The woes of a girl who gets pregnant in the village

BY NIKKO TANUI

With President Uhuru Kenyatta’s recent waiver of maternity fees in all public hospitals, there is no doubt that the village in nine months time will be boasting of a boom of ‘Jubilee’ babies. 

In the village, even the poorest of the poor consider babies ‘blessings’ from the Lord and literally make babies their pastime.

In other words, the President’s directive is bound to make a mockery of the gains family planning campaigns have achieved over the years. 

Watoto watapewa free laptops, kuna free education na sasa hakuna kulipa maternity fees, mbona nisimake one more baby?” I overheard some villager say. 

However, as much as children are said to be a blessing, whenever a girl gets pregnant outside wedlock, all hell breaks loose.  

Her father will hit the roof in anger and go out to look for the fellow who is responsible for putting his daughter in the family way. The chief too will be after the man. 

But as soon as the character responsible for the uproar hears that his girlfriend is pregnant, he will literally drop everything and flee the village until the dust settles. 

Getting pregnant outside marriage is considered the worst ‘sin’ in the village. And to avoid the embarrassment and humiliation, many desperate girls choose to ‘flush’ out the ‘ball’.  

She will sneak into the house of a woman rumored to have had an abortion or who knows how to get rid of a foetus with herbs or other means and plead with her to help her get rid of the situation. 

Quasi-chemists

However, others turn into quasi-chemists and make concoctions using off-the-counter medicines such as malaria tablets, which they then swallow. Sometimes, this has a disastrous effect on both mother and child. 

But as the boy and the girl will be losing sleep over what to do with their ‘situation’, Boys who tried to woo the girl without success will be rejoicing at the news of her pregnancy.  

“Alikua akiringa tu sana sasa ana ball tutaona ataringia nani sasa,” someone will say.  

But one wonders if they would not have similarly wrecked the girl’s life if they had got the chance. 

Anyway the moment a tough girlexperiences the first signs of a pregnancy, she will quickly throw her few earthly possessions in a plastic bag and simply walk to the compound of the guy who is responsible for her pregnancy and introduce herself as his ‘wife’ to the chagrin of his dumbfounded parents.

In many cases, the boy and his family will refuse to take responsibility ultimately opening a tug -of- war between the two families.  

If for instance the boy’s family will reject the poor girl, her family will take their grievances to the chief and elders for arbitration.

 He will immediately invoke the powers conferred to him by the Chiefs Act, that he will throw in jail anyone who defies the orders and woes unto the ‘evil’ boy and his family if they disobey the order by even delaying by a minute to get to his office. 

Explicit details

Come the day of the public hearing, all activities in the village will come to a halt because everyone will be dying to hear the explicit details that led to the pregnancy.  

During the charged moment, the parties will be forced to spill secret love details and other information to prove guilt or innocence. The girl, egged on by the elders; who are mostly out to satisfy their curiosity, will spill everything, leaving little to imagination. This is in a bid to leave no doubt in everyone’s mind that she knows the father of her baby.  

Head cast down and drawing absentmindedly on the earth using her toes, the girl will name the culprit. The time, venue and even the sugar-coated words they used at the love nest, which could be a hut or maize plantation, become known to all and sundry. 

 “I could not look at his face before, but the moment he told me he loved me more than sugarcane, and promised me that he will buy me a skirt suit  and marry me, I accepted to be his girlfriend,” the girl will dramatically disclose. 

But despite the overwhelming evidence, the charged boy and his family will vigorously deny and dismiss all the allegations leveled against him. 

“Who doesn’t know this girl is loose like those Nairobi street girls. She is just trying to fix my innocent son,” the boy’s mother will cry. 

A false witness may be lined up to claim that the girl is shielding the real culprit by alleging that the girl had many boyfriends in and outside the village. 

“Nilikuona ukishikana mikono na vijana wangine pia. Sema ukweli msichana si ulilala na Kibet na Kipkurui pia?” he or she will claim.  

Nonetheless, the council of elders takes the girl’s evidence as infallible. They will order the culprit to marry her or his family to pay a hefty fine for failing to tame their ‘rogue village bull’.  

For offering their wisdom and the time they would have used to sell tobacco or drink “busaa”, the elders will not forget to take care of their welfare.

Depending on the affluence of the parties embroiled in the saga, they ask for a goat or two among other items to be delivered to them as soon as possible.