Last Saturday, Beryl shared with us one of her many fantasies.
This one was about white men who, in the movies, are full of TLC, hold the hands (and I suppose handbags) of their women, wish they could carry their wives' pregnancies and treat local women they marry like princesses, as they walk through the journey of marriage.
Itindi ametindi (is intoxicated) on the foreign glass of eternal external optimism.
She does not know gag.com, has not taken a bike ride through sunny villages at the Coast to see the number of abandoned half-casts after some wazungus are done with their holiday trysts, and if Wanga thinks all is white and wonderful ... but then this piece isn't some anti-Western men one.
It is about the quislings many of the Kenyan women Beryl canonised last Saturday do not have a loyal bone standing in their blood.
Let us start with those black wives white guys treat like royalty. I know some of them, especially in the Malindi area, who have been bought a nice house and fancy car and have access to both cash and credit cards.
The minute the mzungu, mostly older chaps in their mid 50s to early 70s, step out of the country (or even when they are within), these local wives are on all sorts of amorous escapades with local lads and black boyfriends. Yet the wrinkly mzungu treats her like a goddess.
Then there are the Kenyan women who are purely after paper, the kind with Moi and Kenyatta's miens on them.
This Kenyan businessman I know went bust last October, as in so bankrupt he could not buy his mistress the car he had promised her for X-Mas.
She left him for another big-talking chap - actually, his then best friend, by New Year. Then in April he scored a large tender (he is a tenderpreneur) that revived his fortunes, even as his ex best buddy dumped his ex mistress, tired of 'chewing' her especially without the excitement of forbidden fruit.
She tried a 'come back' to my buddy who used her for a night, then threw her out at dawn (with the help of the watchman at their apartment complex).
Then there is this Kenyan gentleman, the client of a lawyer pal of mine, who was 'fixed' (Kenyan legal terminology) as the fall guy in a deal gone wrong, and was send to jail for six months for fraud. His okay-to-do wife decided she was too socially shamed to continue being the wife of an ex jail bird, and although they have a child, filed for divorce while he was behind bars - only visiting once to give him the papers.
The good thing is this gentleman had 'hidden assets' which he sprang once out of prison (I am not saying they are proceeds of the big bank fraud) - but now the wife who wanted 'nothing to do with him' and swore to 'bring up the toi alone' is suing him for maintenance and child support to the tune of Sh100,000 a month.
There is the third case of a chap who took up this job abroad for three years that forced him to go there alone, but he send 80 per cent of his pay back to Kenya for his new wife (he is a widower) to buy land for his two motherless children. On his return, she had instead bought a house in her name.
There have been recent court cases from my homeland, Kisii, where judges ask the ladies to return dowry (in the hundreds of thousands of shillings) from wives gone abroad for farther studies who then hook up with other men abroad (ironically, usually their tribesmen) or as the man comes to Nairobi, the wife entertains rural rivals. Worse disloyalty yet is when a chap educates his woman to college and post-graduate level, she suddenly gets a great job, and begins showing him contempt.
I have to stop here because I am in a cyber and there is a young man with head-phones, no doubt dreaming he will be Puff Daddy - but he is now singing. I will stop to tap him on the shoulder. And when he removes his head-gear, I will whisper in his ear: 'There are other people here. Do shut up!'
Unless, of course, he is listening to the song that goes - 'these girls ain't loyal.'
tonyadamske@gmail.com