KAMAU YOU GO PAY! A BEG!-Diary of a Nyeri Woman
I am in kamau’s house, comfortably stretched out on his new sofa set, staring at the roof, busy building castles in the air. You see, he does not know it yet but, it is only a matter of time before his house and everything in it becomes mine, and I will change the curtains, burn his overly violent action movie collection, and replace it with my Ramsey Noah collection, exchange his play station for a cute dressing table I saw at the market, throw out all his nasty wall pictures-I have never liked Britney spears and Rihanna, showing off their breasts like I don’t have mine! , and paint the living room pink with a shade of blue, soon.
“Kamau,so when are you coming to see my parents, it has been two years ”, I address him as my trail of thought lazily retreat to a spectator distance, “mmmh” he responds, his eyes glued to the television as if he is watching something important. I sit up right, and follow the point of his concentration and cannot understand his absurd relationship with the news bulletins, he never seems to settle on one channel, always flipping across the many channels, shifting uneasily with every switch, men who will understand them!. Convinced that we can have no meaningful discussion, I decide to do, what I knew best-play musical chairs with cups, pots and kettles from his fancy kitchen (it has running water and blue fire).
However, as I make my way to the kitchen, I experience a cold shiver that seems to be swinging on my spinal cord, then there is a loud screeching choir in my head, I see a tiny woman standing at the tip of my nose violently spitting into my eyes, as if she wants me to see something I am not seeing, and a sole female deejay near my ear keeps on interrupting the women’s choir by abruptly playing sirens, and gunshots sounds ,and instinctively I know what it is-where I come from we call it a woman’s six sense, in the big cities I hear they call it a woman’s instinct’s.
I turn back to face the father of my six future children named; Kiai and Mathina(after our fathers), Wamburi and Waitherero (after our mothers), Wachera and Wanugu(after our his aunt and my uncle), and even then, watching him flip through the channels, I cannot figure out what is wrong. Is he cheating on me? Is he lying to me? at this juncture let me state categorically my constitutional stand point as far as the questions are concerned, Article one of my mentally promulgated constitution quotes as follows, “If kamau cheats and lies to me, he shall experience pain and suffering on a large scale, caused by the following instruments and liquids; Machete, bottles, matured sugar cane, slimming belt, curtain hangers, hot water, empty Jerrican… (Any continuation might win me a state party in the numerous state lodges) but you get the picture.
Then suddenly, watching him glued to the flickering box, licking his lips to catch escaping droll, it hits me. He flips to one channel just in time to catch a pair of legs catwalk across the studio, he flips to another channel and lets out his tongue at the curves that fill the screen, he flips to another channel and pauses to watch the shinning thighs…with every flip, there are behinds threatening to jump of tight skirts, there are flowing weaves, more legs, a flash of peeping mammary…wait a minute, wait just a minute! Kamau is not watching the news, he is not interested in the Egyptian unrest, or attempting to understand the twists and turns of the teacher’s strike, and the price shares of Kakuzi and Uchumi, neither is he interested in comparing consumer prices in the supermarkets!, he is ogling at them, the ones who read the news, while men like Kamau ‘read all their news’ At this point the choir in my head is doing a rendition of some fifty cent song, which has the main theme as murder, at the back of my head, I am hearing a woman load a gun, and my fingers are itching to caress a vein or two.
All this while, dearest Kamau, the one who will open for me an M-pesa shop in six months(though he doesn’t know it),is still glued, unaware that he has an impending visit to his distant ancestors, but as if to save him, the ancestors warn him and he turns slightly, inclining his left eye sharply towards the set,and his thump resting eagerly on the remote control, “ruguru I am hungry prepare mukimo before you leave, oh look at her(pointing at the screen with the remote),look at those legs, and the figure” he continues. As he speaks to me, in my head I have already won the World Wrestling Title after breaking ‘the Rocks’ jaw, and amputating ‘the Game’, in fact I am standing at the middle of a blood bathed wrestling arena, surrounded by armed police officers from the Anti-terror squad flaked with trained Killer dogs, and I am not scared, women from the City call what I am feeling-jealousy, but here in my Nyeri Village we call it-oh hell No! No he didn’t!
“When is your burial” I think out loud, and he turns to me(again keeping one eye on the TV), “eti who died, and why do you look pale?’ and before I can speak he continues, “anyway, I hope the food will be ready soon am starving from watching a lot of news” he finishes, and in my mind I am now standing alone in the arena, having killed the whole squad with my bare hands, their vicious dogs are now puppies playing with my shoestrings. I retreat back to the kitchen to re-group, after gulping down a cold glass of water which seems to invite back reason, I sit down to convince calmness that I am a safe pair of hands. Five minutes later, the choir has packed and left, leaving the deejay that is still playing the fifty cent song in a slow reggae version, and the woman at the back of my head still holding the gun, while calmly chewing on some leaves from Imenti north and burning some leaves from Mt.Elgon.
“Calm down, its only women on the TV, completely harmless” I convince myself as I stand to stroll around the kitchen, stopping to stare at the shiny kettle, which stares back at me. I like the images resting on the back of the kettle, I see a beautiful woman, with a graceful neck, beautiful arms that may jiggle a little bit, a nice waist decorated with one or two tyres, hips that can hold children and carry firewood at the same time, and my behind has been described by the local security forces, several government commissions and various serious non-governmental organizations as ‘neck breaking, accident causing, war starting, and meeting the fifty plus one threshold’ to make matters worse, I have been summoned by the area chief several times, and warned against walking along any government marked road, and fined heavily for reckless endangerment, conspiracy to commit murder and other big worded, scary sounding crimes. But must they blame me? Is it my fault that the creator molded our clan on Saturday evening, when he had extra soil that he did not want to waste, is it my fault?
‘But that is not enough’, I remind myself as I peep from the kitchen door just in time to see kamau move closer to the TV in an apparent attempt to ascertain whether the curves he sees have been electronically enhanced, the deejay in my head immediately turns up the fifty cent song and introduces a hip hop version of the same, Tupac and Biggie doing the chorus. ‘My left hand finger has been empty for so long, and gravity works for the anti corruption department, it has never accepted bribes from me, aimed at delaying his visit to remind me of my ticking clock.
‘What do I do’ I continue with my trail of thought as I aimlessly tune the radio channels on my phone, and suddenly, a voice from the radio blares out, “Today we are discussing about the controversial marriage bill, did you know that you can sue your boyfriend for breach of promise to marry…yes honey, if you can prove it using communication and other means, you can, and you don’t have to return the engagement ring…”,the choir is back like it never left, and the lady with the gun is now feeling chanting Rastafarian songs. I know what do, as I hurriedly scroll through my inbox and begin saving all his texts and emails in a protected folder. I then call my friend Njoro who works in real estate and apparently a plot of land in syokimau costs the same as an engagement ring…
Thirty minutes later I am mashing up potatoes, maize and beans whistling to Ben Githae’s ‘maya ni mabataro makwa’. Kamau, He who will buy me horse hair and high heels just like those girl’s on the Television ,he will herd cows into my mother’s homestead without seeing any leaf on the ground, without being begged, he just does not know it yet, read my proverbial lips.
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