The village Casanova

By Anthony Ngatia

The love of money, the saying goes, is the source of all evil.

Whoever coined the saying must have had the village male shopkeeper in mind. In the village, where poverty is acute in many homes, the shopkeeper enjoys celebrity status.

He attracts women like a honey pot attracts bees. He is the centre of attraction for women, both single and married.

Business people and wealth often go hand in hand, and in the village, the shopkeeper is the embodiment of this relationship.

Never mind that the so-called shop is a scantily stocked timber shack with a screaming, poorly written trade name like ‘Jitegemee Shop’, ‘Wa Nyambura Shop (1989)’ or ‘Senator Obama Shopping Mall’ The fact is that the shopkeeper lives off the fat of the land in matters of romance.

John Michinji was a prominent shopkeeper at Matopeni shopping centre in Laikipia District in the 1990s. In the end he was done in by the sex demon.

As they say, he came, he saw and conquered Matopeni, a dusty one-row shopping centre in one of the driest parts of the country.

Industrious man

He had migrated from his native Nyeri District. After setting up a shop, he stocked it with virtually everything that the local people needed. By competitively pricing his products, Michinji’s shop’s fame grew in leaps and bounds.

Gradually, he built himself an impressive customer base mostly composed of women and girls. To women, he was always willing to give goods on credit.

To schoolgirls, he generously gave out sweets whenever they visited his shop.

"An industrious man will always succeed at whatever he lays his hands on," men would remark as they whiled away their evenings outside Michinji’s shop. If only they had known!

Where I come from, people say that a beautiful wife is yours only as long as you have money. Once it is finished, she will be game for the rich man who happens along —the shopkeeper if it’s in the village.

Fattening the calf

In Matopeni, a woman who had migrated from Kiambu was said to have a taste for the finer things in life. She was a frequent customer at Michinji’s shop.

Her husband, Baulu (Paul) had recently become broke. Previously, he had been a fairly rich man. He was reduced to doing menial work around the village such as tilling land for a fee, and fencing.

Whenever the woman went to buy a kilo of sugar at Michinji’s, the shopkeeper added another one plus a loaf of bread. They would chat and giggle in a way that suggested there was a certain emotion that was drawing them together.

Only Michinji knew that he was fattening the calf and would soon slaughter it.

It did not take long. One day, Michinji gave the woman Sh1,000 and requested that they go to Nyeri to attend his cousin’s wedding.

The note was quickly pocketed and the deal was sealed.

On the appointed day, they took a Nyeri matatu but instead of visiting the cousin, they headed to Happy Hours lodging.

They say that stolen water is sweet and when the heart grows hot, the brain goes soft. Baulu’s wife forgot to go back home that day. They spent the night in town.

When she reached home the following day at around noon, she feigned sickness and told her husband she had missed the bus home the previous evening.

She had escorted a friend to a burial in Nyeri, she lied.

It is said that when a man has no money, his confidence and bravery grow wings. Tired from working the whole day in people’s shambas, Baulu swallowed the lie hook, line and sinker.

The village Casanova resurfaced at his shop late in the night with stories about how he had gone to Busia to look for goods.

Once you paratake of stolen honey, you tend to get hooked. And as the Waswahili say, the offspring is always better than the mother.

Soon, Michinji started wooing Baulu’s daughter. She was a cute girl in Form Two.

Initially, the girl feigned shyness when Michinji broached the subject of a romance and pleaded for time to think about it.

But when Michinji flashed a Sh1,000 note in front of her eyes, she went wild and offered to come over the following Sunday. Talk of a hen and chicks having the same fate!

Steamy romance

After each escapade, sordid details of how he relished the stolen moments would be heard on the grapevine.

By the time Michinji finally closed his shop after a period of five years, he had impregnated schoolgirls, wives, primary school teachers and tailors. Some men were plotting to teach him a lesson

Julius Odhiambo from Siaya told me how his life was turned upside down when he heard rumours that his girlfriend had succumbed to the wiles of the burly local shopkeeper, Ochieng Malo Malo.

It was also rumoured that he was infected with HIV/Aids — and for good reason. His shop, flashy and with music blaring out of powerful loudspeakers, was strategically located at a road junction at Sigomere market.

Whenever he saw a skirt wearer pass by, he would invite her over and go into overdrive.

"In nyako maber ahinya anyaro usominwa monde anyuomi," he would croon. (Girl, you are so beautiful I would even pawn my own mother to have you!)

If the chemistry worked, a steamy romance would follow. He repeated this so often he was nicknamed ‘the bull of Siaya’.

"I endured five long years of sadness believing that I had the killer disease until I came to Kibera where I went for a test at a VCT," Odhiambo says.

Upon inquiry, he had established that the girl had in indeed slept with Ochieng. Few women he targeted got away.

Some shopkeepers end up paying the price for their philandering ways.

Ochieng Malo Malo was once caught red-handed frolicking with the wife of a local boda boda operator.

Seething with anger, the cuckold summoned his fellow motorbike riders and within 30 minutes, the entire shop had been razed to the ground.

Deadly virus

But for the local chief, Ochieng Malo Malo might have been killed. He was excommunicated from Siaya, but not without a dose of crude discipline. He was stripped naked and taken round the sleepy shopping centre.

Ochieng has not been seen in Siaya since. It is rumoured he got saved and was once seen somewhere in Kibera.

At Lirhembe shopping centre in Kakamega, Makokha was once the proud proprietor of Mulembe General Shop. He stocked groceries and bicycle parts, which are in high demand in that area.

Long before Equity Bank arrived on the scene with microfinance, Makokha was already ahead giving credit to villagers — especially women, either in groups or as individuals.

The small loan came as a relief to the poor villagers who spent the money to finance funerals, buy stationery for children or even for financing a rendezvous with a lover.

For his financial prowess, Makhokha had more to choose from. All manner of women were eager to be noticed by Makhoha.

Some excited men, having been advanced credit, would even send their daughters with goodies like local brew, a chicken or maize to take to Makokha.

And being a wise man who knew how to reap where he had sown, he never wasted any chances. He would prey on such girls without fear. He changed women like clothes.

But the good book of God says: "…and the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death." Makokha’s luck was running out.

One day, he was suddenly taken ill and rushed to the nearby dispensary. He had a bout of diarrhoea that seemed unstoppable for a week.

When, out of curiosity, the doctor decided to run a test, the stud was found to have contracted HIV/Aids.

Gloom hung over the sleepy Lirhembe village centre as the chain of women who had passed by his shop started wondering if they too might have contracted the deadly virus.

Long after he had been buried, several women started being sickly. All trace their predicament to one famed shopkeeper.