PH
Nairobi – I have a friend that lost her mother while we were in Campus. She sometimes worries who will help her when it is that time where your mother comes to help you after you have given birth. Told her she could borrow mine, because I am sure she will enjoy it too. Not that I was trying to solver her problem, but I was telling her something that would make her feel better than telling her something redundant. She does not have any good female relations.
A mother is a treasure but a Maragoli mother is even better. You will never get bored or tired. She is just something else. As I am typing at the moment, she has decided she is bored, I tell her since you grew up with no money, ‘why don’t you go to a spa or treat yourself at a hotel and come back?’ She decided to go and dig in the shamba; like, ‘you can take the girl out of the village but not the village out of the woman.’ She had to have a garden at her house in Nairobi. Then she will wake up tomorrow and complain how she has no one to go on fancy dates with.
My friend would like the advice my mother gives.
She already has a criterion for the husband she will accept from me
The superficial stuff first; ‘He better not have plaited hair, have dreadlocks, or pierced his ears (my mother does not understand that the era I was born in every man had their ears pierced). Her question is, ‘How will such a man lead you in life while he is busy going to the salon with you?’ Her thinking is that she will never take such a man seriously and neither should I. I asked, ‘What about a tattoo?’ She threw a drum at me. I never even saw it coming; she just lifted it and hurled it. She still thinks that I have the devil inside me because I got a belly ring. She once asked me how I would give birth and I countered, ‘Do you give birth through your belly button?’
You better not chase a man, but would rather let the man chase you
It is not that she thinks I need to play hard to get but that I would rather just have a man who appreciates having me. This is why I told her I am not marrying a handsome man. Handsome men have the tendency to want to be waited on because that is what most women do for them. She was rather hurt that she might have ugly grandchildren, but she got over it because she understood what I was saying.
Don’t be a second wife
She is not saying it as a joke by the way. She married a Muslim man thinking she was the first until the first wife’s children popped up. When she tells me don’t be a second wife, I listen because I know she knows what she is talking about. That is never ending drama, I would mention a couple of people you know but I will just leave it to you to fill in the blanks.
If a man is miserable he will bring that misery in your life
My man has never encouraged me to work with a man’s potential. She says there is potential, and then there is potential. If a man is a hard worker consider it. Don’t be the one always picking up someone every time they mess up because they are always having someone else they are enjoying the good times with. You are not it if you only see him when he is miserable. Let him be.
Chase the money, and then chase a man
Have a career and a life so that a man will never find you when you are miserable. Be good to yourself and you will attract the good ones. If you are waiting on someone who will elevate you, he will always see the miserable person you always were and he will always treat you as such. Don’t expect any better. If a man lifts and he suddenly becomes wicked, those are just the true colors showing up and he is about to remind you of all the good things he has done for you.
You better not bring me any children to take care of; I closed that chapter
Read the above excerpt then add this. My mother installed the fear of the gods in me and it has worked as a good birth control. She already cautioned me about getting children without getting the right man. It has always been; school-job-career-man then children. No children if you cannot even take care of yourself.
