creative segment and Jobs Board, until I have a better idea of what you want and need (and a more sustainable way of offering you that kind of content). I’m putting a pause on commissioning guest essays, too—it’s still very important to me to include other voices at Bad African, but I think, at least for now, I need to show you more of me and my perspective. I want to try more things, and I want to ask more questions. I want to build Bad African more intentionally, with both you and me in mind.

Just like when I wrote my first letter to the editor type essay, I don’t know how to end this. Perhaps with a promise? Or a joke? Or, just like last time, I’ll keep it short and sweet.

Welcome to Bad African 2.0. If you’ve been a subscriber from the beginning, know that I’m so grateful and thrilled that we’re back chatting again. If you’re new here, your timing is impeccable, and I’m honored you decided to engage with a 31-year-old strawberry daiquiri lover, beach-walking aficionado and an African who rarely (never) feels African enough.

Love,

K

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. Whether you have a nose for a viral story or are looking for a home for your imaginative writing, here are 7 amazing opportunities to check out right now. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

• Fractured Lit is back and they want your most unhinged ghosts, weirdest fables, and most twisted fairy tales. If you can find a way to make the mundane feel strange or uncanny in 1,000 words or less, you might just snag the $3,000 grand prize. Guest Judge Melissa Llanes Brownlee will select three winners, with a grand prize of $3,000 and publication. Second and third place will receive $300 and $200 respectively. Submit your work between February 16 and April 19, 2026, here

• Calling all the dreamers and world-builders from the continent and the Diaspora! Omenana is on the hunt for speculative fiction (think Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Horror) that centers African characters and settings. Submissions must involve characters, settings, or themes directly related to the African continent and must be original, unpublished works in English. They pay $20 for every story published, and you can find the full submission guidelines and apply here.

• Finally, somewhere you can talk about your gym routine freely! Self is looking for pitches at the intersection of health, fitness, and mental well-being. They particularly love weight-inclusive training advice and deep-dive service pieces. Rates for these assignments typically range from $250 to $700 depending on the depth and length of the story. Check out their pitching guide for more details here.

• Do you love celebrity news, paired with a knack for finding the story quick? EntertainmentNow is recruiting fast and relentless freelance reporters to cover breaking entertainment and celebrity news. If you are skilled at spotting viral trends, finding unique hooks, and producing clean copy quickly in a high-volume digital newsroom, they want to hear from you. There are various beats and real-time coverage opportunities available. Apply for the role here.

• Vroom vroom, baby! Esses is a new publication dedicated to the culture and lifestyle of Grand Prix racing, and they want stories that go way beyond the track. They are looking for high-quality storytelling that explores the people and community of the sport. Pay for contributors usually ranges between $0.50 and $1.50 per word. You can find their full pitching instructions and editor details here.

• If you love culture commentary just as much as us, Elle is looking you! They’re on the hunt for fresh voices for its culture section, covering movies, TV, music, books, and the arts. Lauren Puckett-Pope has released a new 2026 pitch guide to help writers submit their best ideas through their official submission form. Payment for these pieces starts at $250 and increases based on the scope of the project. Read the guide and submit your pitch here.

• MERIP is calling for pitches for its Summer 2026 issue on visual art and cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa. They are interested in submissions that center artistic practices and histories while considering the social and political conditions in which the art is made. They offer a modest discretionary fee for freelance contributions, and the deadline to submit is February 23, 2026. Pitch your idea here

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. Whether you’re exploring archival legacies or sharing a hilarious dating disaster, here are 7 amazing opportunities to check out right now. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

• Kernel 6 is looking for pitches for its upcoming issue, FEED! They are on the hunt for essays, software criticism, and creative work that explores how consumption shapes our relationship to tech—from the history of manufacturing to what technologists actually eat. Nonfiction pieces pay $600–$750, interviews snag $500, and creative work earns $150–$500, with no entry fees required! Find more information and submit your pitches here (nonfiction) or here (creative) by February 20

• Room Magazine is looking for entries for its 2026 Poetry Contest! The publication is on the hunt for evocative poems, offering a grand prize of $1,000 plus publication, with secondary prizes of $250 and $100 also up for grabs. There is an entry fee listed for this call, so be on the look out for that and get your work in front of a premier feminist literary journal! Find out more on the contest and enter here by April 1, 2026.

• The Black Fork Review is looking for submissions for its official online literary journal! They are on the hunt for previously unpublished poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to feature in their upcoming issue. All entries must be submitted as a Word doc and include a brief third-person bio in the cover letter. This is one of those with no payment or entry fees are listed, but it’s a high-quality space for emerging writers to showcase their talent! Review their full guidelines and write away!

• The Caine Prize for African Writing is looking for entries for its 2026 award! The prize is on the hunt for published fictional short stories by African writers, specifically work between 3,000 and 10,000 words released in the last five years. There is no cost to enter, however there’s a little caveat; all submissions must be made by a publisher rather than the author. Read the full eligibility rules and find more info here to see if your published work qualifies for this prestigious honor.

• OlongoAfrica is looking for new contributions for a historic companion book on the legacy of Black Orpheus! They are on the hunt for essays, creative nonfiction, or hybrid pieces that engage with African modernism and archival preservation. They want work that is rigorously researched but remains accessible to a general audience, and there are no application costs to submit. Read the full call and find more information here to join this project scheduled for 2026.

• Anybody say poetry contest? West Trade Reviews Poetry Contest is open for submissions. The publication is on the hunt for work from emerging poets who have not yet published a book with a print run over 1,500. They are offering a grand prize of $1,000 and publication, and while there is a $15 entry fee, it includes a copy of their Spring 2025 print edition! Here’s the link to the full details and enter here until the contest closes on March 15, 2026.

• Calling all editors (and those interested in exploring editorial roles), The Republic is looking for remote sub-editors to lead its Nigeria and Africa-focused desks! They are on the hunt for part-time editors with a sharp eye to commission two stories a month and help shape long-form investigative journalism. The role pays $150 per commissioned story published, and editors who write their own pieces receive a standard rate of $200, with no application fees involved. Find more information on the role and apply here!

Towards the end of 2022, I was scrolling through X— then, and should still be, known as Twitter— for writing opportunities. After bookmarking a handful of pitch calls, I came across a tweet about the Sundance Film Festival’s Press Inclusion Initiative. The message offered a brief description of the program— the initiative would offer a select group of film critics a stipend to attend the Sundance Film Festival, a coveted event championed by the Sundance Institute that boasts the largest slate of independent films in the film festival circuit. My interest was piqued.

I’d heard of Sundance before— mostly in paparazzi shots of Hollywood glitterati at the fest I’d glance at while thumbing through a magazine or in the odd celebrity interview I’d catch on E! Entertainment— but beyond that, my awareness was limited. But those interviews and pictures were enough to convince me that Sundance was far, far out of my reach.

Despite that, a quiet voice in my head emerged. F*ck it, apply, it whispered. So that’s what I did.

After I submitted my application, I put the program out of my mind as quickly as possible. I repressed how badly I wanted it, as I had learned to do so early in my writing career. And I successfully managed to move on— I wrote other stories, I worked on building my budding production company. I was so proud of myself for proactively accepting what I was convinced was an impending rejection.

And then, one morning in bed when I couldn’t sleep, I checked my email, and there it was: Dear Kui, Congratulations!

God, is there anything better than seeing your name next to “congratulations”?

I was thrilled, obviously. For like, 24 hours. Then the panic set in. I quickly realized there was a lot to navigate: where to stay (festival accommodation can get super pricey, even with a stipend), how to get around, how to build your schedule and make the most out of this opportunity. It’s overwhelming, and it was a struggle finding resources that offered the kind of guidance I was desperate for.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that first experience since returning from my third Sundance as part of the fest’s press inclusion initiative (check out my film reviews here!). Here’s what I wish I knew then, and how writers early in their careers can attend film festivals like Sundance.

Film Festivals will give you money to attend!

Prior to stumbling upon Sundance’s press inclusion initiative, I had no idea that such programs existed. But they do indeed! The Toronto Film Festival offers a similar program to Sundance, and there are tons of other regional and independent festival support for writers (usually from underrepresented communities). The International Film Festival Assistance Program (IFFAP) has offered stipends for travel and accommodation (up to $500) for media participating in specific festivals, and other specialized grants from organizations like Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) have fellowships to cover conferences and festivals. Some stipends and grants are more consistent than others, so keep tabs throughout the year on applications you have your eye on.

So you got a stipend. What’s next?

You get that “congratulations” email, and everything is hunky dory, until you have to plan your travel, accommodation and screening schedule. If you can, try to connect with press who have attended the film festival you’re preparing for for advice. I scoured the internet for insight on the Sundance experience as press when I was planning my first trip, and I found next to nothing. I finally got the information I was looking for when I tracked down another critic who had participated in the press inclusion initiative, and she was kind enough to answer my (many) questions.

How to survive a film festival as press

So you’ve gotten your stipend, planned your trip and schedule, and now it’s time for the fun part: attending the film festival!

This is technically something you should consider prior to arrival, but I’ve found it’s important to remember while you’re there: make sure your schedule isn’t too packed. It’s important that you give yourself a chance to recharge (watching movies is much more exhausting than it seems, especially if you’re reviewing it) and make room for other events or screenings you may want to attend while you’re there. The events you didn’t expect to go to and the films you didn’t think you’d watch tend to be the best. That was certainly the case for me this year when I, at the last minute, decided to sneak in a screening of A24’s Undertone towards the end of my festival experience.

Hydrate! Eat!

It’s not the most insightful advice, but important nonetheless. Festivals are intense, and it’s easy to forget to take care of yourself. Keep your water bottle filled and snacks stocked in your bag. Your body will thank you for it.

Go for it! You deserve to be there.

I have to wrap this up by offering some mom advice: don’t be like me when I was contemplating applying to Sundance’s Press Inclusion Initiative the first time. Don’t think these spaces are not accessible to you, even if you’re just starting out.

