It is an old tradition that when a man comes of age, he gathers his sons and passes forth a few words of wisdom. He needn’t do this on his death bed. As a matter of fact, a wise man starts talking to his sons the moment they become men, which is hours after they are born.
And so it was with my father. When I was four, he looked me in the eye and said: “Son, if you want peace, leave your wife’s money alone.”
I had no idea what he was talking about because I was awfully fond of his wife’s money — especially when she converted it into sweets.
I was also more interested in the peanuts on the table, which we were munching in an old stomach bonding ritual between father and son.
Thinking back in retrospect, I suspect that gem of wisdom had arisen after a little fiscal policy disagreement between the old warrior and his better half.
A year later, I was encroaching on his plate of boiled cassava when he cleared his throat and mumbled, “Son? Give your woman freedom. You cannot guard her like a child. There are men in this village, when their wives go to the river, they follow. How do they know what happens when she is behind a bush for six seconds?”
As usual, I had no idea what he was talking about although I was certain the only thing a woman would do behind a bush for six seconds was peeing or pooping. My virgin mind had no clue of any other naughty activity a woman can do behind a bush in six seconds.
But I didn’t, of course, bring my little gem of wisdom to his attention. But last week, it hit me. After my jalopy conked out, I travelled from Bungoma to Nairobi on a shuttle.
While at it, I had the fortune to share the front seat with this well-endowed sister. Being a senior bachelor who still bears fading hopes of making more babies in the distant future, I began considering, to borrow street parlance, throwing a few lyrics to her, but then she removed a little parcel that forced me to wait.
That parcel had a packet of sour milk, one chapatti and an avocado, which she proceeded to make a meal out of. I was already in love because my mother once told me: “If you want a good wife, my son, marry a woman who eats. She will cook for you.”
Unfortunately, we couldn’t have much of a conversation because it turned out that she was married. I got to know that because her husband called her almost a million times all the way from Bungoma where she’d gone to visit her parents to Nairobi asking: “Uko wapi?”
He wanted to know why her father’s phone was switched off and why she was taking forever to get back to Nairobi. “Imagine he called me at 4am this morning. He thinks I am with another man,” she fumed.
When we got to Nairobi at 9pm, he rang for the last time. “Don’t come to my house because I will not open the door.”
Do you know what elders would have told him? He worries another will ‘steal’ her because she is kilometres away. But he has no idea what happens in the five minutes she spends in the communal bathroom on his plot, right within earshot!
