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Married women in Kiharu, Murang’a County, don’t look kindly at Nancy Wairimu, a bar attendant. They recently ran the 23-year-old vivacious beauty out of town, fearing she would elope with their husbands and sons.
Just last week, tens of wives in Kabuta market in Kiharu stormed the Kuku Joint bar along Murang’a-Sagana road where Wairimu was attending to customers, baying for her blood, their babies strapped on their backs.
Wairimu told The Nairobian that she was employed six months ago and was surprised after women sang songs to ridicule her even as patrons blocked their entry in to the bar besides warning them against ridiculing ‘our barmaid.’
Kabuta market is economically sustained by sand harvesting and the men, who form the bulk of workers, advised the wives to learn tricks of dressing to kill.
Wairimu told The Nairobian that she had not befriended any man in Kabuta and at the time of their storming Kuku Joint Bar, she was with her boyfriend Benson Mwangi who is 26.
“It is ridiculous that they demonstrated against me instead of looking for their cheating husbands who could have been elsewhere,” lamented Wairimu adding that the incident demoralised her since the women,” shouted how I was sleeping around with their husbands without any proof”.
She blamed the drama from wives of Kabuta on business rivalry at the market centre where Kuku Joint Bar registered more business due to its strategic location.
On challenges of her job, Wairimu said barmaids are beaten up by drunkards who refuse to pay their bills.
“When we decline sexual advances from men who offer generous tips among other favours, we suffer,” she said.
Just three months ago, a patron roughed her up after he refused to pay his bill but like most of her colleagues, who are clobbered by drunkards she didn’t report the matter at the nearby Kabuta police post which is less than 500 metres from Kuku Joint Bar.
Wairimu added that barmaids also suffer loss of income after bar owners deduct from their salaries to compensate for lost bills.
“I had worked at Kamacharia market for a year and I never experienced what I witnessed at Kabuta,” said Wairimu who is job-hunting after the Kuku Joint Bar incident left her jobless. She is aware that more men are visiting the bar to know ‘what actually happened.’
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