My country Is Bleeding, And We Are Learning How To Grieve In Public

I am return after a long silence, but I am not returning with joy. I am returning with grief.

The kind of grief that sits quietly inside your chest until another headline appears.

Another woman murdered.

Another child missing.

Another family crying on national television.

Another Kenyan life reduced to a statistic people discuss for two days before moving on.

I am writing from Kenya, and lately it feels like this country is teaching us how to mourn more than how to live.

Women are dying in horrifying ways. Girls are growing up in fear. Children disappear and sometimes are never found again. Hospitals are overflowing, patients sleep on floors, healthcare is becoming a privilege instead of a right, and still the people in power speak as though everything is under control.

Sometimes I wonder if our leaders truly understand how ordinary Kenyans are living. Or maybe they do, and they simply no longer care.

Because how else do you explain a country where citizens are drowning emotionally, financially, and physically while politicians continue performing leadership instead of practicing it?

I think about childhood a lot these days.

Growing up in an African home, the biggest fear parents had when their children went outside to play was that they would play too much, forget to eat, come back home dirty, exhausted, and smiling after sunset.

Children belonged to the community.

Neighbors knew your name.

The streets still felt human.

But today, every time a child steps outside, parents are terrified.

Terrified that the child may disappear.

Terrified that they may never come back home alive.

Terrified that the next time they see their child will be through a blurry photograph circulating online or in a morgue after being found mutilated mercilessly.

Our children are no longer safe.

Not at school.

Not at home.

Not in churches.

Not in playgrounds.

Not anywhere.

Children are being kidnapped, violated, trafficked, murdered sometimes by the very people trusted to protect them. Neighbors. Relatives. Teachers. Family friends. The evil feels so close now that trust itself is beginning to die.

And what kind of society survives once trust is gone?

Today, a woman cannot even go for a morning run, an evening walk, or simply mind her own business without calculating danger.

Without carrying fear in her chest.

Without wondering whether she will make it home safely.

And when violence happens, society immediately puts women on trial instead of the men committing these crimes.

Apparently we did not dress properly.

Apparently we were too friendly.

Apparently we accepted money from a man.

Apparently existing as a woman is now enough reason to be blamed for your own suffering.

Women are told to be careful while men are rarely taught not to violate, not to kill, not to destroy.

And every time another woman dies, people debate her behavior before mourning her humanity.

No place feels safe anymore.

Not homes.

Not relationships.

Not workplaces.

Not public spaces.

Nowhere feels safe for women and children.

And honestly, in whose hands are we supposed to be safe?

Because the systems meant to protect us feel absent.

Even the leadership positions created to represent women seem painfully disconnected from the realities women face every day. Kenya has women representatives in parliament, positions meant to amplify the voices and rights of women and children. Yet many of them remain silent while women are murdered, children disappear, and families cry for justice.

Instead of fighting fiercely for the protection of women and children, too many politicians have turned everything into performance and political games.

This country is emotionally exhausted.

You wake up every day already bracing yourself for bad news.

You open your phone afraid of what you might see next.

And the terrifying thing is how normal this has become.

That is what breaks my heart the most.

Not only the violence.

Not only the deaths.

But the numbness growing around us.

The way people have learned to continue eating dinner while hearing about another femicide case.

The way children are becoming familiar with tragedy before they even understand safety.

The way grief moves so fast that we barely finish mourning one horror before another arrives.

There is a sadness hanging over Kenya that cannot be hidden anymore.

You hear it in conversations.

You feel it in hospitals, markets, schools, homes, online spaces.

People are trying to survive, but many are silently breaking inside.

And still, ordinary Kenyans wake up every morning and continue fighting for life.

Mothers still pray over their children before school.

Young people still fight for dreams in a country that keeps making survival harder.

Women still laugh despite carrying fear in the backs of their minds every time they walk home alone.

There is resilience here, yes.

But resilience should not be abused.

People should not have to suffer endlessly just to prove how strong they are.

I am angry.

I am heartbroken.

And I know I am not alone.

Because too many Kenyans feel abandoned by the very systems meant to protect them.

Too many people feel unheard unless they are dying loudly enough to trend online.

Too many families are carrying unbearable pain while leaders speak in press conferences that sound disconnected from reality.

We deserve better than this constant cycle of tragedy and indifference.

Women deserve to live without fear.

Children deserve safety.

Patients deserve hospitals with dignity.

Citizens deserve leaders who see human beings before politics.

And maybe that is why I am writing again.

Because silence feels wrong when so many people are suffering.

Because speaking is sometimes the only way to remind each other that we are still human beneath all this pain.

Kenya is bleeding.

But I still believe ordinary people carry enough love, courage, and truth to stop this darkness from becoming normal.

And that is why I refuse to stop speaking.