The end of June is nigh, and I am happy to be saying we’ll be parting company with a three month ‘maid’ nightmare called Nthenya.
It’s been over four years writing about all sorts of ‘wannabes’ and I never dreamed I’d someday write about ‘the mboch from hell’ because, as a guy, one seldom really thinks about domestic things.
Here’s a real life example of these wannabes. Tony (busy in home office writing): Nthenya, go and get me a hundred bob of air time.
Nthenya (ten minutes later, yelling) – Nimeleta hair time.
Tony (after emerging from study and seeing the scratched card): Nthenya, what is this?
Nthenya: Si hio ni hair time!
Tony: This is Airtel. And you know I’m on Safaricom.
Nthenya (defiant) – Ulitaka Safaricom?
Tony: Jesus Christ! I’m on Safaricom. I always send you for Safaricom air time. Why would I want Airtel today?
Nthenya (sullen). Basi ungesema unataka CREDO! Kama mtu anataka ‘Safcom,’ mtu usema ‘credo.’ Sio hio Hair Time.
The ATT (bad attitude) of some of these wannabe ‘domestic engineers’ can gall a guy up to the tummy.
Then there is, often, the utter lack of common sense.
Someone like Nthenya simply refuses to learn/remember to remove the key from the door, once she has returned from the shops (ours is one of those auto-lock apartment doors that you need the key to get back in). I swear that key has spent more nights sleeping outdoors than the ‘ndawuos’ (Maasais) who guards the block at night.
Speaking of ‘ndauwos’, how about those ‘mboches’ who use the time boss and madam are away at work to entertain ‘solja’? There is one I heard of who, once the ‘wenye nyumba’ were away, would be done with work by ten am.
And so would the daytime ‘solja’ (security guard) of the apartment block, a cheerful chap who would gleefully say ‘bye bye’ to the departing morning convoy of vehicles bearing their owners to their workplaces.
And why not be cheerful?
After all, solja would join the mboch by 10:01 am.
She would be dressed in her employer’s best/ most kinky dresses, complete with make-up and perfume.
She would have prepared a heavy breakfast for ‘solja’, after which they would get up to hanky panky in the bed of madam and mzee. Then ‘solja’ would watch TV as the wannabe mboch fixed lunch. Then after another ‘mortal combat’ match, they would have a siesta (in the bed of the masters) until the alarm went off at three. Time for ‘solja’ to return to his gate duties.
But not before he had had a soapy shower ( with mzee’s Imperial leather soap) as the wannabe maid fixed him a whole ton of tea and put it in his thermos flask as a goodbye gift – Monday to Friday.
The madam of the house kept wondering why milk, bread, unga, tea leaves, sugar, soap and other household items were in short supply. Until a neighbour’s maid (whom Wafula had also been fooling around with before dumping her for the ten-to-three wannabe) betrayed the story to Madam.
Then there are those ‘domestic’ wannabes who have the appetites of modern day ogres.
It is like their bowels are a bottomless pit (never mind that bowels end in bottoms, lol).
Their bowls are ever full, and their greed for food knows no bounds. (In fact I am convinced it is houseboys like these who caused the famine that forced Jubilee to go get ninety bob maize from Mexico). They are such ‘hungries’ that it would be no big surprise for one to come home one day, and find them licking the lotion off your baby’s face as an appetizer.