The fine dilemma of one Fiona

By Tony M

Maybe you are reading this one at noon — so that it is saa sita, mwezi wa sita, siku ya sita for you. Triple six (666), they say, is the number of the Beast. And, yes, there are a lot of beastly men out there. Take the true life case of one Fiona for one.

The year was 1990 — the Berlin Wall had fallen, Fiona passed her KCPE exams with flying colours.

She was a fine student in all ways, even in Form One, and went to one of those fine Nairobi Catholic day schools for girls. Unfortunately, as she walked to the stage daily, a certain Mr Zakaria (Zaka from now) laid his eyes on her – and by Form Two, he was laying into young Fiona after school.

In KCSE, the distracted damsel could only manage a B minus grade, but no sooner were her slightly disappointing grades out, than the news popped out, literally, that she was pregnant.

Her furious father, a devout Catholic, confronted her, and then Zaka (35 years) over the pregnancy. The businessman, then into importing Jap vehicles from Dubai, agreed to marry 19 year old Fiona. After a large dowry, and larger apology, her father agreed — but said Fiona must remain catholic (although her husband took to calling her Fatuma in the house to deceive his brothers).

They got a child, Yussuf, that December. Fiona became a young house wife, as Zaka focussed on his biashara.

But five years down the line, he told Fiona he was getting a second wife. She refused. He beat her up badly enough to put her in hospital, where her father and brothers visited her.

The clan then visited Zaka at home, smashed his cars and beat the hell out of him.

By the time Fiona left hospital, he had served her divorce papers through a lawyer, and relocated to Dubai with his new 19 year old wife, Habida. He had also taken young Yusuf with him, claiming she was a ‘lazy bitch with no money who could not support her son’.

Fiona was devastated, and spent her 26th year at her dad’s, dazed and depressed.

He finally forced her to join university, a parallel course in Commerce. To her surprise, she loved the classes once she started, and excelled to graduate at 30 with a Second Class Honours degree; and got a good job.

Hanky panky

Two years later, she began to casually date a former class-mate five years her junior, and gradually fell in love with the fellow — a bright and witty spark called Jerry.

Last Valentine’s, he proposed, Fiona accepted, and they set a December date for the wedding.

Naturally, she informed her ex-hubby Zaka that she would like for her now 16 year old son to be there. There was a dark silence from the Dubai end of the line.

Then, out of God’s blue sky last Saturday, Zaka (now 50) landed like hell’s angel in Nairobi, went straight to Fiona’s house and said after Yusuf finished his grade for 2009, he was ‘coming back to Nairobi in December to stay with his mother forever’.

When Fiona in shock asked why, Zaka said he had caught Yusuf sleeping with his (Zaka’s) next wife, Zubeda.

Turned out this Zubeda is 19 years old, was betrothed to the 50-year-old Zaka, but her and Yusuf fell in teen-love while in the businessman’s mansion, and got into a secret hanky panky involving pantries and panties. When Zaka caught his son in this compromising position, he beat him, but Yusuf beat him back more!

"If Yusuf is still in Dubai by 2010, my mission is to kill him!" Zaka swore. "YOU take him."

When Fiona spoke to Jerry the following day, all he said was "that was impossible".

Jerry wanted to have his own child(ren) with her, not bring up a by-all-accounts difficult, rebellious boy who was on bhang a lot, and had refused school even in Dubai. Jerry said their wedding was off, if she was going to focus on the management of Yusuf, — as he just couldn’t deal with all the stress and drama.

Now Fiona really feels like she is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The devil in this case being Zaka who she feels is emotionally blackmailing her with his rants and threats; and the deep blue sea being Jerry whom she wishes would just take her wild child in — and let the bad apples fall where they will in the field. What would you advice Fiona to do, folks?

P.S. This is not fiction, it is a real life on-going situation. So I advice you good people to write to Instinct and please help my friend, Fiona.