I had barely a handful of film reviews under my belt when I applied to the initiative. I thought I was insane for applying. But I let my love of film and writing about it outweigh my imposter syndrome, and I’m so grateful I did. I’ve watched incredible films and connected with peers who have inspired me and helped push my career forward. Those relationships have endured and made me feel a part of something I never thought I’d get to be a part of.

But most importantly, it’s changed the way I see myself as a writer. It’s offered a surge of confidence that I’m still riding off of. And I know it will for you, too.

Have any more questions about attending film festivals? Ask us below!

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. From spooky stories, to tenets on love, there’s something for your different writing goals. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

• The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize is officially hunting for the most thrilling new voices in fiction, poetry, and life writing. They are all about celebrating diverse backgrounds, and this year they’ve even added a translation category! Winners snag a fabulous £1,000 cash prize and a spot in their gorgeous print magazine. Review their guidelines and enter here before the June 30 deadline!

• Are you obsessed with internet culture? This call for Digital Art & Content is for you! MEMEZINE is looking for traditional or hybrid pieces that engage with memes, viral content, and pop culture. It’s the perfect time to explore how digital landscapes shape our world. Whether it’s your best work or your most chaotic, they want to see how you blur the lines between art and “content.” Find out more here and give them your best digital vibes!

• New Feathers Anthology is back and open for submissions for their Spring issue! They are on the hunt for quality fiction, poetry, visual art, and even short videos or music, literally no genre restrictions! Find more information here to see how you can be featured in their online magazine and year-end print anthology. Make sure to submit your previously unpublished work between February 1 and March 1!

• Calling all comedy geniuses! Greg from Chortle is looking for short humor pieces about love, dating, and romance (or the lack thereof!). If you have a funny, unique POV on relationships, think satire, parody, or absurdist lists, this is for you. Accepted pieces pay $100! Send in your pitches here and submit by February 6th to get published just in time for the heart-filled season.

• Luna Station Quarterly is looking for incredible speculative fiction written by women-identified authors! They truly believe women write the coolest characters and they want to show your stories to the world, regardless of your experience level. Interested? See more here if you identify on the woman end of the gender spectrum and want to share your magic! Submissions are open now through February 15th.

• For those who love things a little spooky and bizarre, The Phantom Pulse is open for submissions! They are looking for traditional horror, dark fantasy, and “the weird”—basically anything that haunts the grey corners of humanity. They especially encourage writers of all backgrounds and identities to share their inevitable darkness. Find out more here and let your quiet obsessions take the lead!

• Griffith Review 93 is diving “Into the Archive” and they want your pitches! This edition explores how the internet reshapes our personal and collective memories. It’s a gorgeous opportunity to reflect on how we record information, which is so relevant during a month focused on honoring history and legacy. Find out more here and submit your secrets and surprises by February 15th!

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This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. From travel magazines, to fellowships, there’s something for your different writing goals. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

• Doric Literary Magazine’s submission window is open! They’re looking for 1000-8000 word short stories. No submission fee or cover letter is required (we love to hear it!) and reprints are also okay. The pay is on the lower side ($10USD / $14CDN / £7.50 GBP for new work), but still a great opportunity. Submit one story at a time to doric.literary@gmail.com. Expect a response from them soon, they usually get back to folks after two weeks. And visit Doric’s website for more info.

• The Berlin Review’s submission window is also open! They’re interested in short stories, flash fiction, poetry and essays. Check out their guidelines here.

• Always dreamt of working on your writing in Europe? Then The Take World x Slow Burn writing fellowship is for you. Their upcoming retreat this Spring offers fully funded scholarships that covers: board for the week at our poolside mansion; all writing activities and workshops; beach hikes and yoga; breakfasts, lunches, snacks, wine & welcome and closing restaurant meals. 🥘; chat, community and inspiration around new and established writers who get it, and black and bookish goodie bags. Find out more here and apply before Jan. 20 here.

• HAD is open for submissions! They’re looking for 750 words for prose (or 2 micro pieces of equal combined length) 1-2 poems & hybrid pieces (each no longer than 2 pages). Find out more here.

• Trotters, a new publication, is in need of travel writers! Please send pitches to gofortrotters@gmail.com. They’re interested in funny, unusual writing, rather than hotel, museum and cocktail bar recommendations. Pays a flat rate of £200.

• Matador is looking freelance travel stories. They cover travel world wide, but it’s important to note that their readers are mostly based in the U.S. Rates for stories range from $200-300, depending on the extent of the story, any research/interviews required, the writer’s experience/background, and any additional work required.

• Tulika from The Juggernaut, the largest South Asian diaspora publication globally, is commissioning features; and is on the hunt for business and tech ideas. “You don’t need to be South Asian to write for us, but you should have a strong curiosity for South Asian issues,” she emphasizes. See her tweet here and for more information, check The Juggernaut’s pitch guideline.

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. From multi-generational explorations to climate-themed essays, there’s something for everyone. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

• OFF-MENU MAGAZINE is looking for pitches for its third issue! The publication is on the hunt for multi-generational family projects in the food and beverage world, with an emphasis on family history — how knowledge, labour, memory, and identity are passed down, reshaped, or left behind over time. “We’re open to pitches from anywhere in the world, and to a wide range of interpretations of the theme.” They are looking for long-form writing (features and personal essays), but are also open to pitches in other formats, including short-form writing (recipes, poetry), photo essays, and visual work. Off-Menu is also commissioning photographers to create imagery to accompany selected written features; photographers can submit a portfolio to be considered. General pitches are due January 11, 2026 (9am ET) and photography portfolios are due January 18, 2026 (9am ET). Find out more here

• Calling all lover birds ahead of Valentine’s Day! ANGEL FOOD MAGAZINE is looking for fiction + poetry and broad + imaginative interpretations of love. Submit your work by Jan. 15 and find out more here.

• JOURNAL OF AFRICAN YOUTH LITERATURE is open to submissions! They’re looking for climate-themed pieces. Send in your pitches by 11:59 PM (WAT) on January 31, 2026. Review their guidelines here.

• UBWALI LITERATURE is open to submissions! They’re looking for short stories, essays, visual art (including photography) and poems. They recommend reading their submission guidelines before submitting your work. Deadline is Jan. 31 at midnight CAT. Once you’ve reviewed their guidelines, submit here.

• Mykenna Maniece, an associate editor at BUSINESS INSIDER, is looking for freelance writers to work on lifestyle stories. She’s on the hunt for first-person pieces with strong takeaways and/or service angles! Rates begin at $230 for a 600-word piece. Find out more here.

• Shannon from SLATE is back from maternity leave and she’s looking for pitches! She’s particularly interested in health and science opinion and analysis, and/or with a first person angle, as well as features (2,500+ words, deeply reported) that turn a big idea on its head. Pitch her at shannon.palus@slate.com and find out more here.

In our second guest essay for For the Girls? month, Oladoyin explores the unhealthy financial habits she inherited from her mother, how she’s unlearning them, and what this reveals about financial literacy among African women.

I finally bought the Bawsty dress— the one I had eyed for months, years even. Mesmerized by its easy femininity, the way it hugged bodies that looked like mine, the ruffles that danced and accentuated every curve and honored the stature of a tall girl like me, I’d obsessively watch the dress go from in stock to sold out every time I refreshed the website. The dress was everything I was and wanted to be— the perfect garment to mark my transition from girlhood to adulthood. But it was a pipe dream, as the notion of being an adult was complicated by my inability to get a stable income.

For context, I’m a 24-year-old post-graduate, just two years out of university. Like many navigating the early days of adulthood, I’ve had to rely on a variety of jobs to get by. With a weekly salary of around 7,000 NGN and, as a freelance writer, only managing to secure two or so bylines a year, my earnings went almost exclusively to girlie essentials, internet data, and my savings account—often stretching me to the limit.

In summation, I was broke.

And I stayed that way until the middle of this year, when I received my biggest payday to date. The Bawsty dress immediately crossed my mind. I could now afford it comfortably, twice even, but the first thing I did was hesitate. I calculated, recalculated, doubted myself, and then doubted my doubt. The one day I woke up and, in an act that may be mindless for some but for me, was the epitome of reckless rebellion, I did it. I bought the dress. I felt equal parts triumphant and irresponsible. Like the joy of finally getting my dream dress, followed by an intense crash out.

Amid my spiral, in which my mother’s disdain haunted my mind, I sent whatever I had left in my account to my savings app PiggyVest in a desperate attempt to save myself from… well, myself.

I continued to torture myself long after I bought the dress. I ran to my friends’ DMs to confess the terrible financial decision that I had just made. My mother’s voice was still in my head, chastising me for making such a “senseless” purchase. That was the worst thing money could be in our house: senseless. For my mother, spending money on dresses was a waste of resources. You only needed one dress, maybe three in total to be presentable in public— as long as the garment wasn’t damaged, there was no need for another. A pious woman who preached frugality in church, she often praised the fact that, at one point in her life, she only owned one shirt and pair of shoes.

What mattered most was saving—not for a specific goal, but simply saving, as if to escape something. I can’t make any financial decision—from buying groceries to that gorgeous Bawtsy dress now hanging in my closet—without the crippling weight of financial paranoia.

And I have to find a way to let it go.

When your money belongs to everyone but you

Growing up in Nigeria as the last daughter of a family of six, I quickly learned that money is communal. It was never used for the desires or even needs of the individual, it was always about our community. When my siblings and I were young, we had saving boxes called kolos where we dropped the money visitors would give my parents to buy us stuff. At the end of the year we’d break them to access the funds, which were spent on Christmas gifts (for me, that was usually a new dress). It was sacred, but short lived.

I soon aged out of receiving money from visitors, but the notion of money being communal remained. I was no longer a recipient of that support— I, along with the women who raised me, was a part of a system. A system built on responsibility and sacrifice. No more Christmas dresses for me.

I watched the women in my life be sidelined by the financial demands of family life. My uncle’s wife quickly quit her job to support him. My mother, as the first daughter, took on the responsibility of supporting my aunts who couldn’t support themselves. Mrs. Doris*, a family friend, had to put her dreams on hold when her husband left her with three children she now had to fully provide for. These were the financial habits I studied—and until I bought that Bawtsy dress, I hadn’t realized how deeply those examples had shaped me.

