A woman needs some fun chama!

If there is one place I look forward to over the weekends, it must be my chama. We meet every last Sunday of the month. I look forward to it for many reasons. Tantalizing food, hot gossip, you name it. It is where women talk anything from hubby’s depressing bedroom antics to house girl drama, to our babies milestones; it is just the place to be end month.

It is where ‘ambitious’ career mums like us find a vibrant platform to be... not wives nor mothers nor career women... but just crazy girls. It is a place where women remove their designer (read mitumba) shoes, let down their Sh300,000 human hair (read River Road manes) flow and just enjoy a sumptuous meal, with great company over some exotic wine. But much as I look forward to my chama, I must confess, it is always more fun if you are not the one hosting.

I mean the pressure to impress with your seasoned culinary skills, is too much. All the ten of us, former campus buddies, always want to outdo the other especially in the cooking department.

Food is a big issue in the agenda so you cannot afford to do lazy 'mukimo' and bland 'minji'. There are basic minimum standards that must be met in that menu - that is 'kienyeji kuku' (no broilers please, we do not want extra hormones) and fish (and I do not mean the Naivasha pond fish, fresh tilapia from Lake Victoria).

Now, in an effort to cut costs, our penny pinching Coletta, in the last meeting, made the unforgivable sin of compromising on the standards by making broilers and serving cheap wine. Oh my! Didn’t our sisters from the 'suburbs' skin her alive.

Our agenda is usually, arrival, drinks, food, then AOB. So after people were done eating, the next item on the agenda was audit of the lousy cuisine.

“Now Coletta, you cannot make for us tasteless supermarket broilers and serve us cheap wine that you bought on offer. Some of us are sensitive palates and are watching our weight.

And by the way, when you come to my place, I always make for you succulent 'kienyeji kuku', which I woke up at 5am to buy at Burma. I also serve you pricey French wine that my hubby imported from Croatia.

“Woiye... I was broke coz I was just from paying fees for my son. Woiye I won’t repeat..,” Coletta pleaded her case. Luckily, in the spirit of sisterhood, she was forgiven. Yes that is our chama and I love it.

After auditing the host’s food, the next item on the agenda is my favorite segment, Muchene 101. These are rich discussions, which can make a riveting movie or a novel.

My hubby always tells me to join a more ‘purpose driven’ chama that focuses on plots, shares, mortgages ... but no thank you! Life is already too serious, a woman needs some fun chama!