BOY CHILD WOES

You can’t help but get pissed when you see women driving SUVs and living in leafy suburbs, while my boys are stuck in single room shacks. The only green they know is the sewage of their own shit flowing through Paipu and Umoja.

Truth is, we lost this game a long time ago. The problem is we are still playing by the same rules while they keep winning.

Instead of facing it, those with inferiority complexes turn on the ladies and dismiss their hustle. We do not admit they have become better dribblers in this ball game called life. Instead, we shout from the roadside as SUVs pass, calling them kept women, mistresses, “mapoko wa masonko,” “wife ya dosi,” or inheritance.

Meanwhile, we waste hours at the car wash plotting quickies with Adhiambo or joking about Njeri moving from Umoja to South B. What we miss is that the same Njeri is saving every shilling to clear her Sacco loan for a plot in Kitengela.

I am not here to tell men not to seek exclusivity with their kept women. Men need safe spaces too, places to cool their loins away from the broke boys who cannot afford nyamchom on Paipu’s smoky streets. 

They need freedom to express themselves through salon bills, rent payments, school fees for other clans’ children, and food for women who can stand on their own.

But while men are majoring on minors, funding harems that can already fund themselves, women are busy buying entire neighborhoods.

I should have stopped at the third paragraph, enjoyed Arsenal’s win, and kept quiet. But before I get up to pee, let me just ask:

Where will you be when your sister calls you to slaughter a goat to celebrate her new home?

What will you be doing when the women in your hood break ground for their new foundations?