Postcard to Kenyan women from Kampala

A couple of months back, I travelled to Uganda and I was impressed by the kindness and respect women there have for their men.

One evening, I was in a discotheque perched atop a bar stool, from where I was able to scan the dance floor.

I immediately thought about Nairobi, and I imagined the scenes at top entertainment spots in the capital, Kisumu, Nakuru, Eldoret and Mombasa.

I was certain that while beer was the common denominator, that was as far as the similarities go.

The girls I was watching were well dressed with short, trimmed hair and were drinking from narrow neck bottles.

I was willing to bet that back home, female club goers were twerking while drinking Guinness Kubwa and swinging heads full of fake hair.

This scenario made me think; what are we doing to our women that they seem to be losing their feminine touch?

One of the reasons, according to the council of young elders led by my pal Jemo is that the Kenyan woman, especially the working class, is fighting foot and nail to be on the same pedestal with her male counterpart.

Big mistake, if you ask me.

When you down three beers, the Kenyan woman in a bar is never too far behind. When you buy a round, in the popular ‘lete vile tulivyo’, as soon as you have taken two gulps, your female companion beckons the waiter. As you assume that she is asking for directions to the rest room, she shouts between gulps, telling the waiter to stop staring at her chest and bring the beers.

Before you have a chance to get astounded, she stands up, starts dancing. And as you are hoping it is going to be a polite and civil dance she grabs your waist.

She then thrusts herself against your loins like one possessed by demons. You hope it is going to be short, but it is not.

She holds you tighter by the minute and, to make matters worse, starts shrieking in a manner that can be construed to mean that her body temperature is rising like boiling milk on a stove.

You are now stuck between a rock and a hard place, you want to flee from this embarrassment, but as a tough African male, you cannot run away from a woman.

This would embarrass your clan and cause your father embarrassment back in the village.

Soon other people in the bar stop watching football and instead fix their eyes at the disproportionate battle of the bodies that you and your partner are having on the floor.

Waiters pass by you with suppressed fear, lest you send them sprawling onto the floor with a tray full of expensive drinks.

But right in front of me, there was none of these things.

The Ugandan girls were sweetly looking in my direction and when it appeared that our eyes had met, they would tactfully look sideways.

In such a scenario in Nairobi, the woman would be winking at you and wondering if you were man enough.

Where did they get all this courage from?