By GRACE NAKATO

KENYA: Here is a typical morning at a police station in the season of jollity without counting the break-ins, mugging and drunk driving.

At 2am, police are called by a club owner in Kabalagala, Kampala’s Red Light Zone, to break up a domestic fight in the parking lot. A couple was having drinks with a friend when the husband excused himself to take a call, and the friend went to the ‘ladies’. After a longer than usual wait, wife walked out to find out why the call was taking too long, and noticed the rocking car with steamed up windows.

In their haste, the two hadn’t locked the doors and she flung open the door only for the husband to say “Leka malilizze (let me finish)”.

The hungry wife descended on them with insults and blows. When the matter was reported to elders, they dismissed it wondering what a wife was doing in the bar, in the first place.

At around 9am, a man calls to report a break-in. Upon arriving at the scene, the man states that he wants to officially handover his philandering wife to the neighborhood cameraman.

Apparently, he left for work at 8am, and along the way realised he had forgotten some files at home and turned back.

 He was greeted by suspicious noises emanating from the bedroom. And on opening the door, finds his wife and the cameraman in the throes of passion. She does not even appear mortified, and instead admonishes him. She tells him he has no right to get angry because he has not been ‘satisfying’ her.

Met in a bar

Instead of reaching for a hammer, he reaches for his mobile and calls police. Whispers say he met her in a bar two years ago.

Just before lunch, another man comes to the station sweating hard and breathing fire.

He has just come home from kyeyo (kibarua) in Sudan because a friend called to inform him of pending nuptials between his wife and the landlord. He had just sent his wife Sh178,000 to bank on his account. The wife is found at the salon dolling up for the shindig. And when asked, she tells the officers the cash was a gift for her upkeep.

While handling the case, things heat up and within no time, the landlord’s wife arrives at the scene waving her wedding photos as proof of marriage. All of a sudden, there is one fine mess.

I mean, with such experiences daily, I wonder why policemen always have a frown and look bored, yet they have such an entertaining job!

 Elders too, seem to be getting such entertaining cases but one wonders, banange, what is the criterion for determining who is considered ‘an elder’? Is it based on one’s age, sagacity or what is it exactly?

Picture a situation where elders are called to preside over a case in which a 27-year-old stepson has impregnated his three step-sisters aged 13, 14 and 15 years.

The elders give him 40 strokes of the cane and the girls 20 strokes each. The young man declares that he is unapologetic and his father and the elders only sag their jaws.

Fida is nowhere to be seen as the incident happened deep in the bundus and is only a footnote in the news.

Were I an elder, the parents would receive 100 strokes each for failure to impart morals on their son or report him to the police.

Maybe they thought police had more ‘serious’ cases to arbitrate.