The Unsung Shujaas of this country whose forgotten dreams fuel our boundless ambition.

“Nneka" means mother is supreme (Chinua Achebe) 

I always thought if I ever write a novel it would be about the Kenyan woman.  In fact I had a title borrowed from Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart. "Nneka; My Mother is supreme". Someday I just might because I cannot think of anything and anyone more praiseworthy than the millions of African woman who wear their bones out and lose their youth in the often thankless quest to give their families the best life will let them squeeze out of themselves.   Is it possible to be a feminist without tearing men down? Can one not just elevate woman? Well in this case it will be a tight balance. 

Picture Nyawira; a woman married to her childhood sweetheart somewhere in Nyeri county. She has tilled and managed the tea plantation he inherited from his father for 16 years. Since he lost his job teaching the local primary school. He doesn’t do much else apart from trying to empty the vats at Kenya breweries and rarely shows up in the  house before 9.PM. He loves his 2 children although he does not know how much school fees they need per term. He can't stand his wife though, toiling from sunset to sunrise has changed her from the plump full figured woman he fell in lust with. She is sinewy with hands like a discuss thrower’s and her palms are rough enough to sandpaper a  cooking stick into submission. He knows this because he once came home drunk, which was not unusual and said something nasty about her side of the family in front of the kids. She laid her palm on his face with such rapidity that for a minute he thought he had imagined the slap. Then the enveloping cloud of warmth and tingling on his face made him realize that even he did not have the strength to loosen two teeth with a mere slap. He retreated and since then keeps his wisdom to himself when drunk.

So back to Nyawira. Her last born in class 4 in a private academy which she can only afford  because she is up to her rarely retouched hair in debts. She has a greenhouse in which she plants a cauliflower and Letucce that she sells supplies at the white rhino in Nyeri town.(It’s a hotel). Her high school certificate does her little good although she would have gone to college had she not gotten pregnant.  She lives for her children now. She does not have rosy dreams of making herself a better person. She does not want new clothes and her thirst for the perfect coiffure like her neighbor whose husband drives a second hand Toyota is almost extinguished . She only dreams her children’s dreams. Her firstborn son is in high school and he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. He never scores anything higher than a B and she knows he probably wont make it to a regular degree course. She knows she may have to sell the piece of land her brother let her have from their late father's inheritance to take him to college at all.

Such things don’t bother her husband. They are too far into the future. “Doeshn’t the good lord shay birds are protected by God or something like that, they don’t sow or harvest….” He drifts off to sleep with the sentence half finished and his muddy shoe on her cheap but clean carpet. He only came home with one today and he smells like they have moved the brewery into his cheeks. She does not know where he gets money for drinking since she cannot remember the last time he had a shilling to spare for sugar or a pencil for any of his kids.  She gets a blanket and covers him where he has passed out on sofa. She goes to bed in the kid’s room because she does not want him crawling into her bed later with his  pungent breath and loud enough snoring to deafen the monsters in her dreams. Tomorrow she has to be up by 5AM. Milk the cow. Get her kids ready for school and be at the farm pruning her passion fruit plants before he wakes up at 11 AM. Its not an easy life but its her’s to live.  Her’s and the millions like her without whose handwork this country would fall apart faster than it takes their men to drink their salary if they have one.

Dedicated to all our mothers whose backs are bent to straighten our paths.
and Noelle Luka  who so much wishes to see the best in Kenya.