And I’m not alone. A recent study by the journal of behavioural and experimental economics, reveals that financial biases, knowledge and saving habits of parents can be passed down to their children. It posits that children raised by loss-averse parents are more likely to adopt similar risk preferences themselves, especially daughters who closely model their caregivers.

But inheritance alone doesn’t explain African women’s relationship with money. Structure does.

According to the IMF, women across sub-saharan Africa continue to face limited access to formal financial systems from bank accounts to credit and collateral. Only about 37% of women have access to a bank account, compared to 48% of men. Some of which stems from patriarchal beliefs of men being the provider, families prioritizing and investing in male children’s education. For some, it means the dominance of the man and the perception that “money and women don’t mix.”

Many women internalise these societal beliefs that men are more knowledgeable leading them stepping aside from long-term financial planning.

“Women tend to leave financial decisions to their husbands, not opening accounts in their own name, and seeking their husband’s advancement,” Joy Umoru, a banker and serial entrepreneur, explains. “We see how they also tend to play safe when it comes to their businesses, barely taking loans from banks, but men do without giving it second thoughts.”

The IMF also notes that African women are more likely to exclude themselves from investment and credit markets not only because of fear, but because of fear of loss, rejection and instability that discourages participation. In economies without strong social safety nets, losing money might not be that lesson others think it to be, but a whole crisis.

My financial paranoia shows not only in the way I save, but also in my reluctance to invest. In 2020, I lost a significant amount of money to a Ponzi scheme—a scam I fell for largely because of my financial illiteracy. Like with the Bawtsy dress, I tormented myself over the mistake. I thought about how hard my mother must have worked to support me as a child, and how I had disrespected her efforts through my recklessness. The biggest lesson I took from it was fear—fear of putting my hard-earned money into anything.

I talked about it with my mother recently and I asked her why many women her age shy away from investments. One of the reasons, she said, is “women have to carry the family in case investments go south. You don’t invest money for feeding or running the home. That is where the woman’s finances come in. What happens if the investment doesn’t yield a result?”

What she’s really asking is: What happens when African mothers aren’t there to financially pick up the pieces?

How financial fear runs through generations of African women

In her dissertation titled “Experiences of Black Tax by Professional Women in South Africa”, Banzi Diko exposes what it means for professional black women to exert themselves emotionally and financially. The consequences of having to show up financially, almost under any given circumstances, often result in emotional turmoil. Constantly redirecting income toward family needs limits career growth, restricts savings and makes investment feel dangerous.

When I spoke to Mrs. Chinonyerem Obadiah, a mother of six, she opened up about how that struggle plays out in her life.

“I go the extra mile to provide for my family especially when my partner refuses to assist. I cover up and raising kids while saving at the same time is difficult for me,” she confessed.

It affects her well-being too. “I am still struggling financially, I don’t know the point to start building financially as responsibility is heavy on me” she continued.

And it’s not just responsibility, it’s perception too. My mother explained that her generation feared financial prosperity as, for women, it was often linked to sex work.

“You could be an educated woman and still be afraid to invest because being rich as a woman is synonymous to being a prostitute,” she told me. “That was the stereotype while we were growing. Most women with feeble minds couldn’t bear such so they just forgo and leave those kinds of decisions in the hands of their husbands so as to save the marriage or men in the society at large.” She tells me of a friend of hers “whose husband was threatened by her wealth” and left her “because of jealousy.”

“No woman wishes to go through that,” she added.

It may seem archaic, but those fears ripple through generations: the fear I carry was born of hers, hers of my grandmother’s, and so on.

But I don’t want to continue the cycle.

The pride of being a pillar

While the financial burden women across Africa face every day, there is a sense of duty and pride that comes with that sacrifice.

“My children are my responsibilities,” my mother said. “I’d rather have just one underwear just to satisfy them. I wouldn’t mind what outsiders say, but just focus on my duty as a mother.”

She also offered me a piece of advice. “Do not be discouraged by listening to men who claim your wealth threatens them. Do not also depend on them. Have a community that keeps you on track and take their advice.”

Her advice mirrors what Mrs Chinonyerem told me about her daughter’s financial decisions, which contrasts with her own.

“She understands the usefulness of being financially independent,” she told me. “I didn’t have such an opportunity. She works hard for her money. She saves and she’s been teaching me about starting to save small and invest in gold.”

On choosing a different ending

I know it’s time for me to improve my relationship with money. I don’t want to feel this paranoia, burden and fear anymore. I don’t believe my mother’s financial habits are totally wrong, she had her reasons and they were noble ones, but because life is for the living, and it is far too fickle to spend it only preparing for disaster.

And I’m not the only African daughter choosing a different path.

Mariam, a young woman I spoke to who doesn’t “think before spending on my family,” but “overcalculates” when it comes to spending on herself,” now has stricter financial boundaries.

“I have now enforced a family support budget and I stick to it,” she said. “Outside of that, when they ask, I simply say that I don’t have.”

Adannaya, Chinonyerem Obadiah’s daughter, who also struggles to spend money on herself, plans on “investing in gold, lands and stock while concealing them from her partners.”

And Raheemat Elewade, who always felt the need to settle a household bill after buying something for herself, is working on getting more comfortable with spending money “on things that make us happy and make our lives easier, having a portion for long-term savings and safer investments like stocks or mutual funds.”

We still plan to honour our mothers, but rebuilding their ideologies like being firm with our choices, at the same time being financially stable. And maybe that is the real inheritance.

*names have been changed to protect identities.

Guest writer Nabulu Leuria explores the phenomenon and how it has helped her find solace, joy and freedom.

I was twelve years old the first time someone corrected my femininity.

I had just come home with a pair of rhinestoned denim sneakers. They were loud, sparkling and youthfully joyous. I remember sitting on my bed, peeling back the tissue paper slowly, already planning outfits in my head. My excitement eclipsed any thought of how my mom and grandmother might react to the shoes. I imagined smiles, maybe a little teasing about my newfound flashiness—or perhaps no reaction at all.

Instead, I was met with unmistakable disdain.

My grandma spoke first. Hizo si viatu msichana anafaa kuvaa (those are not shoes a girl should wear), she told me. My mom’s response was sharper, more urgent.

Why couldn’t I just listen when I was being guided?

What has lingered with me in the years since I brought those shoes wasn’t their words, but the expressions on their faces when they spoke.The way their eyes travelled from the shoes to my body, as if they were checking where I had misstepped. The way love and correction arrived in the same breath. These were the women who taught me how to sit properly on plastic chairs at family gatherings, how to greet elders without rushing, how to lower my gaze when speaking to someone older and how to move through the world with respect stitched into my posture. They taught me that how you carry yourself is a language. That the body speaks before the mouth does. That a girl’s presentation is read as a reflection of her home.

So when they frowned at the sneakers, it did not feel like simple disapproval. It felt like I had embarrassed something larger than myself. I felt myself quietly shrink. Like something had been adjusted inside me without my consent.

That day, femininity stopped feeling like play. It became something you could get wrong.

In many African households, girlhood is brief. Responsibility arrives early and stays. Girls are taught to notice what needs doing before it’s said out loud. To clear plates without being asked. To greet visitors properly. To sit still when adults are talking. To understand that respectability is not just personal, it is communal.

You are not only yourself. You are someone’s daughter. Someone’s niece. Someone’s future wife. And your behavior is not your own. It carries other people’s names.

Joy is allowed, but only if it does not interrupt duty. Endurance is praised. Silence is often mistaken for maturity.

Standing there with those sneakers, I learned that womanhood came with conditions. And that those conditions would be enforced not just by men, but by women who loved me. Women who believed they were preparing me for survival.

As a child, I believed adults spoke down to you because you were young and one day, when you were older, it would stop. Adolescence, which made its debut shortly after the sneakers, taught me otherwise. The tone changed, but the scrutiny remained. Correction became subtler, often arriving as snarky comparisons from peers or relatives’ comments like, Your friend got married, na wewe je? It was less direct than the sharp corrections of aunties and older women, but just as piercing. It was quieter. Less negotiable.

As a teen, I’d had already begun editing myself. I reached for neutrals without thinking. Glitter disappeared. Loudness softened. Brightness felt risky. I learned that being taken seriously required restraint. I was not expressing myself. I was managing perception.

That management followed me into adulthood. The requirements of womanhood make the scrutiny of adolescence feel like child’s play. And I’ve often felt like it came with an invisible contract I had never agreed to sign. One that included terms like endless emotional labor. Aesthetic discipline. Gratitude for bare-minimum respect. To be a woman was to be managed by family, partners, workplaces, and increasingly, by algorithms. And it’s all too much.

That’s why I, like so many young women today, am making the active choice to return to girlhood— not because to satiate nostalgia cravings or correct some imagined childhood fantasy, but as an act of relief.

In recent years, the word “girl” has been everywhere online. There are the “it-girls” with curated apartments and the “clean girl” aesthetic (though that’s quickly making way for a return to 2016-era full glam looks). Adult women are relishing in making “girl dinners,” leaning on “girl math” to rationalize frivolous financial behavior and taking “hot girl walks.” These choreographed displays of girlhood are relentless and coercive, but also thrilling and communal. Though I do feel pressure to pick a lane sometimes, I also feel encouraged to rediscover the girl in me I thought I’d lost years ago.

Is that what lies at the heart of the girlhood trend: a renewed sense of connection, freedom and power shared among women?

It may be—according to Robin Wasserman, who articulated it best a decade ago in an article for Literary Hub.

“If there is a thematic message encoded in the ‘girl’ narratives, I think this is its key: the transition from girlhood to womanhood, from being someone to being someone’s wife, someone’s mother,” she wrote. “‘Girl’ attunes us to what might be gained and lost in the transformation, and raises a possibility of reversion. To be called “just a girl” may be diminishment, but to call yourself “still a girl,” can be empowerment, laying claim to the unencumbered liberties of youth.”

