Around 15 years ago I met a Swedish woman in Nairobi. She was in her 60s and a few years prior had lost her daughter, who was in her late 20s, to cancer. She was eccentric and our conversations would swing between sublime happiness and despair. On one of our outings to downtown Nairobi, with my knuckles white from gripping the dashboard as she swerved around traffic, I watched in astonishment as she buckled the seatbelt behind her back (not over her lap) to stop the annoying dinging sound. With the seatbelt warning sound appeased by the click, she turned to face me, not the road, as she talked about her daughter. She didn't care if she lived or died, she just wanted to be heard.
It was on that afternoon drive through dusty Nairobi that she told me she just couldn't live in Sweden anymore. She said that back in Sweden, after her daughter's death, people couldn't look her in the eye. They didn't know how to deal with her grief. Her emotions were seen as "too much." But in Kenya, she went on, well in Kenya everyone seems to have lost someone and people can accept your grief. She felt seen in Kenya. She felt heard in Kenya. All these years later I give weight to our interaction in ways I am certain outsizes her memory of our drive together.
Lately Sara and I have been feeling grief for our country. There is this deep sadness and anxiety as we watch our democratic institutions erode, wars being started, people treated without due process. Of course we aren't alone in our grief. And yet, in this capitalized world, you'd think we were an island.
See, there is this tip-toeing around issues in business. No company should align itself too "political" for fear of alienating customers. But to have opinions and emotions—well, that's just human. As a society, we've become too corporatized—too sanitized to believe that companies shouldn't have a voice. Of course politics affect our business. Tariffs on tea! The war in Iran means higher costs of shipping our tea. The elimination of USAID and its direct impact on our community in Kenya. But more so than something directly affecting us and our business, we still care about policies that affect our neighbors and people across the world.
And so at Ajiri, we want you as a person first and as a customer second, to know you aren't alone. We will try our best to send you comforting tea during these trying times and to check in with you with handwritten notes on your orders. We aren't some AI bot answering the phone. Call us. We'll answer. We hear you. We see you.
We'll take our grief the same way my Swedish friend took her grief, on a fast white-knuckled drive filled with determination, optimism, and the hope that the weight of the world can't keep up.
Sending you all love,
Kate, Sara, and Ann
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At Ajiri, we feel so lucky to be on this earth at the same time as all of you. Your purchase of tea holds a lot of that elusive power of art. Sure, your purchase is the transference of physical money that goes to support women and children. But your purchases of tea, time and time again, transfers this feeling of belief. You believe in these women. You believe in these kids. You believe that the world can be a better place.
People in the U.S. like to lament that there is no “village” anymore when raising children. But here’s the thing, Thomas was born without a village to support him. We made that village. You are that village. Every box of tea, every donation, gave Thomas the love and structure and opportunities to grow.
We will continue to share our good fortunes with others. We will continue to run Ajiri Tea throughout this tariff madness. We will continue to run Ajiri until we can’t. Running Ajiri is a type of protest in this constricting capitalist world. If to grieve means to have loved, then to protest means to hope.
Kate Holby
Author