Media personality Nana Owiti has reflected on her rural upbringing in Kenya’s Eastern region, describing a childhood where ambition was shaped by what could physically be seen and experienced.
Speaking about her early life near a small village along the River Tana, Nana paints a picture of a community where survival defined aspiration and where dreams rarely went beyond immediate surroundings.
“Ambition looked different where I come from,” she said. “There were no skyscrapers. There were no private jets and not making it in the way social media defines success today.”
In her recollection, the village was the kind of place people passed through without remembering. A remote setting where children grew up with limited reference points for what life could become.
Nana explains that in her community, ambition was not abstract or expansive. Instead, it was grounded in visible reality.
“So ambition became whatever was present to us, whatever felt tangible, whatever felt reachable, that was what ambition was,” she said.
For many children in her village, dropping out of school to become fisher boys and fisher girls along the River Tana was a normal part of life. It was not framed as failure, but as survival and contribution to household income.
“That was normal. And I mean, that was survival,” she said.
“And seeing someone your age, you know, with folded notes in their pockets felt like success. And me, I think it felt like freedom.”
One of Nana’s strongest memories of childhood ambition revolves around a cemented house near the town center, a structure that, in her eyes at the time, symbolized stability and progress.
“I remember this one woman who lived near the town center… she had beautiful dresses and had twin sisters that wore matching outfits. To most people, her life probably looked ordinary,” she said.
But to her younger self, the house was something more meaningful than appearance or status.
“She lived in a cemented house completely with red oxide. That was the dream.”
“Honestly, it felt permanent, it felt safe,” she recalled. “I used to look at that house and think, one day, I want this kind of life. Not mansions, not millions — just that.”
Nana says her understanding of ambition changed only after exposure to life beyond her village.
“Sometimes I think people really do under-estimate how much environment shapes ambition,” she said. “Your dreams can only stretch as far as your eyes have seen.”
She notes that before the internet and widespread access to global lifestyles, many young people grew up without exposure to alternative possibilities such as entrepreneurship, media careers, or creative industries.
“There were no influencers around us, no entrepreneurs, no celebrities visiting our village to tell us to dream bigger,” she said.
Nana describes her personal growth as a gradual expansion of perspective, driven by exposure to wider opportunities.
“But somehow along the line, I discovered there was more. More places, more possibilities, more versions of life outside what I had grown up seeing,” she said.
“Slowly, ambition started to creep in. It started to expand with exposure.”
Today, Nana Owiti is known for her work in media and digital storytelling, a far cry from the rural expectations of her childhood. Yet she insists that her foundation remains an important part of her identity.