For my friend Stacy, 25, girlhood feels exactly like that. It also gives her the room to welcome imperfection and the unknown.

“It’s about giving myself permission to not have it all figured out,” she explained to me. “Your twenties are supposed to be the years you have all the fun, but also have a five-year plan. Most days, I don’t even have a five-minute plan! Girlhood lets me embrace that uncertainty without feeling like I’m failing at being an adult woman.”

I couldn’t agree more.

But, as with most things in life, there is another side to girlhood. While it can be empowering and freeing, it is often misread as an abdication of power—and, in many ways, dismissed as performative, especially on social media.

“The problem is that The Girl has become insufferable through constant repetition, used as marketing slogans and low-hanging Instagram captions and clickbait headlines,” Daniel Rodgers penned for Vogue in 2023. “Girls just wanted to have fun, but girls have also become successful, if not meaningless, viral commodities.”

Rodgers’ critique matters; girlhood can slide into an aesthetic that feels commodifying and sometimes reductive. And it can be difficult to tell which portrayals of girlhood are inspired by empowerment and which are backed by the pursuit of profit, whether social or financial. It’s something I negotiate with as I indulge in girlhood as a means of escaping the harsh realities of being an African woman today.

Reflecting on my own return to girlhood, it’s not a complete rejection of womanhood, but rather a refusal to subscribe to the version of femininity built on compliance and self-erasure that was handed to me. To me, girlhood is a private room women step into when the weight becomes too heavy—a place where you can exist without proving anything at all.

I think again of those rhinestoned sneakers, and how something so small taught me about surveillance and control. Now, as I’ve begun to reacquaint myself with that version of who I was and still am, I can see a path toward African womanhood that more closely resembles our younger selves—one that makes room for curiosity, indulgence, and imagination.

I’m still at the dawn of my womahood— the path ahead is long and likely winding, but I find solace knowing I can take the “girl” with me. Not because I refuse to grow up, but because I refuse to disappear. And if that means disappointing aunties, algorithms, and outdated scripts, so be it. I will be in my rhinestoned sneakers, continuing to learn how to walk back to myself.

Over the past few years, I’ve seriously contemplated— some would say obsessed, my mother certainly would— why I’ve lost so many friends in adulthood. For a while, I quietly wondered whether something was wrong with me as I replayed every friend breakup and fizzle since college. Then, frustrated by my own ennui, I decided to go straight to the source and figure out why that had been my experience. And I wrote about it, which, while it gave me some sense of peace, opened the floodgates of introspective examination and critique of the loneliness epidemic most of us are battling.

And then at one point, sometime in the middle of this year, I realized I was over it. Really over it. “I’m tired of carrying this,” I remember telling my boyfriend once during a particularly satisfying session of venting, “it’s too much. I need to move on, personally and professionally.”

And that I did: I put down any pitches related to loneliness and friendships. I created Bad African to be a place where I could explore other topics close to my mind and heart and, on a personal level, I made peace with my lacklustre social life. Friends will come, I reminded myself, stay open, and they will come.

With that, my contemplations— obsession, I think we should officially call it— about loneliness dissipated. Until one day, I was scrolling on TikTok, my preferred way of unwinding, and I found myself very unrelaxed. One video after another seemed to preach a different, but crucial, expression of womanhood. “Soft girl,” this. “Black cat”, that. “Husband girl,” this. “Girls girl”, that. And so on and so on and so on.

I ferociously sped past them, my eyes stuck in a permanent role. Jesus Christ, I thought to myself, jaw clenched, this is too much.

Just as I was about to put the phone down, notifications from a group chat I’m in popped up, informing me of messages from a semi-irate friend of mine chastising our fellow group chat members for not checking in enough. And with that, I toggled on Do Not Disturb and enjoyed that blissful silence for the rest of the day.

Let me make it clear: though I do have trouble with the term “girls girl” (or, at least, the way it can be weaponized on social media), I have identified as one my whole life. I found solace in sleepovers— not at this big age, though, but that’s a conversation for another day. I’d happily give up plans to rush to a girlfriend in need. If a guy broke your heart, I’d be the first to suggest egging his house with rotten eggs and a palate-clensing night out with the girls. I still crave quality time with a girlfriend who you can share the parts of yourself with that no one else gets to see. I still believe in that.

But I can’t ignore how things have changed. I often isolate myself from my girlfriends here. Sure, that may be for a myriad of reasons (I’m struggling to foster real connections because adulting is hard, blah blah blah…), but as I abandoned my phone for a whole day just to get a break for the relentless hypercategorization of womanhood online that, in my opinion, sometimes bleeds into real life, I couldn’t help but wonder…

Is social media alienating me from other women? Like, am I some kind of woman incel???

It may be (not the latter, of course. I hope!), we’ll see by the end of this essay, but we have long-known social media’s significant influence on the way we see each other and ourselves. However, in recent years, it seems as though the well-known pitfalls of social media have… intensified. Now it’s no longer about sharing snaps of the coffee you drank that day or even curated carousel posts of your vacation. It’s about embodying an aesthetic, an era, a brand that is equal parts authentic slop and aspirational goddess.

As James Greig argued in a Dazed article published earlier this year, everyone is a content creator now. And in the content creation game, the standard is sky high for everyone. But for women, it’s in the exosphere.

“Social media rewards a polished narrative, and womanhood has never been a polished narrative,” Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Melissa Klass explains to me via email. “It’s a moving target. When a platform rewards clarity, cohesion, and ‘the aesthetic,’ it pressures women to compress something inherently expansive into something consumable.”

Her diagnosis makes me think of my own work, most of which exists online. As I was crafting Bad African and other social media content to support my “brand” (yuck, forgive me), I agonized over how to mould the truth of who I am with the trends and aesthetics that dominate social media’s perception of womanhood. Am I a lover girl or more of a pop culture commentator girlie? Am I a “here’s why my opinion is better than yours” girl or more of a “here’s me doing a cute little dance to this trending audio” kinda girl? The jury is still out on that.

“This comes up constantly,” Klass tells me when I ask if her clients have experienced similar struggles. “Many women feel like they’re being asked to choose between pre-built identities: the Soft Girl, the Wellness Mom, the Boss Babe, the Tradwife, the Hot Mess, the Edgy Creative. None of these archetypes is inherently bad, but they’re limited. They flatten complexity.”

So a good amount of us are feeling it— that pressure to define ourselves based on the digital world today. And it’s impacting two crucial things: how we see ourselves and how we’re connecting to each other.

“It’s hard not to compare myself to the polished versions of womanhood I see online—women who seem effortlessly beautiful, productive, or always ‘put together,’” jazz singer and a personal pal of mine, Aisha Jemil,a told me via email. “I know those images are curated, but they can still make me question whether I’m doing enough or measuring up.”

Same, girl. And as I read her responses, I wonder if that’s the source of my self-inflicted alienation from women: am I rejecting the very women I compare myself to and therefore feel exhausted by because I never feel like I measure up? And is that fair, or holding me back from the kind of friendships with women I miss and crave?

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Perinatal Mental Health Therapist Shontel Cargill explains that comparison and pressure women deal with on social media is making “authentic connection” more difficult than ever.

“When everyone is performing a polished or idealized version of themselves, vulnerability may feel risky,” she tells me via email. “Subtle insecurity, judgment, or competition can emerge even in otherwise supportive spaces.”

But social media isn’t all bad, of course. It’s instrumental in fostering community and Jemila tells me she’s enjoyed that camaraderie.

“Social media also connects me to women who are honest, messy, imperfect, and real,” she shares with me. “That balance helps me stay aware of the pressure while reminding me that womanhood isn’t something to perform—it’s something to live.”

I’ve felt that too. I’ve found the corners of social media that make me feel more at home in my body and more open to embrace the parts of myself that I’m not the most fond of. It’s also made me laugh about the multitude of experiences embedded in womanhood, like under boob sweat or those infamous period poops. It reminds me of those prepubescent moments of radical honesty that make you exhale and remember you’re not alone.

I’ve also experienced that sense of community thanks to my work. Receiving messages from readers who responded to something I wrote will never not blow my mind and selfishly, it makes me feel so seen. But Klass says that feeling comes with its caveats.

“Many women also confuse visibility with vulnerability,” she explains. “Being seen online doesn’t mean being known. Vulnerability requires discernment and safety, not exposure. So a big part of the work is helping clients rebuild a sense of internal safety and learn the difference between authenticity and transparency. Authenticity is about congruence — not about revealing everything.”

I think about the incredible bravery of women on social media who share their insecurities, struggles with fertility, grief and trauma. Yes, their candor is illuminating and makes people feel less alone. But at what cost? And how, I wonder, may it impact the way they connect to other women. Do they feel a certain responsibility and with that, a sense of exhaustion?

Because the lines get blurry between digital and IRL spaces, it’s more important than ever to, as the kids say, touch grass. But in this case, I don’t mean finding solace in nature. I mean looking inward and reminding yourself of the thing that makes you feel closer to the truth of who you are. Njengo Mbanga tells me to keep the comparison, pressure and subsequent isolation at bay, she does just that.

“I look inside myself for grounding and to remind myself [of] who I am as a person and a woman,” she tells me via email. “As hard as it is in this day and age, I make sure to assess myself from [the] inside out, not the other way round. I tell myself every single day I shall not let insanity be my potion, and that is what will happen if I let social media define who I am as a woman.”

It’s easier said than done sometimes, but ultimately, Mbanga is right. When it comes to facing the pressure and comparison women face on social media and its effects, the answer is inward. In my heart, I know who I am as a woman, a writer, a daughter, a girlfriend and all of the multitudes of who I am. I also know that I don’t hate women. I’m not some kind of woman incel.

But my feelings of isolation are real and, as I soft-launched earlier, the result of a myriad of reasons. Social media is probably one of them. But I chose to believe that what is in you can surround you, if you listen hard enough. Everything else is just noise.

