THE SHAMBA BOY SAGA: NINE

But Ken completely refused to be convinced until I had to go back. When I got to my bedroom my husband was still snoring. But it suddenly dawned on me what I was about to do and the rinks involved and it really made me so afraid I did not get to sleep immediately.

Sure enough, I risked being caught. I may have thought my husband was asleep, but what if he suddenly woke up?

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“You have to hire a permanent maid unlike Nekesa who only comes during day time.” My husband told me immediately I woke up.

“Why? I was not interested in hiring a maid, besides the children are in boarding school and we only need her when the children are around.” I told My husband.

“You are over working, working during day time then coming in the evening to continue with house hold chores.” My husband told me. He was making sense.

“All right, we can get to talk to Nekesa and see if she will accept the deal.” I told my husband.

“And by the way where had you gone yesterday night? I briefly woke up and found you not in bed.” My husband asked me. I felt like some electric current had passed down my spine until I felt sudden weakness. So, I thought he had not known I had gone outside?

“I heard the dogs barking so I went outside to see what was wrong.” I told him.

“You would have left Ken to check since he always checks or you would have woken me up.” He told me.

“I thought you are too tired after the journey.” I told him.

Oh! Yea. I was too damn tired. I have a lot of work to do today, let me get prepared.” My husband said as he noticed it was almost 8 am.

After he wore his shoes, suddenly his shoe lace got untied. He tried to bend so as to tie it but could not since he had gotten a bigger pot belly.

“Let me tie for you.” I told him. He stood up upright and let me tie for him his shoe.

“You mean I have gotten this big until I cannot bend properly?” He asked jokingly.

“Yes, you should do more physical exercises or join a gym to cut some weight.” I told him.

“When will I get that time? There is no time for that.” He told me.

“No, you can make time. At least one hour of your day is enough.” I told him.

“Have you begun to compare me with some other men?” He suddenly asked. Whenever I brought to him the issue of losing weight he always got defensive.

“But my dear, when I we got married you were not this big.” I tried to tell him not wanting to sound offensive. He was only 5 feet and 6 inches tall yet he weighed a whole 112 kg yet when we got married he weighed nearly half of that. Even though I had gained some weight, I was always ranging between 55 kg and 60 kg. I always walked to work whenever I was not in a hurry to see if I could maintain that weight since I hated being fat. But my husband did not care much of it.

“You should be happy you have a husband; some women do not have even that husband to keep bothering. Besides, what matters is that we love each other.” He barked at me. I wish he knew how much I detested having sex with him since he always left me feeling tired instead of satisfied.

I just kept quiet since I did not want to get drawn into another argument.

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Time moved fast and our children returned and thus our part time house girl also returned. So I wanted to negotiate with her if she would agree to be staying with us but she completely refused saying she had other projects she was doing during the times she was not with us and so she opted to go and let us hire a full time maid.

During one of our tea breaks at work, I decided to ask my friend some advice on how to get a nice maid.

“Just make sure not to get a beautiful maid, otherwise she will be a co-wife soon. These men are not to be trusted more so when they have beautiful women around. Make sure to hire a thin lady, men are easily attracted to ladies with rounded hips. Also avoid yello yellow types otherwise she will soon outdo you with beauty and be sure your husband will start seducing her.” Celestine told me.

“Or Ken will start fucking her.” I said jokingly.

“But that is not a problem, he is just an employee, or you are not becoming protective of him?” Celestine asked me.

“No, just that I think if they get close he could compromise his job or stop wanting me.” I said. Celestine just laughed at me.

“All right, get a maid who is not attractive, for the sake of the two men in your compound. Attractive maids have the capacity to destroy a marriage, be careful. You should have retained that Luhya lady most Luhya ladies are naturally ugly with no sexual appeal.” Celestine told me.

“Damn! I keep telling you to stop being tribal!” I told Celestine but he laughed at me.

