When women hold manhood captive

BY Eric Andati

Women have always been considered protective beings with motherly instincts ensuring that all those whom they care for are actually protected. It is this strong love for their families that has seen them do anything to make sure that their husbands or spouses are kept in check by all means — away from the prying eyes of their competitors.

It is for this reason that women will do anything including battering the man in an attempt to guard and tame them.

Some women are even thought to employ charms in a bid to tame their men. A number of men and women, we spoke to, lend credence to this assertion that indeed there are men who have been tamed by these charms otherwise known as jujus if you like.

Ever wondered how men from Western Province leave their women back in the village as they flock to urban centres to look for employment? A school of thought has it that village elders usually cast protective spell on the men that is supposed to protect them from the charm and wiles of the city women. This spell is supposed to hold the family together despite the fact that the husband and wife are not together.

Yet others who have fallen victim to the strange charms of these women have a story to tell.

A man in Huruma Estate, Nairobi was forced to marry a woman whom he had impregnated but didn’t love after his manhood was rendered inactive by the woman.

**James was a bachelor in the sprawling estate and would buy vegetables from the woman who sold them at the plot’s entrance. It happened that after conducting business for sometime, the two became well acquainted. Mama Mboga as she known even came to know James’ girlfriend who used to spend occasional nights there.

The friendship between James and the Mama Mboga grew such that whenever he expected his girlfriend to come, he would leave the key with the vendor so the when his lover, she would pick it from her. This went on for quite a while, and the two ladies became good friends.

Within no time, Mama Mboga even started cleaning the house for James anytime he left the key with her. Since James would once in while branch into the local pub with his friends, she would preserve for him some vegetables in the evening lest he sleeps hungry. Given that he would on a number of days fail to prepare a meal in that drunken stupor, she would out of a kind heart prepare for him a meal and then go to her place, which was just a stone throw away from his.

the fateful night

James recalls that one evening he came home drunk. It had rained heavily and the downpour continued late into the night. He recalls the lady politely offering to prepare a meal for him promising to leave once the rain subsided. They had the meal together and the lady wanted to leave but he talked her out of it since it was still raining heavily. She reluctantly agreed to sleep over. That night they slept together and had sex with the result being pregnancy.

When she informed James after a month, he would hear none of it, telling her he wasn’t stupid to play around with. Her nagging grew with time as her belly kept getting bigger. Having had enough of nagging, he moved away from that plot.

After sometime she just stopped her nagging and James assumed that everything was okay. One day his girlfriend came to spend over and for the first time in his life James could not rise to the occasion. His ‘tool box’ as he came later to learn had been rendered inactive. At the time he didn’t give it much thought and dismissed it as a result of tiredness.

However, he was alarmed when the same problem persisted at two more subsequent visits. The girlfriend was livid with him, asking why he was calling her over yet he was not doing anything.

This embarrassment made him avoid her for quite a while. One evening as he was walking in the estate, he met Mama Mboga. She rushed to him and said, "I’ll make sure you will never perform as a man until you accept your child that I’m carrying and marry me". He dismissed this. In his thoughts, he believed his inability to "perform" was linked to his excessive drinking. He decided to, albeit reluctantly, reduce his alcohol intake.

Having done this for a while, he thought he was ready for his girlfriend. He called her for a sleep over. And again he could not do anything. This started weighing him down and to make matters worse the girlfriend packed her few belongings in the house and left.

Frustrated, he chose to share his problem with his close cousin who advised him to go to his rural home in Bungoma and seek the help of traditional medicine. His numerous trips and many glasses of different herbal concoctions did not help. Later on, his cousin narrated the story to his father who had been in the dark all this time.

After trying his herbs too, the old man advised his son to pretend that he had forgiven the woman and woo her back. Curiously enough he never had any problem when it came to intimacy with her.

troubled man

This boosted his confidence and he once again sought his girlfriend believing his troubles were over. He was wrong as he failed to rise to the occasion. On narrating to the father, he was advised to try two more times with the mboga lady and the girlfriend and see what happens. Every time they got together with the vendor things were okay but he would fail miserably with the girlfriend.

The mama mboga would always send messages through intermediaries that failure to marry her would render him "powerless" forever. With the advice of his clansmen, he accepted to marry the woman, believing that once settled, he would go ahead and marry his wife of choice.

This never materialised as the two are married with two kids. James finds it hard to believe that a graduate that he is, he had to marry the woman who is a primary school dropout.

In another incident, **Allan attended his friend’s wedding at Kari in Westlands one Saturday. It happened that his colleagues too attended the function. When he went back to his house in the evening after a few drinks with friends, one of his female colleagues at work joined him claiming she had lost her key. She pleaded to be allowed to sleep promising to leave the next day. She prepared a meal, which they shared and slept.

Little did Allan know the trap he had walked into. According to him, from that day every time he talks to any other girl, his body becomes numb. His efforts to seek medical assistance have borne no fruit. Interestingly, whenever he is with the lady he is so normal that his friends always tell him to get married to her despite the fact that he doesn’t love her. He believes she must have put something in his food.

Other men have acted in what could be considered insane ways after they have been ensnared by what is thought to be love charms by women who have adored them. Such men have moved away from their homes and gone to stay with the woman’s parents. They will be seen doing anything and everything including fetching water, preparing meals, cleaning house and in fact worshiping the women.

A woman in Kayole narrated recently how she managed to tame her husband’s amorous ways. The woman says she visited a medicine man in Mombasa who gave her a cocktail of potions to give her man. Ever since, she says, she does not care to snoop on him since he has been tamed completely.

So trapped is he that every time he talks to a lady, he calls his wife back to tell her "I have been speaking to so and so over this…"

The man even gives all his earnings to the woman to manage. His friends corroborated this, saying they wonder what happened to their buddy whom they say even washes his wife’s inner garments.

wrecking marriages

Recently, residents of Likoni in Mombasa were reportedly treated to a drama when a high-flying pastor with a leading evangelical church ditched his family and church and eloped with a woman of 60 years claiming she was irresistible. Villagers were shocked when they woke up to find the 35-year-old pastor atop a tree, shouting that he wanted to marry the old woman who had attended his church for a few weeks.

Their pleas against this were futile as he later dumped his family. Those who know the woman explained that she uses deadly charms and has wrecked many marriages. She boasted to friends that every time she sets her eyes on a man, she gets him. It said that any one who leaves without her permission would never get attracted to any other woman. The pastor is said to regret why he didn’t meet the old woman earlier.

Elsewhere in the same locality, another woman is said to be driving men crazy. It is claimed that whenever a man shakes her hand that is the beginning of his troubles, as he will abandon his activities and follow after her. The fact that the men know she has other lovers does not deter them. The jury is still out yet on whether powerful charms actually work or whether it’s just men’s naivetÈ that leads them into total submission.

It is a crazy world, this one.