On a forgettable Saturday night sometime in 2024, a girlfriend of mine— one whom I still adore, I feel compelled to note at the top of this essay— met up for a much-needed catch-up. We made the plan earlier that week— per our conversation, I was expecting a cozy night at a cozy lounge-restaurant hybrid where we’d sip on wine, maybe a cheeky cocktail if the vibe permitted, and fill each other in on what we’d been up to the last couple of months.

“My friend’s band is performing tonight,” she texted me on Saturday morning. “Let’s meet there instead.” A mild groan to myself made way for a sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind if plans with a friend divert to involving more people every now and again, but in the five years it’s been since I moved back to Kenya, I’ve noticed that more often than not, planning a successful one-on-one link-up with a gal pal is a rarity. In this hyper-social ecosystem that is deeply embedded in Kenyan culture, other people always have to be involved.

Kui, stop being a hermit and get down with the get down, I told myself as Saturday night quickly approached. And that’s what I did: I put on a cuter than originally planned outfit and met my friend for a night on the town.

I had a lot of catching up to do when I arrived. My friend was clearly a couple cocktails in, flashing flirty smiles to the group of men she was sitting with. She greeted me with enthusiastic slurs, and I laughed (I also made sure to flag down a waitress to kindly request a gin and tonic STAT). My friend’s subconscious trailed off into oblivion and I was stuck talking to one of our much older companions. He was nice enough and we awkwardly talked about his affinity for Harley Davidsons and his 8-year-old daughter. That gin and tonic couldn’t come quick enough.

After we halfheartedly cheered for the band’s set of 2010s covers (think off key, but spirited renditions of “24k Magic” and Adele’s “Hello”), I proposed a change of scenery. Another friend of ours was at Alchemist— not my venue of choice, nor the friend I was currently with, but we figured we may as well show face. As the band packed up their equipment, I pulled out my phone to order an uber.

“What are you doing?” My friend asked me quizzically. I explained, but her confusion persisted. “They’ll take us,” she said, palpably disgusted by my attempt to figure out our transportation situation. She then launched into a lengthy diatribe about my inability to wield my looks to garner support— if that’s even the word to use— from men. “You’re so pretty,” she told me before adding, “they got us.” Like the two go hand-in-hand.

She was a little tipsy and again, I adore her, so I choked down my fury but it remained, floating on the shore of my consciousness. Another gin and tonic and a couple songs in the same, predictable Alchemist playlist later and my night was officially over.

I thought about my friend’s lecture for days after that— namely, how it mirrors so many other similar “interventions” I’ve received from girlfriends since moving back to Kenya in 2020. “You’re not in line with your femininity,” a former friend once told me after probing questions about the financial support I get from my boyfriend (specifically, why I don’t require him to fund my manicures and silk presses). Countless intimate friend catch-ups have been usurped by some DJ or sugar daddy-wannabe titillated by girlish naivete, waving around money clips in hopes we’ll let them whisk us away to some Kilimani Airbnb for a fuck.

Wow, I’m really talking my shit in this essay.

In all seriousness, the trend has been undeniable: despite socioeconomic status, employed or unemployed, educated or forced to navigate fewer academic opportunities, the conclusion is resounding: in Kenya, women want to be kept.

My friend, the one whom I love but was desperate to escape after she recommended I use whatever pretty privilege I may have to score a ride with her friend’s band, is beautiful and accomplished— a hard worker with an illustrious career I deeply admire and a big heart. I don’t know much about her financial situation— perhaps because we have yet to achieve a deep level of closeness— but I know she’s revered. Employed. And still, here she is, seemingly relying on and, in a lot of ways that night and others that turned out similarly, performing for men. Is this the face of a woman who wants to pay everything for her? And if it is…

Does that mean the independent woman is dead in Kenya?

If so, there’s a myriad of good reasons. One of the biggest, I’d argue, being our economy. Despite significant progress in Kenya over the past few decades, women are still marginalized and afforded less financial opportunities than our male counterparts. According to a UN Women study, women are still employed less than men (60.3% versus. 70.4%), encouraging a pay gap of 9.5%. Only half of the “legal frameworks that promote, enforce and monitor gender equality under the SDG indicator, with a focus on violence against women, are in place,” hinting at structural and societal issues holding women back from making the money they need to be independent.

And those structural and societal issues reach far beyond the financial sector. They’re in the anatomy of Kenyan culture— one that, like many others, demands so much of women. Our mothers and grandmothers were forced to be pillars of their communities, owning the home, child-rearing and most importantly, supporting their husbands who society coerced them into securing at any cost. Tale as old as time.

Now here we are, still wrestling with those confines but now we have to be Girl Bosses too. And advocates. Philanthropists. Community organizers. Mothers. Lovers. The multitudes go on and on and on. And at every turn, no matter whether that’s into a nursery, a boardroom or hell, both, we’re met with limitations and judgement. Or no one notices us at all.

An anonymous young Kenyan woman tells me of a personal experience that highlights these structural and societal issues. “I once was interviewed for a job and the interviewer blatantly asked me to my face if I was planning on having children in the next three years because they didn’t want anyone who would take maternity leave at least for 3 years and that was really offensive,” she wrote to me.

The COVID-19 pandemic and controversial 2024 Finance Bill have only exacerbated these issues, forcing Kenyan women into a corner. And for many, it feels easier to forgo their independence in favor of stability. And survival.

“Fewer opportunities in the economy pushes women towards the traditional roles and life,” another anonymous source told me. “It seems easier to revert to that life because we have been raised to fulfil those roles so they feel easier to navigate than pushing for something different in the hard economy.”

It makes sense, the notion that, in Kenya’s “patriarchal led” society, there is something familiar about returning to male-centeredness and a safety that comes with that norm. Yes, lots of our mothers and grandmothers were burned by that promise of safety, but its deep roots that go back generations still make it feel like an ideal. Like a dream almost, which is similar to the picture social media paints of that kind of lifestyle. And Kenyan women are buying into it.

“We are in a patriarchal system where growing up we know men provide and women build families in other ways,” another anonymous source explained, though she argues that this “kind of thought has been modernized” as women play more active roles in the home, especially if it’s in the name of supporting their spouses.

This return is starting to shape what modern feminism looks like in Kenya. While the third wave of feminism in the country circa the 1990s focused on equality and girl power, this new fourth wave, which I’d argue we’re in, is more muddled and oftentimes performative because of the sociocultural and political climate. And that confusion is impacting us emotionally and mentally.

“[It’s] making women dependent and more psychologically unstable. You find women being desperate to the point of letting their dignity slip away,” an anonymous young Kenyan woman wrote.

Another echoes, “it sets the tone for unempowered women who forgo their rights to maintain marriages and relationships.”

But this isn’t just happening in Kenya. It’s happening around the world and especially in the West. The media from that neck of the woods has long-pondered the growing popularity of tradwives and “soft girl” aesthetics as a means of escapism from today’s harsh realities. Independence— for everyone, as many have noted the unique struggles men are facing— is harder than ever, especially for women.

Social media isn’t helping either. TikTok has played an undeniable role in encouraging the tradwife/”soft girl” lifestyle, underscoring it as a dreamscape and ultimate example of femininity. And its chokehold on Kenyan culture is more than palpable. I have seen many TikTok videos by Nairobi babes preaching the importance of securing the bag by way of a man. Get your life girl, I say to them in my head, but do you need to do all that?

Maybe she doesn’t. And maybe she wants to. Both are totally fine, but with it can come a facade that can be a slippery slope.

“It’s helped create a certain population of women who want the high life without having to work for it. So they look for men to keep and maintain this Insta-perfect curated lifestyle,” another anonymous source told me.

And with that Insta-perfect lifestyle often comes loss. Loss of autonomy, of the right to become who you were meant to be on your own terms. It’s important I acknowledge that that diagnosis is inherently privileged— at the end of the day, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do— but, considering my aforementioned friend, it does seem like this trend reaches beyond financial need. Maybe it’s a social one. An emotional one.

An inherent one?

I do think it’s important to acknowledge how far we’ve come. The statistics are murky, as I’ve found in my research, but I feel it on the ground: Kenyan women have carved out so many new paths and spaces to excel, to connect, to just…be. Some of us are breadwinners now, which comes with its own set of trials and tribulations, while being mothers and wives and sisters and friends and everything in between. There is more room for the multitudes of female experiences to exist in Kenya and one anonymous Kenyan woman tells me that’s because things— namely, our mentality— have evolved.

“In my view, a lot of women have been shown shege [hardship or suffering, for our non Swahili speakers] by men and know the value of financial independence, that is why they are fighting for a place in work opportunities,” she told me. “Actually now the phenomenon coming up is men being the ones comfortable to stay home and leave work to the woman.”

So is the independent woman dead in Kenya? I’m not going to lie, it feels like she is a lot of the time, but I think ultimately, she isn’t. Kenyan women are making different choices for themselves considering a myriad of external factors, but one internal factor cannot be ignored: their own desire. I really try to police any feelings of judgement towards women who crave stability by way of a man, because isn’t that what upset me about my girlfriend’s diatribe and the many other “interventions” I’ve received from friends in the past?

Plus, to a certain extent, I do too.

Judging one another only distracts us from addressing the ways Kenyan culture still needs to evolve. We’re stronger together and all that jazz—another overdone cliché, yes, but one rooted in truth. Maybe if we start by ensuring there’s room for all of us—the independent women, the dependent women, and everyone in between—it’ll become a lot easier not just to survive, but to thrive.

Fresh off a career-defining Grammy nomination, powerhouse singer-songwriter Xenia Manasseh sat down with BA for a virtual conversation about what she wishes she knew at the dawn of her creative journey, how she navigates Kenya’s complicated music industry, and why structure is the key to success.

BA: What’s something you wish you knew about songwriting when you were starting out?

XM: I wish that I had discovered that I could write songs when I was still at Berklee. As much as I think about structure and technique I very often wonder how different my writing would be if I got a formal education in it.

BA: You’re living proof that Kenyan music is finally starting to get its flowers on a global scale. I’m curious, what do you think needs to happen within and outside of the industry here to continue to raise our global profile?

