Dan Okwiri
Penning my journal.
Many swim the world in blindness of the blessings they have in pot, always in bandit criticism of their own country and circumstances. Kenya has many issues to wet our cry tissues, but it also seas a lot of joy to toy any homeboy.
I live deep in the countryside boonies by choice to escape the loonies in Nairobi the Kenyan capital city like most urban jungles filled with nitwits, lunatics, whackos, yahoos, dolts & kooks in jumble, fungal, mumble all in crumble. Folks I escaped the city drill cause everyone there puts a number to their smile in pretense affection & frill all in the name of dime to hole your pocket.
Now, I ain’t saying these aren’t any loonies in the countryside, but here I have my space blissing the mossy verdure popping our undulating hills. The breezing winds talks to my soul, the patter of the rain needling my corrugated iron sheet roof musics me the drum of nature’s bounty. Time here is of no consequence, everything here was and is.
Country life is regimentally mundane. It works this way, at dawn I do jog, & return for an orgy of fresh fruits dazzled with an English breakfast, then go onto to meet my hotel staff on the happenstance of what’s rocking. I usually get a stream of visitors who pop in to ear my nostalgic odes. Entertainment is tiring, especially if it’s me doing the yapping.
Hospitality is a business webbed with my lifestyle and it mollycoddles me with food, friends, people and free perks like using the hotel’s internet & laundry. The spark of it, I can gear to live in the hotel or in the solitude of the farm, or a stir fry of both.
I never thought much of my world until one day I got a cold call on FB messenger from a follower. She had a milky husky African American baritone voice, her lilt twanged a melodic harmonic swag. She was buzzing from New York & wanted to visit Migori. It got me wondering why she would want to visit this place & there’s nothing much in see. The twist in wrist, she requested me to pick her up from Migori airstrip. I protested, it’s a service I don’t offer, plus there are taxis! At the end, my better judgment prevailed, business requires sacrifices.
On D-Day, I went to pick up Natasha at 7 am. The landing whirring-bladed Dash 8 bird poured out a gaggle of 30 paxs. From the apron, she already stood out in giraffe, a breathtakingly gorgeous of quintessential elegance. I didn’t need to ask anybody, & strode out to her and welcomed her in open arms, “without doubt you must be Natasha!”.
She was swimming in joy, “Skyward airlines left dead on time, and you’re here to pick me on the dot. It’s said in American that Africans don’t keep time, it’s all fibs”.
Natasha was tagging 2 humongous enamel suitcases, she looked like she was moving house, perhaps intending to reside in rural Migori for a long while. She was certainly a jaw-dropping broad, though a little plump for my beckoning, dotting an hourglass figure with an ant-narrow waist for cuddle. Red hot, her luscious pear rear would pop eye of my Luo tribesmen coveting for sin in pin.
Debonair, like many African Americans, she torched large hazel nut colored eyes girdled by fluffy eyelashes that flinched with cheesy smile, brandishing perfect milky white teeth. Her waxy hair a long song, I was in debate if it is a weave, but concluded it was none of my business. Of sheeny baby bottom skin, she was so fair in complexion, you could mistake her for being white.
I heaved her clunky luggage into the boot of my beloved quarter-century Toyota saloon, hesitant if this is a jalopy that should carry this beautiful damsel. She gazed breathing in the scenery without a word as we snaked the 6 km journey to the hotel competing for road space with miscreant piki riders with care nothings for highway code as they rode.
She hit the hay in lay, Natasha conked out in dead sleep for 36 hours nonstop. I would meet her almost 2 days later at 1000 am, sitting pretty on the Migori Country Hotel porch sipping steaming brewed roast coffee with generous nibble of arrow roots, poached eggs and a fruit platter.
“Good morning Wuod Baba, never in my life slept so well in swell, I woke to tweet of weaver birds in sing and a cock crowed to my thrill. I was awe-struck when I landed in Migori, expecting to see scene of stark naked pot bellied malnourished children tormented by blue buzzing flies, but this was not meant to be. Seeing is believing, this place is mossy verdure green, never seen anything like it. The people here may not be wealthy but they are healthy & look even look more snazzy than African Americans. This is not the Africa that they tell us about. We are told a lie, and it has dawned on me the motherland is more beautiful than I envisioned.”
Natasha in her late 40s, was tantalising in her floral dress, dainty and carefully slow with her food. She seemed to be sweeting to the arrow roots, something I found surprising! Didn’t expect her to have taste for African eats. I was curious what brought her to this part of the orbit, and wanted to fork out her thoughts. Few African Americans set foot in rural Kenya, for Nairobi is their know-it-all. I laid my eggs out to her for poach, hoping I don’t encroach and turn to be her roach.
“What your story & what in the heavens jets you here?” It was a banger straight up to play ball.” She grinned in coy.
“Wuod Baba I’m actually your silent Facebook follower! I live in New York, & worked as a manager of big cloth store. Been stuck 10 years in the same role to my bore unable to oar upstream to a bigger position. It’s donning to me it’s something to do with my color. Been training young white folksy, they all overtake me. Frustrating to the hilt of being stuck in silt, I can’t keep body & soul together. No love lost, decided to hang my boots & call it quits.
To add fuel to the fire, my promiscuous hubby has always dogged on me despite the fact that I feed the dude. Am here in respite to path new territory. Deep down, I have a yearning for the motherland too. Had a soft spot for President Obama, he brought a whiff of fresh breeze to the USA. I loved his cheese, forked into his seed & learnt that he was Luo, stemming from this part of the planet. Being your follower, I found you come from the same seed in knead. I’m looking for new squeeze, that’s why I’m here, and he must be Luo just like Obama. Nothing short & nothing more!”
