“I Will Marry When I Want” – To Quote Prof. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
7 min readBy Kon Joseph Leek, Juba, South Sudan
February 16, 2018 (SSB) — Prof. James Ngugi wa Thiongo’ in his book entitled as above didn’t exactly mean as the way you would translate it as literally dry and direct but is talking about the political setting and choice of political direction in Kenya. The direction that has gone parallel to the aspirations of the struggle and against the local peoples’ wellbeing and liberty. Go through that book for more details but to me, the context of the piece below is verbatim and goes by the title – not political meandering but social and cultural head-on. This is my encountering with the current phenomenon of the direction we are socially taking, my personal experience which you might have also gone through
Lurking in the darkness with her silhouette formed through the rays of the distant light of the near pub, she smelt rotten like a dead lizard, that bizarre smell of a crashed-on cat, the kind of smell that would punch your nose and made you fall, that pungent whiff of a mature Billy-goat that causes throat sore, the smell of a Turkana woman passing in front of wind – nuisance smells of unwashed armpits for two days!
She would talk in the tongue as if possessed by holly spirit moreover not, it was Royal spirit! She would gibberish as the orangutan, she would uncontrollably huff and puff out all the nuisance in her without a slight slide of a tongue or stammering with the wild wisdom of hard-drinks! It was a new year, 2018! It was worth festivity. A new day, week, the month a new sun and so on – it got to be celebrated, it doesn’t matter how…and those in the celebration are whom they call our wives! Oh dear, I will marry when I want.
In the bath room she would pee, urinate while standing with one leg raised the exact way a male dog would and forced the desperate warm and stinky urine on the already-wet wall of the bath-room making the cracks of the wall bleed with bitter and stench urine! There was this lanky tall lady after having drowned herself in several bottles of certain long-necked liquors left her seat and moved out with her legs astride the way frantically groping the air fetching for anything that would make a perfect third leg until she reached that urinary where she raised her leg and pee – oh gosh! She had no choice but to only have the urine flowing down her legs – she was on trouser and didn’t have the time or forgot to remove it! She came back smelling like a byre with that squelching bog between her sighs making the unnecessary noise of a broken reed! It was new year eve. And among these are whom we shall have our wives among them? Oh no, I will marry when I want
She would put on anything as high as the raised flag, they call it short-skirts. They put on anything too transparent which shows the inner attires on Sundays making the front parts of the trousers of some soft-hearted-gentlemen bounce suspiciously during church service, they dress for the churches the way they do for the clubs and their pastors turn blank eyes and their parents stay dead-mute, when you become bold enough to ask ‘why?’ you would hear them say “it is civilization” civilization my foot! And those are whom we shall marry! You better leave me, alone Honey, I will marry when I want
Our ladies who have loss self-morality, self-esteem and self-dignity with all their forms. Whose thinking is drowned into madness and ignorance? Whose thinking is loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts? Who embrace artificial lifestyle to adorn themselves; the Brazilian air, eyelashes, nails, boobs, bums and skin color! Who pieced every part of their bodies like maniacs; nose, mouth, breast, tongues and hears! Who designs their bodies with drawings like they are designing walls!
They call them TATTOOS! Who add-on artificial nails to elongate them hence making them look like vampires, adding some unnecessary colors to their eye-lids and mouth fostering them as ogres! The girls who do not know what they love, the word love is molded into something else, relegated to something less to its meaning, the types that are making the adventure in sleeping with men, making it a hobby amidst these dangerous STDs! Oh dear, in seeing those who can dare stop me when I say that I will marry when I want?
She would wake up early in the morning on Sunday dressed in Katanga for prayers but would later branch to her boyfriend’s place until the end of church services and return back home that she has been in the church. The night program on 24th and 31st of December meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus and new year respectively are celebrated by many girls not in the churches but an opportunity to spend the night with their sweethearts, either cornering themselves and do it standing in the dark corners like goats or do it in abandoned homesteads; the result is typically shown by the pregnancy of many girls in February and March. Ladies in Katanga please, you are a disgrace, I will marry when I want
I am made to believe that your wife can’t be the mother of your children and vice versa. Going to the local courts these days, the cases are of women leaving their husbands, children not for who have been regarded as their fathers and so on. Families are breaking up every day! And this is the society we belong and we don’t seem to care, ladies please, I will marry when I want
She was studying and left it upon reaching her flower-age thinking that she would be married. Two years later, she came back for studies unmarried and disappointed, getting only either the beggars of her silver or impregnated and rejected. She returned to school only to repeat the same mistakes! Sisters please, I will marry when I want
Sweating like wilbarrow pushers of Konyo-konyo market, she would come back in the down with the bottle in her hand singing one-legged songs with front part of her trouser deviously wet, she would yield and stop abruptly like a zealot, she would stick to abominatios and culturally forbidden words like fuck, balls, dick and so on and the society is dead silent like a lying log, they would snarl, bark and run after naughty boys who are entertained by their manners and they are telling us that our wives would come among them. Oh dear, why not leave me alone to marry when I want?
Like zombies, owls, predators and carnivorous, they walk in the nights like witches. They do not call themselves by the names their parents gave them instead they have molded/invented some outrageous blood cuddling names for themselves; bad gyal, killer gyal, bullet in the ass, Blood Sucker, Kill me kuik, Necks-breaker and so on. They walk with missiles in their hands in the night like witches; sticks, knives, bottles, nails and teeth. When it is night, they resort to whistling as the way they call themselves; that is what we do to dogs when calling them anyway. They are met by the security in the night but only God knows what they give to our soldiers for not arresting them. And when it is day, they scroll to sleep in their layers like hyenas. Can we really marry these? Ladies please!
The only better option is to accept studies and be good women for our societal development, women who will raise their children, women of integrity. So, adjust yourselves. And if you have a reason you can’t marry us or me then led us know in order to do some adjustment.
Kon Joseph Leek has a bachelor degree in Mass Communication from St. Lawrence University Uganda and MA in Linguistics from the University of Juba, South Sudan. While at St. Lawrence University, he saved as Speaker for International students and thereafter as the Student’s Guild Vice president. Leek currently lives in Juba. He can be reached on j.konleek@gmail.com
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