XM: I think that with the increase in structures on the music business side we’ll see a shift. Now that more labels are opening up on this side/artists are being signed to major labels I think we’re already seeing the changes in the consumption of Kenyan music locally and internationally. I also think some more music education is needed. I’m still learning as I go but I’ve realized quite a lot of musicians don’t know much about things like licensing or publishing or even music distribution. I think that both these things have actively been changing over the last few years and I feel like in a couple years the Kenyan music industry will have the motion it needs.

BA: It’s no secret that the music industry in Kenya isn’t the easiest to navigate (to be fair, what is industry) What are some of the industry’s pitfalls and what does its future look like in your opinion?

XM: Again I really always just say it’s structure. I confidently say that we have everything else… I feel like listening to the music from here genuinely gives me the same feeling as what I imagine opening a treasure chest full of treasure feels like. We just need avenues, some are being opened by the labels and companies coming in and others are being created from within, it’s only a matter of time.

BA: What advice would you give young Kenyans hoping to navigate the music industries both here and abroad?

XM: Hmm.. I’d say to stay true to their path. Just read something last night affirming this.. it said something along the lines of.. every creator in the world has an audience waiting for their art, they just have to be brave enough to create it. Find your pocket and never look back.

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. From travel and wildlife to flash fiction, there’s something for everyone. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

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• HYPERFOCUSHORROR, a magazine by and for diasbled and neurodivergent horror fans, is accepting horror poetry and prose submissions! They’re on the hunt for: movie reviews (especially of cult classics, horror from the 70s-00s, indie horror, queer horror, and genre-blending horror); Book reviews (roughly same preferences as their movie reviews); Interviews with horror photographers, filmmakers and horror drag artists. Find out more or apply here.

• BBC Wildlife Magazine is on the hunt for pitches exploring wildlife photography, species identification, conservation, latest nature news and wildlife watching holidays. Pay is typically in the £0.30-£0.40/word range. See their contributor guidelines here.

• Rest of World is committed to telling stories outside of the West, honouring the rapidly evolving digital world. They focus on and have a presence in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. Pay it usually $1/word (possibly more depending on the story). Find out their pitch guidelines here.

• The Parlor is accepting submissions for its first quartley themed issue. Their theme is The Borderlands of Identity: an exploration of what it means to live between worlds, across borders, and within shifting geographies of selfhood. Send in your pitches to lindsey@theparlormagazine.com. And find out more about the mag here.

• Strange Pilgrims is open to submissions! They’re pretty open. From their pitch call: “We love surreal, speculative, and fabulist stories; unhinged, lyric, and fragmented essays; voice-driven experimental narratives and slow-burn realism; cultural and literary criticism; hyper-intellectual riffs and children’s stories — so long as they move.” Pay is $200 for long-form fiction and $50 for flash. Get your pitches together fast, they’re accepting until Nov. 30.

• Ori Magazine is looking for stories that flip the script on the traditional travel space, prioritizing local contributors and creatives to tell global stories. Pay is $.50-$1/word for features and $200 for departments. Check out their contributor guidelines here.

• Vacanza, a new magazine founded by a team of travelers hungry for experimental travel journalism that speaks to Millennial and Gen-Z voyagers across the globe, is looking for pitches! From their pitch call: “For our first issue, we’re bringing our editorial ethos to life with Play Harder: a volume dedicated to the act of partying, one that views in-person celebration as a catalyst for unforgettable travel.” Get in your pitches by Dec. 10. Pay is $50-$300 depending on the work

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up your writing career, no matter where you live. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

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🆕 Opportunities You Won’t Want To Miss This Week

• BAD AFRICAN (your favourite Substack blog) is looking for pitches for its November essays! The theme is: For the girls? An honest exploration of the complicated dichotomy of modern womanhood. Kui is on the hunt for thought provoking essays with cultural and personal ties to female experiences. Email pitches to pr.badafrican@gmail.com by Nov. 21st.

• PREVENTION, a health publication that empowers readers with practical strategies to improve their physical, mental, and emotional well-being, is open to pitches from freelancers! They pay around $1-$2/word for freelance commissions and you can find out more about them and how to reach out here.

• QUEERAF wants pitches from early talent Trans+ writers and journalists. They’re looking for folks to write 700-1000 word history articles - one for each day of Trans+ History Week. QueerAF is offering writers a £175 stipend for their work. Find out more here.

• SLATE wants to assign a couple of features before the end of the year. You can pitch Jenée, who’s a big fan of personal essays (keep that in mind as your coming up with ideas), at jenee.desmond-harris@slate.com. Slate usually pays $1/word.

• ESQUIRE is looking for narrative features and personal essay pitches. Check out this Google form for more information. Rates vary from $0.50-$2/word and seem to be negotiated per writer.

• CAREFREE MAG is supporting Black writers who have been affected by recent layoffs. Find out more about their submission process here.

• THE REPUBLIC is dedicated its next couple of issues on Nigeria and they’re looking for pitches! They’re on the hunt for long form journalistic reporting on Nigerian issues/stories that need more attention, including writing and photojournalism that explores/unpacks Nigerian quirks/myths/urban legends to more urgent investigative pieces. Check out The Republic’s submission guidelines for more information.

This week, we have a great lineup of opportunities that will help ramp up you writing career, no matter where you live. And make sure you subscribe to Bad African for more essays, stories, writing tips, tricks, horror stories and more!

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🆕 Opportunities You Won’t Want To Miss This Week

• THE CJID - The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development is on the hunt for story pitches from journalists and newsrooms for its investigative reporting grants “Strengthening Democratic Resilience and Human Rights Through Media in Nigeria” project. Find out more here.

• Sports writers, this one’s for you: MEN’S HEALTH UK is looking for pitches around next year’s Six Nations Championships. Daniel is interested in stories about interesting players, coaches, training and innovation within the sport. Not too sure on rates, but Men’s Health US typically pays around $1-$2 per word. Find out more here

• AFTERMATH wants stories that highlight important, under-explored facets of gaming and technology, as well as stories that hold powerful figures to account. They’re interested in pitches that are focused on people rather than products, whether that’s developers and game workers, players, online and fan communities, or journalists. Pays $300-$500. More information can be found here

• THE NATION is dropping a new weekend essay series, The Weekend Read, championed by Alana. The new series will take the form of memoir, first-person narratives, and dispatches with a political through line. Pieces will come out every Saturday on the website and on The Nation’s Substack. Pitch you ideas for the series and get more information here. Pay is normally $0.25-$0.40/word.

• YAHOO NEWS is looking for great lifestyle and culture coverage — reported features and essays, stories that unearth or explain trends about the way we live now, and savvy cultural analysis. More information here

• RELIGION UNPLUGGED is accepting submissions from freelancers. They’re looking for news feature stories, opinion pieces as well as movie and book reviews. They cover various religions, not just one. Compensation is $200-$300/article, depending on length. Find out more here

I was doing research for my novel the other day, which, on this particular morning, consisted of thumbing through my old high school yearbooks to rediscover the deeply disturbing mind of the adolescent population circa the 2010s. Amid a sea of bodycon skirts and “HAGS” written in brightly coloured permanent markers, a love letter that occupied several front and back pages derailed me. It was written by my high school boyfriend. My first love. Aden (some of you may remember him as Adam from an essay I wrote in which I revisited a few of my past relationships). I stared at the pages for a while. Then read the letter over and over again, like I was looking for something. I’m not sure what. Then, hours later, as Aden’s letter was still lingering in my mind, I realised what it was I was searching for.

I wanted to remember.

Though there was a time in my life when I read that letter every day and studied every word etched in that chicken scratch writing of his, now, more than a decade after it was written, I realised I didn’t remember it at all. It was my lifeline in the weeks after his death. I didn’t have any recordings of his voice besides his music— which didn’t feel like my him, as selfish as that may be— and the love letter, the last thing that he wrote for me, felt like the only thing I had left. I’d imagine him reading it, sometimes to himself or to me, and he’d curse at himself for the spelling mistakes he missed or a metaphor he used and now thinks is lame. And I’d tell him, well, his ghost, that it was OK. It was perfect, and so was he. And for a fleeting moment, it felt like things were normal.

If I’m being honest, I wasn’t just haunted by the realisation that I forgot about Adam’s last love letter to me. What is still wrapping me in a straitjacket of guilt is the fact that I don’t remember much of Aden at all. In his letter, he wrote about a chicken dinner he made us one evening that was grossly undercooked. I ate it anyway, and we watched The Notebook. I don’t remember that. He wrote about the first time we met in front of the senior lockers of our school like a YA novel troupe. I don’t remember that. His laugh. I don’t remember that. This first time he told me he loved me. I actually do remember that, and I’m so happy it’s one of the few things my mind has held onto.

I know why I don’t remember him. It’s because I didn’t want to. For years. I didn’t want to remember him or how, at a time in my life where it felt like I was left adrift, the few anchors I knew severed from me, Aden wrapped himself around me and made sure I felt loved. I’ve always felt guilty about that decision— to live without him just for my peace of mind instead of relishing in how lucky I was to know and love him. That, plus the enormity I generally forget, has always made me wonder…

I don’t remember my dead first love. Is that weird?

Yuko Nippoda, Psychotherapist and spokesperson for UK Council for Psychotherapy, says it isn’t. “Grief is experienced in many different ways depending on the person and the situation,” she explains to me via email. “When you face the death of a loved one, especially if it is traumatic—for example, if you witnessed a person suffering immense pain before they passed away, your body can react with symptoms such as palpitations, sweating, numbness, speechlessness, breathlessness, or many other physical reactions.” I didn’t see Adam die, but shortly after learning of his death, I remember the haziness and pain. Like my body wanted to mimic what he felt in his final moments as a means of keeping him alive.

Krista Walker, LCSW, J.D. and clinical director at the Ohana Luxury Addiction Treatment Center in Kailua Kona, Hawaii, adds that with loss comes a flood of “stress hormones” and emotions that can impact “short-term memory.”

“This is why people might seem to be forgetful if they are grieving,” she added.

