For Nyeri women, sitting pretty often means sitting on a man’s bended back

PETER KIMANI

There are many ways to control a man, is a common refrain that most of us are familiar with. Actually, the term often used is, kukaliwa, which has interesting literal and metaphorical connotations.

It means to be sat on, presumably by a woman much heavier than oneself. The weight, no doubt, is gained from eating more food, obviously because the woman also controls (her) purse and (the man’s) wallet strings.

But there are deeper meanings of kukaliwa. Women friends who cannot be named for security reasons and who assured they were not speaking from experience but "general knowledge" floating around say kukaliwa refer to tricks concocted in the kitchen. After all, women know, as medics do, the easiest way to a man’s heart, is through the stomach.

My respondents say chapati is the dish of choice because it can be done and undone, then cooked to acquire colour and flavour – disguising any suspect concoctions women intent on sitting on their men sneak into their chapati.

I’m told the chapati recipe is highly recommended by waganga (witchdoctors). Actually, witchdoctors offer the greatest single source of information, according to my informants, to women seeking ways to control their men.

They will offer portions to be added to cooking stews, incense to burn while the man is away, or even the direction that the woman is to face when waking, and at what time. But that’s the theory of it. Other women are more practical, and do not need to pay a mganga to tell them the obvious. They know how to straighten errant men before they grow too old.

Lost manhood

I hear the women, mostly operating in Nyeri County, are considering forming a welfare group by the name, Real Mt Kenya Mafia and their objectives include restoring the lost manhood.

I hear when men stagger home in Nyeri from drinking sprees their women welcome them home and even help them undress. In that moment of weakness, they are given a thrashing.

As a consequence, I have been hearing cruel rumours – from two oceans away – that should you hear a cry late in the night in Nyeri, it’s either a man or a child being thwacked by the woman of the house.

But this is no laughing matter. Since we hardly pay attention to history, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes. For history offers plenty of lessons on the evolution of gender relations in Central Kenya.

As the epicentre of the freedom struggle in the 1950s, when men were herded away to concentration camps by the Brits, women were left to fend for themselves and their children.

This meant the women had to labour through unaided, undertaking roles that ordinarily be handled by men.

Crushed by war

A decade later, the men returned to the villages crushed by the war, haunted by what they had gone through. Most could not tell whether they were dead or living. Those were the days before NGOs that offer things called "psycho-social" support came into being.

Two generations on, women of Nyeri have been hardened by life and typify the meaning of the expression kuga na gwika (saying and doing). They are the heads of their families, and work long and hard.

If there is an improvident man who is turning into a nuisance, through late-night knocks on the door, he is quickly told out means outside.

And should you stretch their patience further, blows shall come faster than words. Men need to learn before the contagion spreads. Or run.

Taking the goats of Malaba

on a ride to Kajiado plains

I think somebody is paying others to tarnish the reputation of Internal Minister George Saitoti, now that he has indicated he will run for the top office.

The minister surely must be aware there are people who wish him ill, like those who tried to poison him years back. Now there are others poisoning the people’s minds by presenting him as a liability wherever he goes.

Take that Malaba woman, for instance, who says her goat has been missing from the moment Saitoti arrived in the border town recently.

Although the woman says she suspects the goat ran away at the sight of the chopper that delivered the good old prof, I read malice in such claims.

There is a hint of siasa here. Why, Saitoti is from a community that once considered all domestic animals their rightful inheritance from Enkai (God).

So, such narratives would imply Saitoti gave the goat a ride on his chopper back to the plains of Kajiado, which the goat would consider its "natural" environment.

Such sinister claims are spread by people who claim Saitoti does not even draw from that community known for its affinity to goats.

I’m optimistic that the goat shall be found and safely returned to its rightful owner in Malaba. For I, too, believe Saitoti is not a bad man, even as others try to harm him, or hurt his reputation.

Thankfully, I’m comforted by Saitoti’s past assertion that bad rumours do not shake even a strand of his hair, which is always well-groomed and dyed black.

The Ruto ‘charade’ and parable

of men who dig pits for others

William Samoei arap Ruto is succeeding in planting the myth that Tinga’s got something to do with his problems at The Hague. You can judge that, not from the applause of the MPs in the House (I hear they can be hired to do just that), but from that scowl on Tinga’s face.

A more relaxed Tinga is known for throaty evocations, usually in Kiswahili, almost always accompanied by a side-way sway, like an agile footballer.

In his spat this week with his former lieutenant, who first publicly used the title Right Honourable to describe him, Tinga appeared less confident, and couldn’t even bring himself to naming Ruto as the person dragging his name into what Ruto calls ICC "charade."

Yet, Tinga could not bring himself to saying what we know; that Ruto, beating his chest several moons ago, demanded: Kwani Hague ni nini?, insinuating what was the big deal about ICC trials.

Plotting downfalls

I think Tinga’s memory has been playing tricks on him, and he could not retrieve those lines fast enough. Here’s one that he should find useful should Ruto insist on that ICC "charade." Tinga should relax and do that shoulder dance and chant: Mchimba kisima, huingia yeye! (those who plot others’ downfall succumb first).