Subtle Stessors

Stress is an interesting creature and sometimes is really easy to overlook what it is and where it may be emanating from.

So today's little note comes from trying to figure out why I feel a little edginess that’s sitting on my back and in my spine. Sitting with that question over the last week, I’ve come to realise that it's a case of living in Nairobi, and living in the heart of a city-suburb: where traffic is insane and has no rhyme or reason, people move like lemmings in lines without stopping for consideration of motorised vehicles, the motorcycles that we lovingly call Boda-bodas are also on a continuous suicide mission of just trying to get by.

The hustle culture of Kenya is absolutely something to be commended because it is unrelenting. People here constantly persevere to prosper, whatever that looks like, at whatever level of demographic they exist in.

However, I have found that being away from this country for so long and coming back has created a clear rift in my person. Whilst many childhood parts of me feel healed and settled, many adulthood parts of me who developed and thrived away from the spotlight of Kenyan culture, are very distressed - and that's putting it lightly.

The organisational nature of Europe, and to a certain extent of America (but Europe is my main experience in the world), shows I enjoy a certain level of basic functional predictability in day-to-day life. What that looks like for me is when I leave my house, I already know I can walk to most locations and if walking is not an option then I can get a bus to certain locations and they will more or less be on time - give or take maybe 10 minutes or so, because bus routes are set on a schedule and in the UK - especially in London - they tend to try and stay within a predictable timeline otherwise bus drivers I believe get penalised. Beyond bus routes, if I need to, I can get a bus or walk to a train station or a tube station. The Underground runs to a tighter schedule than buses, which means getting to places on time is fairly predictable and I can estimate how long it will take me to arrive.

Now, in Kenya? That is not the case, or at least trying to predict times of arrival come with a certain air of randomness because you really don't know what is out there on the roads, especially as law and order and a certain sensibility of good road etiquette barely exists. So even if you give yourself say 45 minutes to traverse 3.5 km, you could easily be out by an hour. It could take you an hour and 15 minutes to literally go 3 and a half kilometers in any direction, and because I basically live in the heart of middle-class Nairobians, that is my daily existence right now, which is very unfortunate.

However, when I initially arrived and loved in actual suburban Nairobi, this was less of an issue because my little meanderings were just local to where I was and oftentimes we could swerve around pockets traffic and take an alternative route to get to the little places that I needed to get to. So comparing that time which was the tail end of 2024 beginning part of 2025, to now which is from middle 25 to middle 26, I have noticed that my basal stress levels are elevated which then means everything else is elevated with a certain fuzziness of distress not eustress which is new to me after finally figuring out how to not be stressed out in London living in Zone 2 which is still a very hurdygirdy kind of place. It's something that is undesirable, so having identified the issue, I already have notions of what I need to do to get back to a calmer base level which means I can prosper better in other high stress situations that are obviously in the sidelines waiting to be activated.

If I could describe the energy of Nairobi it would be one part getting on with it, one part the hardest histler wins and five parts don't get too far ahead of yourself - you will be HUMBLED. That comes either by virtue of prosperity, or an unfortunate state of other’s jealousy.