If they are still grieving, I repeated to myself. Is that why I don’t remember much about Aden, his death or our time together? Am I still grieving? It shakes me to my core, the thought that this terrible thing that happened when I was a teenager still has a hold on me in my 30s.

It, to a certain extent, would make sense. When Aden died, I responded with a newfound and steadfast determination to defy the odds. Not only was I not going to let his death destroy me, but I was also going to thrive. Thriving couldn’t have been farther from what I was doing, but you couldn’t tell me that then. I barreled through that grief, thinking I was conquering it; instead, like a tired cliché, I was just running from it.

Both Nippoda and Walker say that forgetting is a unique aspect of experiencing loss during adolescence. The former explained that at that time, loss “might not make sense to you, as it can be difficult for a young person to process such emotions.” That’s largely due to the brain still “developing” during adolescence, Walker told me via email.

“When grief occurs during the period, it can affect our formative memories,” she wrote. “It can also cause overwhelming anxiety, which can also impact memories.”

What if I want them back? Those memories of undercooked chicken and Aden’s laugh. Especially his laugh. Walker says the best way to do so is “talk with other family members who remember your loved one.”

“Ask them for details,” she recommends. “Share stories about your loved one. Sometimes their memories can help trigger yours.”

So that’s what I did next.

I reached out to Aden’s younger sister, Noora, who I still remember as a pig-tailed little girl who was curious older brother’s big, high school world. She was just 11 when her brother died. Now, to my shock, she’s a grown woman with a palpable generosity and maturity. She is as gracious as ever when I reached out to her in hopes she’d help me remember her brother.

“Growing up, I always looked up to my brother and wanted his approval. He was so cool and laid-back, and his humour and love for music were my earliest memories of his personality — the traits that shaped my own lens on life,” she wrote. Noora remembers Aden as a “being extroverted in the world but introverted at home” and always open to her being in his life. It’s the same warmth she has always extended to me, even before Aden passed.

What surprised me the most about her memories of her brother is the “ambitious” and “detail-oriented” guy she remembers. I recall Aden struggling in school and his deep anxieties about getting into college. But Noora reminds me of Aden’s steadiness and confidence, two things she’s tried to emulate in her own life.

“Even from a young age, I could sense how rich his mind was,” Noora shared with me. “I’ve always known he had a dimensionality that’s rare to find, even among people my age now. He extended empathy to others, and to me, in ways that went against the grain.”

Noora does acknowledge that “grief tends to highlight only the fondest of memories”, but at the end of the day, she’s well acquainted with the truth of who her brother was. And I’m so happy she has that closeness with him. I know that’s what he would have wanted.

“He was the disciplined, golden-child older brother who always kept his cool, while I was the spoiled little sister demanding everyone’s attention — often jealous of living up to him, yet endlessly inspired,” she wrote to me. “I’m grateful to have grown into so many of the qualities and morals he carried.”

I hope they’re qualities and morals I hope I’ve grown into, too.

During our virtual conversation, Noora asked a lot of questions about Aden and I’s time together. She wants to know about our friends and how we processed losing him at such a pivotal time in our lives. There’s so much I want to tell her, I remember thinking when listening to her voice notes, and that’s when it hit me: I remember Aden. Maybe not his laugh or the time he almost gave us salmonella with hopes to get into my pants, I’m sure. But I remember the parts of himself he gave to me: his hopes, his fears, his insecurities. His love. Like Noora, Aden has and continues to shape and mould me, even when it feels like I repressed our relationship so much that he’s disappeared, never to return.

I’m sure as I continue to delve back into that time of my life, more memories will resurface. But for now, knowing he’s in me, no matter what, is enough.

This week, we talked to powerhouse filmmaker Damien Hauser about how he secures funding for his projects, celebrating his Kenyan-Swiss identity in his work and realising his semi-autobiographical romance sci-fi film Memory of Princess Mumbi.

BA: What do you wish you knew about filmmaking when you were starting your career?

DH: That’s a bit hard to answer, because later in my filmmaking career, I had to re-learn many things I was already doing right when I first started. When I began, I didn’t take filmmaking too seriously. It was a hobby and something I did simply because it was fun, not because it was work. I was the opposite of a perfectionist. But the longer I worked in the industry and the more I learned how a professional set operates, the more it started to feel like a job. I eventually had to teach myself again not to take it too seriously, to have fun with it, and to trust my instincts. That’s when I also started shooting more spontaneously again, without the pressure of trying to make a “great” film.

BA: How do you pursue getting funding for your projects?

DH: I manage to make my films on very low budgets, mostly because I don’t pay myself and I take on most of the key roles from producing, directing, cinematography, editing and VFX. That allows me to save a lot of costs, and it also means I fully own my films so if there are any returns, they come back to me. Still, I always apply for funding. I mostly get rejections, but sometimes all it takes is one or two yeses to keep a project alive. It’s not the most sustainable model, but it was enough to just get by over the past few years. But I’d definitely encourage anyone who wants to live off filmmaking to apply for as many grants and funds as possible.

BA: How does your heritage and cultural background show up in your work?

DH: I grew up in Zurich, Switzerland, with a Swiss father and a Kenyan mother, so I was raised by two people with very different cultural backgrounds, which I guess really shaped me as a storyteller. I believe a story becomes rich when different views meet or even clash.

In my work, I always try to treat every character as a real human being. I don’t believe in “purely evil” people. Everyone has a reason for why they are the way they are, and I love exploring that and trying to understand what makes people tick.

BA: What advice would you give to Africans interested in filmmaking?

DH: This advice goes for anyone starting out and feeling like they can’t find a way into the industry. I think we’re living in an incredibly exciting time, one where more people can make films without needing permission or access to big systems.

To find your place in the industry, you first need to prove yourself, which often means making your first film independently. But today, we have the resources. You don’t need an expensive camera to make a beautiful film, and you can learn almost everything on YouTube. So my advice is to start with what you have and just make a film. I still make my films that way. Also, don’t tell stories that have already been told.

Find what’s unique in what you want to say.

I always ask myself: Why tell this story? What’s the element I’ve never seen in another film? It doesn’t have to be something big, but finding that unique aspect helps your film stand out and helps you grow as an artist.

Like many, I was transfixed by Ryan Coogler’s Sinners when I, admittedly way too late, watched it earlier this year. Beyond the titillating joy of not one, but two Michael B. Jordans (Not to sexualize him, his performance was dominating in the best way, but to be fair, how could you not sexualize MBJ?), the movie was an electrifying homage to the Diaspora and a reminder of the deeply-rooted connection between Black people around the world. In response, videos of Black creators sharing their family trees, many of them chronicling their experiences taking DNA tests to retrace their roots, took over TikTok. A pang of longing, one I felt while watching the Coogler film, returned. Longing, upon reflection, is a kinder description than what I was really feeling. That jolt more resembled jealousy than anything else.

It’s not a new feeling, by any means. I’ve felt it many times in my life, like when I stumble upon a random clip of Finding Your Roots on TikTok or when I was young, in school, and someone presented a family tree that went back generations, making the gaps in my own tracing of my heritage glaring and undeniable. I didn’t care much then— when you’re young, or at least in my experience, the priority is discovering who you are outside of your family, not because of it— but now, as I start to contemplate who I really am and consider having a family of my own, just knowing that I’m Kenyan and that I share a name with my paternal grandmother isn’t enough. I have to know more.

Before getting into the more I was searching for and the plan I devised to do so, here’s what I did know about my family history: I have a mom and a dad, Nancy and Tony, no siblings, one surviving grandparent (my aforementioned paternal grandmother) and a collection of cousins that seems to grow every time I go to a family function. I know my paternal grandfather has the same face as my dad, and he was the first Kenyan pilot to work for Kenyan Airways. I have vague memories of stories I only partially understood as they were told in a blend of Kikuyu, Swahili and English, of my paternal great-grandfather being some kind of revered Kikuyu chief. And I know my maternal grandmother had a store called Karibu Emporium by the University of Nairobi, where college students would seek refuge and an affordable plate of chips and sausage.

Beyond that, I knew nothing.

So I came up with a plan:

Step 1) Get a DNA test (if that can even be done in Kenya, I considered at the time of my strategising); 2) Meet with the oldest living member of my family for an in-depth conversation about… well, our family. I was most excited about the former (Mostly because the oldest living member of my family is my paternal grandmother, and I find her especially terrifying. More on that later.) and, as a result, that step became the priority. Turns out there are a good number of labs in Kenya that offer DNA testing, but for a pretty penny. After I was financially prepared to pull the trigger, I planned to get the DNA test done a few weeks ago and to use it as the anchor of this essay.

At the same time, I reluctantly reached out to my paternal grandmother. I love my Cucu, of course, but we haven’t enjoyed the closest relationship over the years. We’d visit each other now and again when I was growing up, mostly outside of Kenya, during which I’m sure she’d entertain my endless yappings about whatever was going on in school or what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember her discomfort with physical affection— hugs were minimal and quietly discouraged, which, as a Physical Touch kind of girly, felt perplexing— and a generally stoic emotional baseline. I especially remember this one time, when I was 11, when she commented on the East/West nature of my boobs. And, when I was in the hospital with a serious case of diabetic ketoacidosis around ten years after that, the way she lingered in the corner of my Princess Zahra room in Aga Khan before leaving after a few minutes.

That, plus a few cordial conversations at lunches and greetings at family functions, pretty much summed up our relationship.

So I nervously WhatsApp messaged her asking if we could spend some time together. “I want to pick your brain about something,” I wrote to her. She responded quickly and warmly, which instantly made me feel guilty. “She loves you,” my Dad has told me on more than one occasion, “and she’s curious about you.” I know she is, I feel it every time we’re together, her studying the ways we’re the same and the ways we’re different. It comes from a good place, but it also makes it difficult for me to find comfort in her company.

I prepared myself for that, as I headed to Karen a week later for our date. It was the day news broke of Raila Odinga’s death, but I barely noticed those in mourning marching down Ngong Road, flora and fauna in hand to celebrate the late politician. I was too busy practising what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. Ask her what books she’s reading, I told myself as the Uber I was in turned into what I lovingly (and a little shadily too, if I’m being honest) refer to as the Mwai Cult Compound, where most of my paternal family lives.

