Daniel Ndungu | Beyond the map

  Think about everything a woman's body can go through in one lifetime. As a man, I will never know what it feels like to have a period, carry a pregnancy or give birth. I can read about it, listen to women talk about it and learn what medical research tells us, but I cannot claim those experiences as my own. What I can do is pay attention. And the more I learn about women's bodies, the more I realize how much of what they go through is treated as ordinary simply because it happens to women. Take endometriosis, for example. It can cause severe pain and affect someone's life for years, yet women are still told that what they are experiencing is nothing more than a bad period. They are expected to carry on with work, school, relationships and everyday life while dealing with pain that many of us would struggle to understand. And this isn't just something people say. The World Health Organization estimates that endometriosis affects around 10% of women of reproductive age ...

Today, while walking, I found myself using a pedestrian footbridge to cross the road.  I walked up the stairs, crossed over, and came down on the other side without giving it much thought. It was just another ordinary part of my journey.  in the middle of crossing that bridge, I stopped and asked myself a question: what if I were differently abled? What if I were using a wheelchair? What if I were blind? What if I had limited mobility? What if climbing those long flights of stairs wasn't something my body could simply do? How would I cross that road? The cars below were moving quickly. The bridge had stairs on both sides, but there was no obvious accessible route for someone using a wheelchair.  There was no zebra crossing no crosswalk at the ground level that I could see. And something that had been completely normal for me became a very different experience when I imagined navigating it as someone who was differently abled. That moment made me realise how much of our en...

In Memory of Sheila Adhiambo Lumumba Before going further, I want to remember Sheila Adhiambo Lumumba. Sheila was a 25-year-old non-binary lesbian Kenyan whose life was tragically cut short in 2022. Their name became known to many people because of the circumstances surrounding their death. Human Rights Watch documented concerns about the police response to the case and the treatment of Sheila's identity during the investigation. A man was later convicted of their murder. But I do not want to remember Sheila only as a murder victim. They were a person before they became a headline. They had a family. They had people who knew and loved them. They had hopes, experiences, frustrations, friendships and a future that should have continued. That matters. Because one of the problems with conversations about queer people is that we can become so focused on the debate surrounding their identity that we forget there is an actual person behind it. Sheila was not a debate. They were not a poli...

In Kenya circumcision is more than just a medical procedure. It is a rite of passage. It marks the transition from childhood to adulthood, carries religious and cultural meaning, and shapes how a young man is viewed by his family and the community. For some Kenyans, it is a medical decision, particularly because research has shown that medical male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexual HIV acquisition. But somewhere between tradition, medicine and social expectations is a question that deserves greater attention: What happens when a procedure involving someone's body is no longer entirely their choice? The scientific evidence is more complicated than that. The medical argument One of the strongest pieces of evidence comes from Kisumu, Kenya. A randomized controlled trial involving men in Kisumu found that medical circumcision reduced the risk of heterosexual HIV acquisition by approximately 60%. This is one of the reasons the World Health Organization recommends voluntary m...

Are We Being Conditioned to Measure Success the Wrong Way? We are always told to dream big. Build a career. Travel the world. Start a business. Own a home. Experience life. We grow up hearing that the possibilities are endless if we work hard enough. But there is a question we do not ask often enough: What happens when survival becomes the priority? From parents who sacrificed everything so their children could have better lives to teachers telling us that education will open doors, many of us grow up believing that education is our way forward. So you study. You sit exams. You compete with hundreds of thousands of other students for a limited number of opportunities. You graduate. Then reality arrives. The degree that was supposed to open doors becomes another document attached to another application. You send CV after CV. You hear nothing. You apply again. Someone tells you that you need experience. But how do you gain experience when many employers want someone who already has it? Y...