I love road trips! Road trips are one of those seemingly unexciting things that I love! However, they are not humdrum, they are my intrepid journeys into comprehending the world around me. They are a chance to observe life’s oddities, anomalies, and contradictions in slow motion. It is like watching a play on stage or a movie on the screen. The trips allow me to continually dissect the playwright, plot, actors, directors, settings and production of the story titled LIFE.
Taking a road trip is also a great way to get away from the daily grind and create lasting memories. One of my favorite things is travelling all over Kenya, taking in the spectacular sights, meeting different people and observing different situations along the way.
On a recent road trip from Nairobi to Kitale, which is usually a 6-7 hour drive along some of Kenya’s most scenic landscapes in the Great Rift Valley, unexpected happenings detoured us off the course of our journey. We found ourselves in a very beautiful part of Kenya I had never visited before, which was a worthwhile trade off, even though our travel time extended to 9-hours.
With these unexpected eventualities, the Life Coach in me surfaced. I observed and reflected on our human needs, values, beliefs and life rules as a nation called Kenya and as individuals within that nation! In essence, I tried to understand the human behaviour we encountered on that particular road trip.
‘Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your behaviour. Your behaviour becomes your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny’ –Mahatma Ghandi
The Road Trip
We left Nairobi early, at 6.30 a.m. on a Friday morning, to avoid the inevitable traffic and heavy trucks on our main route into Eastern Africa’s hinterland. It is incredible that in 2022, as a rapidly growing region, we still rely on a single, dual-lane highway and trucks as our primary, if not sole, mode of transportation for goods and services! The consequences of this reliance are found in the grooves of road damage, heavy traffic, a high incidence of vehicular accidents and carnage on our highway, diverting police resources to monitoring and controlling traffic on this highway, wasted person-hours…the list is endless.
This being the hot season, there was no early morning mist in Tigoni and Kijabe, so we made quick progress to Naivasha. We took a 30-minute coffee break before continuing through Gilgil and Elementaita. When we arrived in Nakuru, the morning traffic heading into town had come to a standstill because a candidate for a local office had his parade of cars and agitated youth controlling the roads. I was baffled that I, a taxpayer, does not benefit from the convenience of ring roads around busy urban centres such as Nakuru. My thoughts turned to my voting options in the upcoming national elections, but I quickly realised that I did not have much choice unless I ran as a candidate myself, which is also not an option!
At the Westside Mall roundabout, we branched off to Kabarak and the greater Baringo County. This route is much more relaxing because it is devoid of traffic and it is very scenic. Chatting and laughing, we approached Eldama Ravine. However, we noticed that there were more people on this route than usual. They were all heading towards the town centre. Just before the main T junction into the town centre, two helicopters had just landed in an open field. A long convoy of 4 x 4 vehicles was inching its way through a rapidly growing crowd of charged youths towards the helicopters.
The people who stepped out of the helicopters must have been very significant because they elicited loud clapping, shouts of an election campaign slogan ‘Hustler’, and heavy foot stamping from the crowd. We attempted to force our way through the chanting crowd that was now blocking the road. However, some of the people in the group started banging on the sides of our car very menacingly. I was frightened! I was afraid they would break our windows and attack us. If we wanted to stay safe, we would have to make a detour away from Eldama Ravine to Maji Mazuri, according to a police officer who had stopped us! I was incensed that an agitated mob illegally blocking the road could intimidate us into changing our travel plans. Had our country devolved to this level of anarchy? I seethed in my mind.
After a few frightening moments of hesitation and discussion, we decided that it was safer to turn around and head to Maji Mazuri.
I had never been to Maji Mazuri before, but it turned out to be an enjoyable and scenic detour. The sweeping landscapes are forested and sparsely populated. Maji Mazuri seems stuck in a bygone era of cabins, cottages, and brooks of clear flowing waters. I was surprised at the absence of roadside kiosks, a standard in most parts of Kenya. From Maji Mazuri, we found our way back to the main highway, part of the Trans-African Highway, at Londiani.
As we ascended the escarpment at Timboroa, we found traffic police officers stopping ‘over speeding vehicles’. They pulled us over and directed us to join the line of cars parked on the side of the road. The officers accused us of exceeding the maximum speed limit by driving at 70km/h in a 50km/h zone. Mind you, there are no signs to indicate the speed limits on this section of the highway. Even after our protests and insistence on adhering to Government COVID restrictions and guidelines, they confiscated my husband’s driving licence. A female officer promptly informed us that COVID was a myth and declared, “There is NO COVID!” A police officer in the middle of Kenya’s highlands was very confident that there was no COVID. She, not the Ministry of Health or the World Health Organization, or even Dr Fauci of the American Centre for Disease Control had put end to a forbidding global pandemic with her simple declaration!