“Come on! Am being honest with you. Taita ladies are known for being brown, Luo ladies are known for having well rounded buttocks, Kikuyu ladies are known for having pretty faces, Kambas ladies are known for their sexual attractiveness and nice hips, Swahili ladies are known for being extremely polite and thus winning men with a lot of ease, Luhya ladies are known for being ugly and not attractive, I can go on and on…” Celestine told me.

“All right, I have heard you.” I told Celestine.

“I know of a friend of mine in Coast, I will tell him to find for you a Giriama house girl. Giriamas are known to be very obedient, not so attractive and naïve too; at least she will not be a threat to you or to your 2 boys at home.” Celestine said like a joke but she meant my husband and Ken.

That evening, I discussed with my husband about where I wanted to get a live-in maid and he was ok with it so long as she would be hard working.

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After a few days, the girl from Coast by the name Mercy Mapenzi reported to our home. Apparently, she was so good at picking up directions such that she was just directed by Celestine and came straight to our place. In itself, that was amazing.

She was a short lady, not as dark as I thought she would be if at all Celestine’s advice was to go by in fact she was brown but looked emaciated. She was also soft spoken and did not know how to speak English at all but was fluent in Swahili.

“So where do you come from?” I asked her as I introduced her to her work that evening.

“I am from a village called Watamu, in Malindi.” She told me.

“How do you find this place?” I asked her.

“It is too cold I feel like I will get pneumonia.” She said with a smile.

“You will get used to.” I told her.

Apparently, as I had expected, she did not know how to cook most of the foods that we liked but I volunteered to teach her how to cook.

“I have heard so many stories about Coast, that there are jinis. Is it true?” Ken asked Mercy as we both relaxed in the evening having our supper. We had told Ken to come over so that we can have dinner together all of us as a family.

“Come on! Ken, those are all tales, nothing of the sort.” My husband told Ken.

“Baba, it is true. There are Jinis at Coast, some are good jinis but some are bad. Depending on your faith you might see them or not.” Mercy told us. That scared me a little.

“Have you ever seen a jini?” Ken asked Mercy.

“No, you cannot see them but you just see what they do. They harm people.” Mercy told us.

“People see innocent cats and assume they are jinis.” My husband said.

“I am disliking this conversation you are scaring me now.” I told them. Mercy just smiled and told me, “Sorry.”

Suddenly, we heard a blood curling scream coming from our children’s bedroom. Our first-born daughter screamed making all of us freeze momentarily not knowing what to do. Even my husband just sat there as if not sure what to do.

 It was Ken who reacted fast and headed towards their bedroom charged like a rhino about to fight. My husband followed close behind him. He got into their bedroom since the door was not locked and switched on the lights before suddenly assuming a fighting stance ready to hit anyone or anything that could be inside that bedroom. He had folded his fist making his hands look like those of a boxer. My two children were coiled close to the wall seemingly so scared.

“What is it?” My husband asked.

“I saw a devil staring at me!” My daughter said. I nearly fell down with fear.

“A what??!” My husband asked. By that time, Ken was already looking under the bed to see if there was something under it.

“The devil came suddenly, lifted my blanket and stared at me!” our daughter said with a lot of fear in her. I nearly pissed myself in my pants.

“Jesus Christ!” I found myself saying.

My husband looked inside their wardrobe but suddenly, Ken brought out something from under the bed. It was a scary dark brown mask like those worn in Halloween, so scary and it had white fangs protruding like those of a vampire in it like a jackal, so ugly it was such that it had red horns on it, and to make the matter worse, it was glowing in the dark!

“What is this? Where did it come from?” My husband asked suddenly taking the mask from Ken. I nearly ran out of that room were it not for being with the two men in the room. The mask was so damn scary merely looking at it made me shiver and shake with a lot of fear.

Suddenly, our son who was younger stood up and said, “Daddy, I am sorry. I am the one who wore the mask to scare Angela. Please don’t beat me.”

>>To be continued>>

Narrated by Anthony Kerry.

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