Mantalk: Where did all the young men go to?

‘These villages eat their young ones. Men do not survive here’ Photo | Photosearch
What you need to know:
For centuries, society has grappled with the question of what to do with restless young men. The beauty, and often the tragedy, is that we never know what is around the corner. It’s time to see the forest or the trees.
It is prudent that I first offer my sincere gratitude to each of you that sent me a condolence email. It was heart-warming and in fact, one of you had me cooing when she suggested that she is willing to nurse me back with some TLC because I sound(ed) broken. However, what is really broken is this telephone because she forgot to pin her location—what’s your location boo! I don’t even know how she knew I was a boob guy, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. It’s what grandpa (RIP) would want (for me).
What I will also not soon forget is that death has been the flavour of the month and what’s even more deadly is that while standing there in Limuru something piqued my interest: it was full of women and a handful of old men.
Now, where I come from, in the land of simmering hot ugali, hotels on top of hotels, and shikamoo on every tongue, this would be a synonym for catastrophe. My uncle Ali, amidst the thickening cloud of sadness, turned and gesticulating to no one in particular (or everyone in general), spoke like a sage: “Have you noticed that there are no vijanas here?”
It was hard to miss. It was hardly a revelation. I threw my eyes across the farm-turned-family-graveyard and true to form, there were no young men around. Or at least, no young men worth writing about. Other than my brother, cousin and that guy who insists we grew up together before I ‘made it’, there was no one there who could possibly have been older than 30.
Where are they? I asked my Uncle Mungai much later when we were recreating our best Moses and the burning bush impression, far away from the omniscient Jehovah’s disapproving gaze. “This village eats its young ones. Men do not survive here.”
It was a loaded dense statement, seemingly saying nothing and everything. “Addictions manze.”
Ah. The usual. I heard recently Number Two sounding the war drums in Central Kenya, but I want him, or you to know that it is not just Central. It is in Lurambi too. Nyanza. It is everywhere if you just care to look.
Sometimes I struggle with reading emails, only because I get the harrowing ones, of young men the age of my brothers struggling with one addiction or another—be it alcohol, drugs or, heck, masturbation. I get older men too, but they are not complaining as much as they are completely resigned to their fate, telling me that their life could either be a mirror or a mirage—take your pick.
Oh choices.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have not struggled with an addiction—if we disregard that time I couldn’t let go of malenge chapatis and quail eggs—so I won’t exactly know the brushstrokes to paint against the canvas of dependency. But the thing with addictions is, you are either affected or tainted. I have an uncle who is an alcoholic and one who died from the complications of alcohol, having used up all the rope. I do not as much as despise alcohol as I fear it. Maybe it’s the commitment issues or the disgust at bitter drinks—or both.
I don’t know if you know what addiction does to your body. I remember how my late uncle looked when he was heading to rehab, his eyes lifeless, his soul held together by our prayers. It’s a parasitic relationship, your own body eating you from inside, slowly emancipating, such that the skin hangs from your bones like an oversized tee-shirt, your face a mask of wistful sadness, as though a bumbling assistant has just destroyed a great artist’s masterwork, or you’ve had your M-Pesa wiped—and the perpetrator proceeded to borrow loans and text your ex that she can have the house and kids—plus the PS5. It pulls you in and spits you out, it’s the warmest and tenderest caresses you’ll ever feel, and then, as it recedes, the coldest hand. Addiction is a limerence that steals common sense as it stanches pain and grief.
If you want to know what a real nadir looks like, then cast your gaze at what is happening in society today. Addictions are reeling young men in.These are the facts, and facts are not emotional, and facts don’t depend on feelings. The fact is, alcoholism is ravaging this country. In fact, I will go out on a limb with a bold claim: we are a few drinks away from a silent pandemic. Facts fill up the empty life, they shine in the shadows, and facts are stubborn things.
Has the media been crying wolf for too many years? Stood there, chanting our final goodbyes, I was offered a stiff jolt of reality, a cold and boring reminder that the older men have failed the younger men. Perhaps everyone should have seen this coming. Perhaps everyone did see this coming. I’ve given up excuses and just started with the blame. There’s plenty to go around. Cost of living? Depression? Single-parent homes? Blameworthy. The hands-off modern parenting (or lack thereof), the lack of regulation in the alcohol industry, wash wash, mchele babesand preying preachers? Works for me. But blaming alcohol manufacturing companies for alcohol addiction is like blaming the weather app because it rained, akin to turning up at the scene of arson and arresting the lighter fluid.
I did a little digging around the village; with the three or four men I could spot. This paper even carried out a survey recently and noted that there is a sharp drop in childbirth in many counties (don’t let the baby daddies fool you); young men are addicted to illegal brews and can’t perform. Or won’t perform. Those with functioning genitalia are holed up in Nairobi, each seeking a new life in the city that would kill you if you wasted time on yesterday.
What’s our idea of fun? Social events are nothing but a front for getting wasted, another bête noir. Sherehe ni…? You know the answer. Ngong Rd is a marketer’s wet dream for billboards intoxicated with alcoholic content. Heavy drinkers will use alcohol to both celebrate the good times and nurse the wounds of the bad times. It’s a vision of eternal boyhood; a life free from responsibility; no past, no future, no hinterland, just the fleeting enjoyment of the here and now. You and I both know someone who is a peddler, or someone who knows someone you know, or someone you used to know or pretend you no longer don’t.
Still, far it be from me to cast aspersions because I understand that too could easily be me. It’s popular to believe that every addict was brainwashed, and sucked in by product placement and subliminal celebrity Kool-Aid ads. But this argument discounts the fact that addictions are somewhat satisfying, not to forget the dedication required to maintain a habit—gallows humour yes, but humour nonetheless.
For centuries, society has grappled with the question of what to do with restless young men. The beauty, and often the tragedy, is that we never know what is around the corner. It’s time to see the forest or the trees. You may sneer, you may turn your head, you may even say that heck, at least I am safe, at least that’s not my brother. While Rome is burning, don’t be like Nero, and say, at least the sky is not on fire. Cheers?