After the traffic officers questioned us, they instructed us to follow an officer on a Boda Boda and proceed to the Timboroa Police Station for booking and case handling. We were now guilty as charged despite the lack of proof.
Timboroa Police Station, located on top of the escarpment with panoramic views of the Great Rift Valley, must be Kenya’s most idyllic police station. Under different circumstances, I would have thought about picnic baskets on the station’s beautiful lawn. Sadly, we were there purportedly in violation of a traffic rule!
The booking officer told us that we could either plead “GUILTY” and pay an instant fine or “NOT GUILTY” and appear in court in Eldama Ravine, 43 kilometres away, on Monday morning. The second option would entail staying in Kitale longer than we intended and driving 3.5 hours from Kitale to Eldama Ravine to attend court and any subsequent proceedings! We went with the easy option of pleading “GUILTY”. The plea is made online to a magistrate using a GMAIL account rather than a Government of Kenya (GOK) account. I found the use of a Gmail account for official business, rather strange and suspicious! Although Kenya invented the mobile money application MPESA, and being the COVID era, the Traffic fines at Timboroa Police Station are paid in cash only! We had to go in search of Cash in Timboroa town, with a specific Mpesa Agent allegedly attached to the Police Station.
Of Human Needs
As a Life Coach, our encounter with the disruptive crowd and the disputable actions of the traffic police made me question our collective human needs, values, rules, and beliefs as a nation of Kenya and as individuals within the collective. I explored the ideas, principles, traits, beliefs, philosophies, and qualities we treasure and cherish as Kenyans. What are our values or the things that are most important to us, and where are the roots of these values? What rules and beliefs have we formed around our guiding principles? What motivates our short- and long-term behaviour? What drives the actions of our youth and police officers? My mind was racing with questions!
According to what I have observed along my long journey of acquiring knowledge, the desire to meet a specific human need or combination of needs propels our actions and behaviour. However, because we are not always conscious of our needs, we are also unaware that our actions are a reaction to a need or needs. We only see the outcome of our actions, not the causes. I understood that specific human needs of the individuals within the youth and the police collectives, shaped by time and environment, drove their actions.
Academics and practitioners have sought to explain and categorise the spectrum of human needs and the actions we take to fulfil these needs. However, this work has been somewhat fragmented. Nonetheless, the commonality in all the concepts that have emerged is that all humans have specific basic universal needs followed by higher needs. If we do not meet these needs, some internal or external conflict will likely occur.
The Theories
There are many concepts of human needs and the actions to meet these needs, but I will only mention two.
The first is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the most prevalent concept. According to Maslow, all human aspirations are structured in a hierarchy, starting with the physiological needs (basic needs): food, water, and air and progressing to the psychosomatic ones (higher needs) of safety, love, esteem, and self-actualisation. According to Maslow’s hierarchy structure, only after the most basic need is met can we strive to the next level, etc. For example, food will consume a hungry person. He will risk everything to satisfy this survival urge. His aspiration for safety and security will only surface once he has enough food to survive.
The second is a theory developed by Anthony Robbins. According to Robbins, all human needs are primarily psychological and presuppose that happiness is our ultimate goal. Robbins identified these human psychological needs as CERTAINTY, VARIETY, SIGNIFICANCE, LOVE/CONNECTION, GROWTH and CONTRIBUTION. He paired these needs on opposite ends of an imaginary seesaw, CERTAINTY with VARIETY, SIGNIFICANCE with LOVE/CONNECTION, and lastly, GROWTH with CONTRIBUTION.
According to Robbins, the existence of all or a combination of needs may coincide, but there is one overriding need at any given point. For example, an individual may feel a need for certainty, significance, and connection simultaneously, but in one moment feels a need to achieve certainty more than the other two. However, to achieve our ultimate goal of happiness and fulfilment, we must find the sweet spot of balance in our personal ‘see saws’ of the paired needs. An overabundance of one need causes an imbalance, resulting in internal conflict, which then influences our actions.
