Tembea Kenya: Marry outside your village

It is unthinkable to have lived your whole life in some corner of the world; to have been born there, schooled there (except for the brief period when you transferred to some other village for 'further' studies), and then, at the moment of truth, to settle down with someone who also lived their whole life in the same corner of the world.

It is an impressive little village, to be sure. It holds, for instance, a staggering, varied collection of madmen. Its drunkards would win any watering contest they found themselves in, and by extension, any sport, which required them to trace their way back home half-blind and with uncooperative legs.

Your village is a factory for newsmakers, like that fella who ate 13kg of ugali in one sitting, or the other one who beat his wife for converting ugali water into the bathing water.

Who wouldn't want a spouse from such a village? Practically, though, these villages are incredibly intimate by default. You know everyone and their family, and they know you and yours.

The girl you eventually impregnate and settle down with is one you've seen grow up, going from wiping mucus off her face to make-up and character development tears. You have seen her go from playing with boys to men to old men. There are no secrets there. No mysteries. News of your nuptials will be received with a shrug as the villagers move on with their lives.

Your forefathers had a bit of a geographical challenge. They had to walk for weeks just to cross to a different village. Or collaborate with the colonialists so as to be imprisoned in another part of the country. It was unfeasible for them to snag 'foreign' ladies and they made do with what they had.

The diligent ones crossed a river or two to invigorate the gene pool, but no one looked too hard. If she was human and female, she would do nicely.

But what's your excuse? Your government has gone out of its way to building your roads. They are even building them on top of others these days.

There are trains that traverse the wilderness, too, and even though the fare is one week of your life and a cramp in your leg that will never go away, they get the job done. Your gava even hired Naomi Campbell to collabo with Najib Balala in telling you, "Tembea Kenya."

Domestic tourism

Trust me, there is a greater variety of ladies out there than anyone knows what to do with. Why do you think your peers are marrying two and keeping two more on the side? Why limit your options to just the flavor available in your village?

If you tried out some of these 'delicacies' from farther reaches of the country, you might learn a thing or two about life. If you manage to even cross a border or two, you might never again look at Njambi wa M-Pesa.

You have a biological imperative. Your gonads are screaming with wanderlust. Your manhood is literally designed to point you in the direction of the next conquest, always finding true North. Leave your DNA in some random places, at least, before settling down to a life of farming and ignoring your wife.

You have a Biblical imperative as well. The Good Book charges us with the responsibility of depositing our seed far and wide. It even tells us the story of that mzee called Abraham who was changing diapers well into his hundreds.

There is a social imperative, too. History does not look kindly on 20- year- olds, who are not out there tackling anything that sways or has pleats. Your 20s are for blurry nights on your back, on your knees, or in a perpetual state of asking people to throw their cheeks up in the air like they just don't care. And then adjusting them like a tripod for maximum geometric efficiency in navigation.

Anything but that is a wasted youth. What stories will you tell your children? What foreign beauties will your wife point to when she's mad? Will you condemn your children to the same sheltered life you had, going from village school to high school to nearby college and then back to church for the wedding?

Show some initiative. Go for a trip outside your county. And then try one outside your country. You might just bamboozle a fair-haired someone from those foreign lands with your stories about the motherland, and before they know it, they are craving ugali/beef because you've pumped a little Kenyan into them.

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