He who finds a good mboch

By Joseph Maina

The housegirl is an integral part of Kenyan life, and most families would hardly make it without this important personage. However, scouting for a quality house-help has always proven an arduous task.

Remember, the mboch is your children’s teacher, associate mother, in-house chef, drycleaner and many other things. Therefore, an ideal one is a disciplined woman who knows a hundred ways to cook an egg, does not curse, does not date most-wanted crooks, knows when to shut up and does not exhibit ex-Mathare tendencies. Alcohol and drug consumption are a no-no, and so is a criminal record.

Family tree

Our first mboch was Magdalena, a hard-boiled shagsmodo who happened to be my comptroller’s niece. You see, Mama Jimmy’s grandfather had three wives, one of whom was Magdalena’s father’s mother, which means her father is my comptroller’s step-cousin, and that Magdalena is Mama Jimmy’s niece.

Perhaps taking comfort in this nepotism, Magdalena never seemed to do anything right. Her sense of hygiene was below sea level, and her cooking was shabby.

I hate to sound mean to my ‘relative’, but Magdalena was chronically disorganised and clinically daft. Before long, my house started looking like the aftermath of an overnight bombing on an Al Shabaab camp. We eventually showed her the red card.

Following our sad experience in Magdalena’s hands, we vowed never to hire from the family tree again. Thanks to the proliferation of housegirl bureaus in my estate, mboch-hunting turned out to be quite easy, and we were practically spoilt for choice.

We got Sophie from one of these bureaus, but she turned out to be Little Miss Itchy Fingers. Less than two months into her service, she disappeared like a fart in the wind, dragging a whole host of our valuables along.

Shiro came next, but it turned out we had hired a gossip mogul who seemed to take Wikipedia for breakfast. To my astonishment, some of our deepest secrets became public knowledge.

Aside from being the neighbourhood BBC, and treating us to some of the worst meals ever made, Shiro was terrible with children, and even worse at laundry.

Thus, we replaced her with Mwende, an old-school matron who took to punishing my mboys whenever she felt they were ‘getting out of line’. She was a ‘trauma queen’ of sorts. Mama Jimmy was averse to outsourcing our children’s discipline, so we promptly dropped Mwende like the proverbial hot potato.

A week later, we got hold of Tabby, a feisty tomboy who could climb a tree faster than a cat. Tabby was hands-on and a go-getter who confined herself to her work, occasional play and Mexican soap operas. She was quite good at her job, and her cooking always tasted like wedding cake.

Sadly, after three months, she betrothed herself to the local charcoal guy and misplaced her chastity belt in the process. We had no choice but to let her go.

Maggy tosha

Happily, this week marks the fifth year since we hired our incumbent housegirl, Maggy, aka Miss Mboch, aka the deejay who spins our plates and related disks in the kitchen.

Maggy has maintained law and order in my hacienda. Throughout her years in office, accidents have been rare, the house is ever tidy and dudus have become endangered species. She handles our guests like royalty, does not treat herself to the baby’s food and does not try out Mama Jimmy’s outfits in her absence.

In return, we pay her a whopping Sh2,500, which is how she joined the local Forbes list of the best paid mboches in my part of the county. Thanks to this handsome pay, Maggy has been ‘laughing all the way to the kitchen’.