Insight of a Kenyan Girl

In a family of nine boys, she was the only girl. At first, they had been two—twin sisters navigating the world together, balancing each other like the perfect halves of a whole. But life, as unpredictable and merciless as it often is, took one away too soon. The Lord had called her sister home, leaving her to stand alone amidst the whirlwind of nine boisterous brothers.

To the outside world, it seemed like a dream—nine strong, protective figures devoted to her, each one ready to fight her battles, to shield her from every imaginable harm. She was the princess of a kingdom where her throne was undisputed, her rule absolute, and her safety a collective responsibility. But beneath the golden veneer, there was a truth that only she knew—being raised by nine brothers meant being one of them.

They adored her, yes, but they understood little about how to care for a girl. So they raised her as they knew best—roughhousing, climbing trees, breaking bones, and racing bikes. She learned how to throw a punch before she learned how to braid her hair, how to tackle before she knew how to dance. She was their sister, but she was also their equal, their playmate, their comrade in adventure and mischief.

But she was also different. Something had happened to her—something unspeakable, something that clawed at her soul and left behind wounds that no amount of brotherly love could heal. It was the kind of event that alters the course of a person’s life forever, casting a shadow that no amount of sunshine can completely erase. Her brothers, carrying the weight of guilt for not protecting her, vowed to shield her from harm for the rest of her life. It was a silent promise, an unspoken pact written in the way they watched over her, in the way they hovered too closely whenever she walked into unfamiliar places, in the way their hands curled into fists at the mere mention of her pain.

The trauma changed her. She was just a little girl, but she had already seen the darkness of the world. Nighttime became her enemy; sleep became a battlefield. The nightmares came like an unforgiving storm, suffocating, relentless. She fought them the only way she knew how—by staying awake. The night no longer belonged to fear alone; it became her friend, a silent companion. She found comfort in the quiet, in the stillness when the world slept and she was left to exist in her solitude.

When exhaustion won and she finally succumbed to sleep, the nightmares would drag her back to the past, to the haunting echoes of what had been taken from her. And so, every night, without fail, she would crawl into her mother’s bed, seeking warmth, seeking safety, seeking something—anything—that would make her feel whole again.

Her brothers watched, unsure of what to do, unsure of how to fix something they couldn’t fully understand. And so, they did the only thing they knew—they loved her fiercely, wholly, overwhelmingly. They filled her world with chaos, with laughter, with moments so loud and wild that they drowned out the whispers of the past. They shielded her from the kitchen, from the responsibilities of traditional femininity, not because they didn’t think she could handle it, but because they wanted to take care of her in the only way they knew how. They built a fortress around her, one made of affection, protection, and sometimes, unspoken guilt.

And yet, even with all that love, she often found herself wondering: Was it all just guilt? Was it pity? Or did they truly, unconditionally, adore her?

She grew up, carrying both the burden and the blessing of being the only girl in a house full of men who would lay down their lives for her. The nightmares never fully left; some wounds simply do not fade. She still misses her twin, still feels the ghost of her sister in the quiet moments, still longs for the piece of her that was stolen too soon. But through it all, one thing has remained constant—her brothers.

They still take care of her. They still watch over her. And in a world that had once shown her its cruelest face, she knows that having them is more than she could have ever asked for.

She is a queen raised among warriors, a girl shaped by both love and loss, but above all, she is never alone.