Old women misleading girls to be gold-diggers

Sometime back, I spent 10 dreadful minutes in a sauna in a Nairobi resort. The modern life is too busy and full of complexity, so once in a while, I like to enjoy an indulgent day of complete pampering. One of my absolute favourite things to do when I have time on my hands is to treat myself to a little luxury, rest and relaxation at a spa.

On this particular day, my spa day coincided with a studio fitness class at the gym in the same facility and most of the mainly elderly women trooped to the spa after the class. It became a little too crowded for my liking, but I wasn’t going to let a little crowd ruin my day. I resolutely headed for the essence-filled sauna.

I was most disconcerted to find it was already occupied by one of the women from the class. She seemed to be in her late forties if her unkindly aging face was anything to go by. She eyed me suspiciously as I took a seat on one of the wooden benches. I use the sauna as my place for relaxation and introspection, so I just left the woman to her own devices, closed my eyes and immersed myself in the moment.

“When I was your age, I had a beautiful body like yours.” She abruptly broke the silence, inevitably forcing me into one of my most dreaded situations; small talk.

I murmured an awkward “thanks” and resumed my hypnotic state, deeply inhaling the invigorating scents of lavender and lemongrass that filled the air. I was hoping she would get the message and drop the chitchat, but she had other ideas. She decided to initiate a heart-to-heart with me about matters of the heart.

“You are a very beautiful young girl. The young boys must be all over you,” she quipped.

She held my attention now. She was a sage, dripping in advice. Maybe she would share her wisdom and shed some light on my troubled love life. She had informed me that she had daughters my age.

Then she said something unexpected. “You should take advantage of your beauty and marry a rich man. Tafuta mzungu. If I were you, I would be married to a mzungu right now.”

I was instantly taken aback. Here was a mother-figure brazenly advising me to be a fortune hunter. I was ticked off by the fact that she believed that the only thing I have to offer a man is beauty. Is that the same advice she gives her own daughters? Does she tell them to hold on to their fleeting beauty or else their future is doomed?

Most women dream of marrying a rich man and living in the lap of luxury, but it is usually nothing more than just a far-fetched fantasy. But here is this mother who is supposed to be a rich source of proper advice and guidelines when it comes to men and dating, and instead of steering me in the right direction, she is poisoning my vulnerable head. We are being raised by dot com mothers who don’t realise that being rich in today’s society certainly doesn’t have any correlation with being a good person.

@roxannekenya