Robbins’s concept is the one that I rely on as a Life Coach and, therefore, the one I employed in trying to understand the behaviour of the crowd and police we encountered on our trip because I believe that all actions are motivated by psychological or emotional reasons.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Ghandi
Actions and Human Needs
Whether consciously or unconsciously, we perform specific actions to meet our basic human needs. Because our efforts are focused on meeting a pressing human need, we frequently approach them with single-mindedness, even though there is no guarantee that these actions will bring us happiness. In addition, these actions may or may not be beneficial to us, and there is no certainty that they will help anyone else or contribute to the greater good. For instance, if we have a strong need for variety, our desire may drive us to seek excitement and change through experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Taking drugs or alcohol may feel good because it gives a ‘high’ and an escape from reality and boredom. However, this action may become dire, leading to addiction and harming our mental and physical health. Addiction may negatively affect those who love us because our psychological or physical anguish takes an emotional toll on them. It is also bad for society because addictive behaviour can lead us down a spiral of violence, theft, lies and a lack of beneficial contribution to others.
The more human needs that a particular action fulfils, the more appealing it becomes, and the more likely we will continue participating in it. This view may explain why we may persistently engage in negative behaviour like corruption and violence.
I must emphasise that our physical, economic, political, cultural, and social environments influence our needs and the actions to fulfil those needs. In Kenya, rapid population growth and urbanisation have affected our politics, culture, economics and societal norms. The outcomes of these changes have cyclically influenced our needs and corresponding actions, including our youth and police officers.
“To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.”– Jimmy Carter
Human Needs & Actions on Our Road Trip
In my opinion, what were the actions and needs of the youth and the police in Eldama Ravine and Timboroa? What kind of environment might have influenced these human needs and activities?
The Actions
The youth exhibited intimidating behaviour and a mob mentality, whereas the police officers were intimidating, suspicious, and overbearing in their use of authority.
The Needs
The actions of the youth and police officers reflected an inclination towards satisfying the first four of the psychological needs categorised by Robbins.
Certainty
At some point in our lives, we all want certainty, predictability, control, comfort, security, or a combination of these elements. Our bodies go into survival mode when we are uncertain, and our brains begin stockpiling. We seek certainty in our routines, jobs, love, money, order, discipline, marriage, and other aspects of our lives. However, we may become resistant to change and deprive ourselves of variety when we have a compelling need for certainty. We are afraid of letting go of anything and cling to whatever we feel gives us assurance. At that point, we may find it difficult to interact with other people due to the perceived uncertainty that the interaction may create. Hoarders and loners are examples of this extreme on the need for spectrum.
In Kenya, youth unemployment, underpayment of police officers, and economic inflation has created uncertainty, resulting in an exponential increase in the need for financial security. What actions have the youth and police taken to meet the need for financial security? The youth seek out politicians and are willing to do their bidding for monetary compensation. It is not surprising that young people had gathered in Eldama Ravine waiting for politicians to arrive. They hoped that the politicians would give them ‘something small’ to line their pockets, buy provisions for their families, pay rent, or cover other financial needs because politicians generally give ‘something small’ to wananchi in order to get their support in political elections.
Police officers have used extortion and abuse of power to ensure their financial security. Police officers use their position of authority to intimidate and extort fines and bribes from citizens for minor infractions or tramped charges. Besides that, civilians pay police officers to gain access to services, expedite the proper legal process, and avoid problems with the authorities. Citizens will even bribe to avoid paying the total cost of a service, avoid legal action, gain access to information, and avoid judicial punishments, among other things. The police’s unethical actions to meet their financial security needs have resulted in a great deal of distress for the citizens from whom they extract money. According to some surveys, like Transparency International’s East African Bribery Index Report, 92 percent of Kenyan civilians regard the Kenya Police as the most corrupt institution.
To paraphrase the adage, ‘there is safety in numbers’, mobs provide their participants with a sense of power and anonymity. Still, more importantly, they provide certainty by ensuring security, control, and comfort. The young people and police officers involved in the incidents in Eldama Ravine and Timboroa believed that their actions were valid. They knew that the authorities would reprimand them because so many other people in Kenya are involved in similar activities that go unpunished. Especially given Kenya’s current political and social climate, we all believe that anyone who is ‘highly connected’ or ‘can afford the financial price’ can get away with anything.
Variety
Individual growth requires us to face new and exciting challenges of change and diversity. Yet, change and variety from the peculiar and the unique can take over our lives and lead us to focus only on finding the next ‘fix’, dysfunction and involvement in anti-social activities such as gang membership and addictive behaviour like drug and alcohol abuse.
Long periods of unemployment lead to boredom, mainly because they have nothing to occupy their time and minds and consume their energy. Boredom begets frustration and pushes an urge for variety, which manifests as a need for change and excitement. Criminality and ‘going against the grain’ raise adrenaline levels and trigger excitement. Fighting, intentional vandalism, rioting and even death can be exhilarating and a way to deal with boredom. As a result, violent criminal attacks involving Kenyan youth, such as rape, mugging, armed carjacking, home invasions, and drug and substance abuse, have skyrocketed. These actions may make the youth feel good, but they are not suitable for them or others, and they are not in society’s best interests.
