Of peeps who refuse to grow up and move out even in their thirties

We all know these ‘utahama lini’ fellows.The ‘young’ man (in his mid-thirties, with a beard) still living in the SQ of his parent’s home in the city. All his laundry is done by his mother.

On Saturdays, after breakfast in the ‘main house,’ he gets on Play Station (as his old mom washes his socks and boxers outside) until lunch time, when he goes to the main house – he calls it ‘the HQ’ for ‘mulos’ (as he calls food; everything in his world comes in some silly slang name, because he has never quite ‘adulted’).

Then he takes off in his car to go watch ‘footer’ with the boys, then go clubbing until late night.

If he picks up one of those loose ladies one finds in city clubs, he will sneak her into the SQ, then lie to her in the morning about how he is ‘renting out the main house as I find my feet because,’ (a wry shoulder shrug here), ‘mortgages are expensive, but me I always think long term.’ (This coming from a man-child for whom the thought of getting a child has NEVER even crossed his mind, not once).

For the young lady, the illusion of being with an ‘investor’ will be shattered when his mama bangs furiously on the SQ door at 10am on Sunday morning and yells: ‘Boyi, kuja ndani ya nyumba ukunywe chai kabla ija poa! And then please remove those underwears of yours that I washed for you yesterday from the washing line so that I can hang your Daddy’s longis there, okay?’ This kind of ‘utahama lini?’ fellow was even the subject of a popular advert not too long ago.

But when it comes to the Dependant Daughter, there is total silence on the subject. Everyone knows girls are good children who grow up, get married and have their own families. Or if they are single moms, they are ‘Eve’ women who help their parents. At the very worst, she will just live somewhere in ‘Kamayole’ and survive on her wits – but she will never be a burden on society, let alone her aging parents.

Time to cast aside that script and, true story, meet Jillianne Kidada*. JK is 33, turning 34 later on this month, and she has literally been a problem to her parents half her life. When she was in boarding school (back in 2001) in Form Three, she was caught by a male teacher’s wife in their bed, with the teacher — and since the house was within the school compound, the drama was such that JK was expelled (and the teacher interdicted).

JK was then sent to a mixed day school to finish her Form Four. The year after her exam, and not quite 19 yet, she got pregnant and moved in with a matatu tout. She had befriended the scoundrel to and on her way from school in Form Four – and now they were man-and-wife.

Two years were not over before JK returned to her parents’ house in 2005. The tout, out of jealousy, had begun battering her, so she fled. Her gentle father then paid for a nursing course that took three years to complete.

Both her folks thought their little girl had turned a corner, and was ready to take care of her daughter. She got a job at a hospital, but like something out of an erotic novel, JK was dismissed after less than a year when caught dishing out sexual favours to an older ‘horny goat’ patient in his private room.

Now jobless, JK spent the next two years taking CPAs her mother had squeezed blood to pay for. Her dad then gave her his savings as capital to set up a timber business. JK was 28 years old. She secretly set up house with a lorry driver, who not only ate into her business money, but also gave her a second daughter. Then, with her belly blowing up and her money running out, the man claimed he had gotten a lucrative job that could support the family of four in Afghanistan or Yemen ... and conclusively disappeared. (JK would later find out the man was married all along, with a family in his rural home). That was in the October of 2014.

Since then, jobless JK (with a bankrupt business) has been relying on a share of the pension her retired parents send her to pay for a roof over her head, and put food in the bellies of her two tois. Her long term plan is to find a man who can fend for them.

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