The Year of the Hyena

The Kikuyu have a proverb that has always fascinated me:

"You do not borrow a door in the year of the hyena."

Like many African proverbs, it sounds strange until you stop and imagine the story behind it.

Picture a village many years ago. A family sleeps peacefully in a small mud house. Their wooden door is more than just a piece of timber. It is protection from wild animals, thieves, and the cold night air. Then one evening, a hyena begins roaming the village.

Suddenly, every door matters.

That is not the night to discover yours is broken.

And it is certainly not the night to knock on your neighbour's door asking to borrow theirs.

After all, if hyenas are roaming outside, your neighbour needs a door just as much as you do.

Some lessons only become obvious when it is too late.

I have been thinking about that proverb recently.

Not because I have seen a hyena wandering through my neighbourhood, although in Kenya one can never completely rule out surprises. Rather, I have noticed how often we wait until our own "year of the hyena" before we prepare.

We postpone saving until money becomes scarce.

We ignore our health until the doctor clears his throat before speaking.

We neglect friendships until loneliness comes calling.

We avoid difficult conversations until relationships are hanging by a thread.

Then, when trouble finally arrives, we begin looking for doors that other people are already using.

Preparation always looks expensive until you compare it with the cost of being unprepared.

Perhaps that is why strong communities matter so much.

Growing up in Mukinyai, neighbours depended on one another in ways that are becoming increasingly rare. If someone was building a house, people showed up. If a family lost a loved one, nobody asked whether they should help. They simply did. Children belonged to the whole village, and a stranger could hardly walk unnoticed.

Life was not easier.

People were simply less alone.

Today, our houses have become larger, but our circles have often become smaller. We know the Wi-Fi password better than the names of the people living next door.

Then crisis arrives.

A medical emergency.

A job loss.

A failed business.

A broken marriage.

And suddenly we begin searching for the very relationships we never took time to build.

The uncomfortable truth is that trust cannot be borrowed at the last minute.

Neither can friendship.

Neither can character.

They are built quietly, long before they are needed.

That, I suspect, is the deeper wisdom behind the proverb.

The "year of the hyena" is not really about hyenas.

It is about seasons of life when everyone is carrying their own burdens. During those moments, even the kindest neighbour may not have the capacity to rescue you.

Which is why wisdom asks us to prepare while the skies are still clear.

Maintain your relationships.

Save a little.

Learn new skills.

Keep your word.

Help others before you need help yourself.

Because one day, your own year of the hyena may come.

And when it does, the strongest protection may not be the door you can borrow, but the one you built before the danger arrived.

I still think it is a wonderfully humorous proverb. After all, the image of someone walking around a village asking to borrow a door is almost impossible not to smile at.

Yet behind that smile lies timeless wisdom.

Life has a habit of sending hyenas when we least expect them.

The question is not whether they will come.

The question is whether we will already have our door firmly in place.

Life rarely ends when a chapter closes; it simply hands you a blank page.