Just be yourself, I reminded myself one last time.

Her house is cute and cozy with lived-in recliners and a lot of pictures of my oldest cousin, Kim, and his young family. “He put these up when I moved in,” she said with a chuckle after she caught me looking at them. I find a couple of me too, on the adjacent wall: one of her and I when I’m a baby and another of me, her and my late grandfather in what looks like the U.K. I was about to sit down and get comfortable when Cucu told me we’re going for lunch and afterwards, if I’m OK with it, a few errands she needed to get done before the day’s end. “Sure,” I responded enthusiastically. And we were off.

Lunch was awkward as anticipated. I asked about the books she was reading. She asked about my work. We talked about the weather. Mostly, we picked at our pistachio-coated salmon and tried to stay cool under the blazing Karen sun. I told her about my plans to get a DNA test and learn more about our family history, and she politely offered to help, though she didn’t divulge much when I asked her more direct questions about our shared background. Once we finished our lunch, Cucu very kindly paid the bill, and I quickly strategised a getaway plan. After we go to the bank, I thought to myself.

But then something curious happened. As we checked things off her to-do list, we both started to settle into each other’s company. We chuckled and chit-chatted as we bought dog food and held hands after she told me her leg was hurting on the way to the bank. Without me turning to the meticulous interview questions I’d put together about our family history, Cucu shared anecdotes and information I’d never heard before. Like my grandfather’s love of animals and how his family owned tons of cats, most given human names. “Imagine a cat named Kamau,” I told Cucu, and she laughed harder than I’ve ever heard her laugh before. She told me about her childhood and how she worked in her family’s shop from a very young age. She told me about her tenure working at a prison and how she craved to rebel from the few career opportunities women had at the time. She even shared a story about my dad as a baby and how he had these big, expressive eyes like my young niece Nia that would dart around the room and scare my grandfather. I’d never heard that story before. Neither had my dad.

I spent the whole day with Cucu, which ended with her sending me off with a big bunch of bananas and promises that we would do this again soon. On my way home, I relished in a feeling of pride and belonging I hadn’t felt in a long time. It felt like I met my grandmother for the first time, and I was so grateful that she let me see her— her humour, intelligence and a softness I had never seen before— and, in so many ways, see myself. I am so proud to carry her name. I’m even prouder of being her granddaughter.

I never ended up getting a DNA test. I still want to, but I don’t need to anymore. Because really understanding where you come from isn’t about knowing your 2% Irish or that your great-great-grandfather was some revered Kikuyu chief. It’s about the details that colour the people you’re related to. It’s about learning that your late grandfather loved animals, and maybe that’s why you love animals. It’s about seeing the enduring rebellious ambition in your grandmother, and maybe that’s why you are so steadfast in your professional and personal pursuits. Colonialization took away so much of our history, but our stories are still alive in our elders, and that’s where our true identity as a people lies.

So, contrary to the title of this essay, every African doesn’t need to take a DNA test. But we should be curious about where we come from and let that curiosity push us to action. Who knows? Maybe in the process, you’ll walk away with a better understanding of who you are. Or a new relationship with a grandmother you used to fear. Either way, it’ll be worth it.

Do you ever find yourself in the most unexpected places? In a serendipitous way? Almost like you were right where you needed to be all along. That’s me and the club, and my literature class at university.

In the class, Masterpieces of World Culture, it was mentioned that Ancient Greek writers did not write original stories. They only repurposed existing legends. Sophocles, Euripides, and all the great masterpieces are reimagined tales that existed within the empire’s cultural epicentre. Initially, I was in awe. It was obviously a different time, but it must have been creatively limiting and difficult to navigate, especially if the author’s ideal was rooted in societal critique, as many literary works are.

What does it say of a society that cannot tell itself new stories? Are some stories just more transcendental than others?

For the last few years, my own frustrations with myself and the world have only continued to grow. My life should have ended, or at least stopped in my understanding multiple times before. The first time I ever felt like my life was over was when I had my first heartbreak at 16, and I was convinced that I would never find joy again. When my family found out that I was into traditional spiritual practices, they threatened to kick me out. I remember feeling like my life was over then, and the forceful nature of having to retreat and put myself in a box to survive. I’ve felt this feeling multiple times since then. When jobs come to an end, when relationships come to an end, when I’ve been at the risk of homelessness again, time and time again, I’ve felt this deep sense of dread that “this is it.” Without discrediting the existence of systemic issues such as racism, homophobia, sexism, misogyny, capitalism as a whole, colonisation, and the systemic under-development of Africa by the West, of late, I’ve wondered if I’m limiting myself. If I’m limiting my story.

During the Renaissance Period, when continental Europe was bouncing back after a rapidly cannibalised era of time (the Dark Ages), when grace, humanity and Reason were mainstream again (at the cost of literally ¾ of the world, but I digress), they still referenced their existing tales and history. Shakespeare’s greatest works were already a part of the pre-existing cultural movement (if not the epicentre, then maybe the extremities).

An older, original Hamlet now lost is known to exist, officially written in the 16th Century by Thomas Kyd. This edition was based on the legend of Prince Amleth, recorded by Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in the 13th Century and later translated into French. In this version of the story, Prince Amleth is the son of Horwendil, who is murdered by his jealous brother Fengo. Fengo then marries Amleth’s mother, Gerutha. Amleth pretends to be mad to avoid suspicion while seeking revenge for his father’s murder. His uncle sends him to England with two escorts carrying a letter ordering his execution, but Amleth switches the letter with one ordering the escorts’ deaths and requesting marriage to the English Princess. Returning to Denmark during his own funeral, Amleth burns down the hall, kills his sleeping uncle by swapping his useless sword with Fengo’s, and is then hailed as King.

When I first got onto my spiritual journey, one of the few things that I was really interested in doing was understanding my ancestry and my ancestral origin. But I have a very complicated relationship with my parents, and I didn’t necessarily have all the direct sources of information that I needed. I didn’t speak my mother tongue. For a long time, I felt like I was behind or that I was limited in how much I could achieve. But navigating the entry into understanding ancestry, I found that the more I took care of myself and the more that I had fun, the closer I felt to those who had come before me. Joy became a pathway to connection. Pleasure became a form of ancestral work.

The club has become one of my favourite places. When I first started going, it took a while for me to find what worked for me -especially queer friendly spaces- but when I did, it was like magic. Nairobi is a melting pot for many cultures, including clubs, so I was happy to explore. In this economy, it can be one of the most accessible recreational spaces, while also leading you to the most ruin, both financially and in other aspects of your life. For me, it was eye-opening. I always took myself too seriously and didn’t see the point. I’m not someone who tries to meet new people at the club; I come to dance and listen to music. These are also things I could do elsewhere. The club was one of the first few spaces in my adult life where, again, I emphasise when done right, I wasn’t working towards anything, and mostly allowed myself to be. If the night was good, it was good, and if it wasn’t, then it wasn’t. For someone who pathologised their existence, it was unimaginably empowering to find a space where I could be free.

On multiple occasions when I’ve been rolling out of my mind at the club, when I dance, I find myself thinking about my ancestors and inviting them to be in the spaces that I’m in, letting them share this space with me. I don’t know whether this is factual, I don’t know whether this is ideally something that’s supposed to happen, I don’t know whether it’s “correct,” but in the ingenuity of the moment, I’ve always felt like this would be exciting to do. I honestly did it with the intention of wanting to have them around me more and spend more time with me, especially at a place where I’m having fun and I’m unbridled, unburdened and unlimited.

I think of my great-grandfather. My dad’s dad’s dad. I’ve seen him in pictures, but my grandfather doesn’t mention him. No one does. But for some reason, he dances behind my eyes when I sleep. I love that we look alike, with stretched ear lobes and a sombreness to him that I understand. Did he fly off trees and wail like a banshee to protect his people? Did he hate his children? Would he like me? He comes up in my memories a lot while I’m dancing and rolling off my mind. The first time it happened, I remember imagining him enjoying the music as much as I do, and for a moment, I didn’t feel like the stranger that my “alternative” lifestyle has made me in my family.

So what does all this have to do with Shakespeare? I believe that the roles of fiction, joy and imagination are, among many others, to bridge time. It’s imperialism to limit yourself to the experiences that have already been a part of your culture, reality, and even current understanding. Things can be different. I can continue to push forward. We can dream bigger and in ways that feel larger than life. However, I’ve gained a level of respect for artists who continue to face censorship even today, but find ways to critique the times they live in, which is a lesson in making your reality work as best as you can.

This has connected me with a lot of fantastic people and has allowed me to build bridges and connect with individuals who have helped me along not just my spiritual journey but also my healing journey as a whole. I think one of the biggest failures of limited stories and confining ourselves only to the things that have ever come before us or exist around us is that it does not push us to see things differently or imagine a different world. I don’t believe this happened by chance. But I also wonder if this is the time for us to be doing a little bit more of that, especially when the world feels like it’s on the brink of collapse. Should we continue imagining? Is that our way out of this?

There must be resistance in dreams. In imagination. In building a world we cannot see. The goal is for there to be a world where our expression is rooted in community and betterment of the things around us, but that also means existing in the paradoxes of our reality, no matter what it looks like. Fortunately, though, that starts with being where your feet are. With the tools we have access to—imagination, creativity, community support, and the courage to dream—we can begin to close the gap between the world as it is and the world as we want it to be.

It may not immediately matter to other people who my great-grandfather was, but my ability to intuitively imagine and build worlds is. Ancestry can also be a way for us to contextualise our abilities to dream and imagine. I may not fully know or understand the world he lived in, or why he made the decisions he did, but I can empathise, contextualise and accept gaps that I want to fill in to mean whatever they need to. It’s important because I can see myself as a product of him. If not him, then hundreds more who have come before him, and surely, at least one would have enjoyed my musings inspired by a university class and a raging dance floor.