The unemployed and underemployed youth of Eldama Ravine sought a mob activity at a political rally to relieve their boredom. Peer pressure and ease of access to information through social media have influenced some young people’s actions to satisfy their need for variety.
The threat and thrill of being caught and arrested by the same legal system they serve or the challenge of beating the system and pushing the legal boundaries could be significant psychological motivators for the Timboroa police officers’ actions, because it raises their adrenaline levels.
However, too much variety and change can lead to feelings of overwhelm or anxiety, returning us to a state of uncertainty. Many of us experience deep dissatisfaction due to an out-of-balance of certainty or variety, never finding the optimal point on our personal ‘see-saw’ of significance and variety.
Significance
We all want to stand out, be important, or be unique. As a result, we are constantly searching for significance and taking action to achieve it. Some behaviour is deplorable, such as amassing vast fortunes through criminal activity, emotional blackmail, intimidating behaviour, or narcissistic attention seekers. Consider some of the world’s celebrities with their wild mood swings, disruptive behaviour, bouts of decadence and their unwavering belief that ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’.
When the need for significance prevails, we do everything we can, whether consciously or unconsciously, to achieve it.
Youth unemployment and poverty in Kenya have prevalently resulted in a loss of social relevance, diminished self-worth, despair, and a sense that life is pointless for many young people. Even if they are loved, cared for, and connected to family, many young people feel disempowered due to their over-reliance on others. As a result, and to gain a sense of power, significance, and relevance, they resort to intimidating others and instilling fear. They follow politicians around and base their ambitions on their politicians’ ambitions to gain a sense of importance and relevance by feeling connected to power and influence through the politicians.
The Eldama Ravine youth and Timboroa police officers instilled fear in us by harassing and bullying us, and they undoubtedly felt powerful and significant. Furthermore, by establishing a negative reputation due to constant acts of violence or corruption against society, Kenyan youth and police stand out from the rest of the population, satisfying their need for significance.
Love/Connection
Extraordinary achievements can tip our personal ‘seesaws’, resulting in feelings of isolation, loneliness, and detachment from others, lending credence to the adage that ‘it is lonely at the top’. Isolation and loneliness cause a need for love and connection because, as humans, we need to be in a relationship or union with someone or something. We want to belong to others, to be respected and loved by them. Individuals in a group with similar needs or ideals feel validated, connected to, and understood by their peers.
Individually, the youth in Eldama Ravine must have felt a strong sense of ‘brotherhood’ and belonging within that mob. Because this mob shared their political ideas, economic and social status, and a mission to retaliate against the ‘system’ and society that they believe has betrayed dreams and does not understand their hopes and aspirations.
Similarly, the beneficiaries of their corruption show love and connection to the traffic officers. Their families and friends lavish them with ‘love’ and attention because the officers look after them with the spoils they receive from road users, satisfying their need for love and connection.
Fulfilling the need for love and connection, on the other hand, may lead to feelings of dependency, a lack of self-esteem, and a sustained attempt to please others. These feelings may mean doing or saying harmful things and becoming people-pleasers or ‘yes men’, which leads us back to where we started, the need for significance!
The Environment
I must emphasize that our physical, economic, political, cultural, and social environments all impact our needs and the actions we take to meet those needs.
The current economic, social and political environment in Kenya is complex. Still, it has had an overriding influence on the human needs of all Kenyans and the actions taken to fulfil these needs. A myriad of conditions like poor economic performance, dogmatic politics, breakdown in traditional social structures, lack of accountability and responsibility at all levels of leadership, rapid urbanisation, and rapid population growth have impacted our nature. These conditions have changed our politics, culture, economy, and societal norms and contributed directly and indirectly to high youth unemployment and underpayment of police officers. The consequences of the changes have influenced our needs and corresponding actions cyclically.
That was our road trip!
This was a fantastic read!! Our actions really are a direct result of our need to fulfill specific human needs
Indeed!
Joy, a good read. Kenya, Kenya with politicians and police. It takes that long to drive to Kitale? My mother in law lives in Kiminini.
Jeremy, the road is a perfect place to study human nature, especially when it is tested…road rage for instance! We like the long drive….can never tire of the scenic & majestic Great Rift Valley! A bonus is running into the Kenyan runners going through their early morning paces in the Kaptagat area…yes even Eluid KipChoge (not ashamed of name dropping)!