This girl sure laid it bone bare in rare for my glare. Nothing scares a man like a straight-shooting woman, even a perennial Casanova gets some sort of guilt in know that a honest woman has a short fuse and will kill you if you bed her in raunchy misuse.”
“Do you have family?” I jerked.
“Yes Wuod Baba, I certainly do! Two children, a boy & girl in college. My divorce went through & my husband pays a monthly alimony of USD 1500 in children’s upkeep. I am looking to settle in the motherland, done my homework & thinking of relocating my kids to USIU a college in Nairobi offering an American-style education, fees there way cheaper than the states. They won’t be burdened with a lifetime student loan. Even if I don’t get a man, I’m never going back to the States, am done.”
I was unsettled by her story, a woman willing to give up a life she knew for lottery in new. Did she have a clue in all her flu that Luo men in rule are polygamous? By now, I figured out she didn’t have a concrete program in Migori, she came fishing and I would for most part be her itinerary.
“What are you looking for in a man in fan?” Bewildered.
“Wuod Baba, I ain’t a green horn. Raised in the rough & tumble of Harlem by a single mum. Lost my father due alcoholism & my 2 brothers shot dead by drug cartels in rough when defending their turf. Life in Kenya looks beach & peach.
Ain’t searching for spring chicken, my profile for a man is he should be peppering his late 50s, that’s some 10 years older than me. A woman is always way more mature in sage than a man her age, been there & won’t go back there again to be pelted by rain. The man should be financial stable and be able to meet my needs in fable. Wouldn’t want to burden him with my children, they are already catered for by their dad. I prefer to live in the countryside, am done with city life, so I expect him to build me house for nest & give me land. The rest I can well do on my own”.
“Natasha you need not live a fairy tale, all Luo men in the age bracket you’re searching for are either married, alcoholic, ailing, dead beat or polygamous. Your search is a dead cul-de-sac!” Natasha reply would stun me.
“I don’t care if he has 3 wives as long as I get my own space in the race. In fact I don’t want a man always hanging around me. Separate the men from the boys, African American men in the States are technically ‘monogamous’ but keep tens of baby mamas in side chick for gig. A man who is honest & straight up polygamous, ain’t my issue for tissue.”
I was baffled by her take, I didn’t expect an American woman to think that direction. The only women I know who think in that gear are Migorians,
The next 2 months I knit Natasha into my daily chores & chorus of rural life in my same old rigamarole to get her a feel in reel what it meant living in rural Kenya. We visited the homes of my peers, who are polygamous. She was intrigued by what she saw, the more she stayed the more it jazzed her.
Had one concern for her though, living in Africa can be great but what hustle would she do for daily bread? Her experience as store manager in New York wouldn’t count for a hill of beans here where second hand clothes rule the roost. Most Afro Americans think they are street smarter than fellow Africans but soon on landing here burst the bubble find out that making ends meet is a struggle in juggle. I had to rub some sense into this headstrong broad about her new life abroad.
“Natasha puppy love, to make an omelette you’re an attractive proposition for any dude here, a green card ticket for USA citizenship. Like taking candy from a baby, everyone here would want to marry you for just that paper. USA is every African’s dream life, you swim against the current. There’s fantasy & there’s reality, my take go back home. If you want a Luo man would advice you to get one in the USA, plenty of them in Texas. They won’t be a cultural shock in mock & once a year they do come home, you’ll get a taste of the motherland. Not a bad deal for your meal.
“I want the real deal for seal, an authentic Luo man living here in the motherland & not the ones that have adopted the American vibe. What about you Wuod Baba, aren’t you Luo too & can marry as many as you please, won’t you play ball?”
Was taken aback in fall.
“Darling I’m not looking for new wrinkle, & already taken, but even without that, I don’t have the pump for rump to take on another lady in trump. Out of the frying pan into the fire, you’ll tray frigid in fridge, loose as a goose I love to live free & not tied. Every lady lugs her issues, however I don’t mind you though as friend. Am dead against you being a 2nd wife, you don’t know the innings like our Luo women do.” I retorted taking the side of the angels.
Reluctantly, she gave in and sadly left just like she came, the truth of the matter a spurned woman can never be a man’s friend. Here today, gone tomorrow, I would never hear from her again. The only thing I did hear from an American friend a year down the tube she still lives in Kenya, somewhere in Ruaka suburbia. She has pension of USD 1500 or so & with that can live much better life in retirement here than she would ever live in the States.
In this life, you don’t know what you got, till others tell you. Hospitality business doors you to interact with people, & in many strokes offers a razzmatazz life. Tables turn as we age, a 60 yr old man magnets more lady folk than a 20-year-old. Spoilt for choice most 60 year dudes are run down because not having kept themselves fit & women in contemporary are either divorced or husbands dead. The men few left have a field day for choice.
There’s one thing I did learn from Natasha, keep the faith, Africa is the place to be. It’s growing @ 5%+, and windows many entrepreneurial opportunities that you can sky where race ain’t barrier. Our lifestyle in Africa offers us more. choices, one foot in the tranquil of the countryside & the other in city living.
Many Afro Americans feel boxed stuck in the boonies of the social structure, unwanted & are flooding back to the motherland in need to live free in be with their own. Hopefully, they’ll find love. There’s no great wealth than freedom to be who you are and follow your dreams. Welcome home!
#okwiri my journal, my thoughts, my walk…
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