Living Only Among Other Foreigners in Kenya

What stands out to me is that a gate is both a comfort and a choice.

By Neil Solomon · 2 min read

Picture a couple named Carol and Peter. They dream of a rural life in Kenya: open land, birdsong, a slower morning. They find a place that offers all of it, inside a gate, with neighbours who also came from abroad. It feels easy. Everyone speaks the same first language and understands the same jokes.

I came across a short account that framed this as "the rural dream versus the gate." The mood was wary. I do not have the full detail, so I will keep to the idea, which I think many readers will recognise.

What stands out to me is that a gate is both a comfort and a choice. For many people it is a real comfort. It gives a sense of order and a place to start. I do not think there is anything wrong with wanting that, especially in the first year.

The question is what it does over time. If every neighbour, every dinner and every outing is with other people who moved from abroad, the country can become a view rather than a home. You live in Kenya, but you mostly see it from the window.

Carol and Peter noticed it one evening.

"We've been here eight months," Carol said. "I cannot name one person in the village."

"Neither can I," Peter said. "We know everyone's story from back home, though."

I think this is a very human thing. We go where it is easy. Easy is not bad. But the reason many of us wanted to move was to be somewhere different, and different usually means the people nearby.

Some households find a middle path. They keep the comfort of a community they understand, and they also build a few friendships outside it: a neighbour down the road, a shop they visit every week, a group built around a shared interest. These take effort and time, and they rarely happen by accident.

Others are happy as they are, and that is a fair answer too. The point is to notice which one you are choosing, rather than letting the layout of a place choose for you.