Hi, I'm Jana,
In Kandongu they call me Njoki.

I don't write “about Africa.” I write about encounters.

I first came to Kenya when I was 18. What began as an adventure back then has since become my home: For the past six years, I’ve been living in my own little mud hut on BlueMoon Farm—right in the heart of the village of Kandongu, surrounded by people with whom I live, work, build, laugh, discuss, learn, and grow.

For 15 years, I’ve been traveling back and forth between Germany and Kenya. And the longer I’m here, the less I believe that a place or its people can be explained in a few simple stories. There are many stories about “Africa”— stories of poverty and aid, of development and hope, of tradition and progress. Some are true. Some are far too simplistic. And some, in the end, say more about the people telling them than anything else.

Njoki is my attempt to take a closer look.

I write about the projects I'm part of in Kandongu, but above all about the people with whom I live and work—their ideas, their daily lives, their contradictions, their humor, and their perspective on a world that I’m learning more and more to view from new angles.

My aim is not to replace one truth with another, but rather to cultivate curiosity about the many truths that coexist. Because encounters don’t just change the image we have of others; sometimes — and above all — they also change the image we had of ourselves.

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This page is an invitation to take a closer look. To ask questions. To let yourself be challenged. And perhaps to make the unfamiliar feel just a little bit more familiar.

I’d love for you to stick around!

You can subscribe to my “magazine” at the bottom of the page.

Much Love from Kenya,
Jana




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