Okay, boys – let’s hitch up a bride!

By Edward Indakwa

The wags on Facebook are excited. President Kibaki brought free primary education and free secondary education. Now his Excellency has capped it all with free wives.

Not so fast, boys. There is nothing for free. Until Njuri Ncheke and the voices of Mukuru wa Nyagathanga, the Luo Council of Elders and the intellectuals who mumble ancient wisdom from Kaya Kinondo have spoken, forget the proposed Marriage Bill.

When your missus passes on and the in-laws are holding you by the throat with an invoice for six fat heifers, it is cheaper to bribe them with the only scrawny family cow than engage a lawyer. The lawyer will demand the equivalent of dowry in legal fees anyway.

I am also aware that some young men, in between chewing khat next to the estate kiosk or lounging on a shop pillar at the Village Market, are planning to keep women in their houses for five months and then shove them out to evade the law.

Reassurance

It is the same trick crooked employers use to keep casual workers slaving for them for next to nothing for years without having to offer them permanent employment as dictated by the law.

Forget it, Boys. There is nothing as hard as flinging a woman out of your house – especially if she decides that she isn’t going anywhere.

Even if you set your hut on fire, she could opt to camp at your doorstep for the next 30 days. You will find yourself legally married, courtesy of the chief.

Speaking of the chief, I don’t think women caught up in come-we-stay relationships should start smiling yet.

If certain chiefs demand Sh200 to sign bursary forms for orphaned children, what do you think they will demand in exchange for a signature that declares you married on permanent and pensionable terms? You will pay in kind, my dear. Oh yes – those randy old goats won’t spare you.

For me, however, it is ‘legalising’ polygamy that I find most amusing. Was it ever illegal in the first place?

And just because some snooty little law declares so does not necessarily mean Number One and Number Two will start pecking each other’s cheeks lovingly and sharing handbags. It is still war – mundu khu mundu.

The greatest losers are, however, as always, women. True, they can now force men to take care of children some other hooligan sired. But men have been doing that for generations, knowingly and unknowingly, anyway.

Where it must stick in the crow for them is that in a bid to sneak in equality, tough women will now have to share their property with their good-for-nothing gigolos in case of a divorce.

That’s how men feel when the empty headed bimbos they marry when drunk demand half their loot when they get flung out.

Still, why should men be allowed to hitch up many wives while women are legally yorked to one miserable chap with loins that are as dry as a stick?

Chewing the cud is just not cool

Headmasters the world over have a way with words and mine, the irrepressible Ejait Aluku, was a master.

On a good day, a school headmaster – I say this in the widest sense to include the tough women who run schools – should unleash a gem that their charges will remember to their dying days.

And so old Mr Aluku – he was only 34 then – came up one morning and said he had seen boys hanging around aimlessly, doing nothing, chewing the cud as it were, he snarled. Chewing the cud? Like cows? Suddenly, ‘relaxing’ didn’t look cool!

Not much has changed. Many school kids still consider school an inconvenience and wish they could chew the cud and wait for the term to end.

In fact, if they had their way, they would loll at home all year, listening to music, watching movies, munching endless loafs of bread, eating good food and relaxing – just chewing the cud.

That’s why a recent wave of school unrest has seen many schools closed prematurely because the lads consider spending an extra three weeks studying akin to getting goaled in a Gestapo-run prison. Either that or the mocks were too ‘tough’. Silly!

Now, let me tell you something, kids. Three weeks is nothing compared to the eleven months your parents work because the boss reluctantly gives them leave. Besides, you are going to ‘relax’ for years after school – especially if you flank the exam. And shockingly, doing nothing will bore you stiff.

By the way, you won’t have time to watch movies and listen to music in four years time if you insist on chewing the cud now. Some racist employer will be hurling insults at you in Industrial Area.

Bits and pieces

What a blessed womb cucu had

The Gatabaki family is mourning the passing of their matriarch, Mama Hannah Wangui. And if ever this country should have a reason to be glad that one woman had many children, it is this cucu. Judging by an obituary in the newspapers, the grand old lady had a big brood, a miracle for a woman born in times when children died like flies from measles, whooping cough, malaria, intestinal worms and plain malnutrition. But most poignant is that from her womb sprung scholars, corporate chiefs, engineers, a politician, an architect, medics — you name it. When this cucu spent nine months carrying something, she ensured to deliver a serious bundle of joy.

It is cucu’s of this calibre who tickle me when I hear young educated women talking about empowerment today. She pulled that off in the 1950s, long before gender equality became part of our vocabulary. And although I know nothing about her family, I can bet my last shirt that when she coughed, all those big men and women with PhDs shut up, unlike today when women with PhDs unsuccessfully plead with their kindergarten children to shut up.

Phantom workers

If you are a keen Facebook user, you will not have failed to notice that it generates loads of traffic on Mondays, with everyone complaining about how they can’t wait for Friday. Strangely, traffic crawls on Friday. No jokes, no updates, no photographs and no hate speech. It doesn’t take rocket science to decipher why. Everyone is busy moving from office to office and waiting impatiently for the day to end. Either that, or coats are hung on chairs, civil service style, with the absent owners, you guessed it, in bars.

Ladies and gentleman

Anyone who listened to Barack Obama’s speech after he was declared President last Wednesday will recall that not once did he say ‘ladies and gentlemen’. Indeed, therefore, in this regard, we shall endevour, plans are underway, my Government, and in the next financial year were conspicuously absent. He simply talked to his people, in the style of an old fireside chat. As I never tire to ask, why can’t our speechwriters write such speeches? We are Africans for heaven’s sake, a people who love stories and proverbs, yet our leaders speak to us like we are cold, boring Brits.

Shuttle diplomacy

Deputy Premier Uhuru Kenyatta and Member of Parliament for Eldoret North William Ruto are on a charm offensive, being neighbourly and all. They greeted President Jakaya Kikwete in Dar. They were in Burundi and I hear they are headed to Kampala for a chat with the region’s second senior most politician. I don’t, however, recall politicians campaigning for Presidency in neighbouring countries popping in to see our president — from old Jomo to uncle Dan to the economist. I mean, you just can’t arrive at State House and say, “Mutongoria, I was just passing by...”

Get em’ chief!

Zimbabwe! Two chiefs from that neck of the woods are demanding 2,000 head of cattle from the country’s largest mobile subscriber for ‘desecrating their ancestral shrine while erecting a base station’. This in a country where yet another chief fined the Prime Minister for paying dowry during the ‘wrong’ month. The time we came close to that sort of thing is when the Njuri Ncheke fined President Kibaki a goat because a junior Meru elder had allegedly been slapped within the precincts of State House. The old fox simply ignored them so they issued a statement saying they had forgiven him. Ha!