Tales by Gift Mwachofi

The evening that was………..
So now
It is Thursday evening all is set.
Getting dressed, just from the frog’s kingdom (this is where I just ask myself, how frogs and the bathroom are related). Well maybe the English scholars would enjoy explaining that to us, that is even if it has any explanation.
Anyway, so mom screams out my name from the living room. When my African mother calls you with a loud voice, its either you have broken her thermos that she got from her chama ama  umekata slippers zake, or anything close to that.
So I am frustrated trying to think of anything she might have seen or what I might have done in the course of the day that might have slipped my mind. I make my way to the living room and I find my mum glued on the television that she keeps on reiterating she bought with her own money:
gift unajua hii tv ni yangu na baba yako, nunua yako Alafu autawatch mpaka uchoke, as though it ever happens. Mom does it? I know better not to ask her that question or else I’ll be asking artists to come up with a song about going away from home.
She was watching the Wednesday Samantha bridal show, and I took my seat next to her. Her countenance was priceless you could tell by how the weddings literally blew her mind away. Mom is a bit old school though not that old. So this scene, the bride is being made over ( make up na kila kitu) then she sees how the eye pencil is being drawn on her eye brows. Here’s where mom asks,,
Na sasaaa alikuwa amenyoa akaona achore ama?
I looked at her with mum did you just ask that question, face as I paused from typing on my watsapp. Then she continued,” si alikuwa na nywele hapo mbona akachora? (I know right?)
I never answered her, coz how do you even begin to explain why ladies even do that, no offence to the ladies who draw their brows. So the show continues.
She is keenly following as the wedding events unfold, and questions just about everything. This is where everything shifted, from watching the show to discussing how important it is to marry a graduate. The lady said she was courting the guy when she was doing her masters in the university, and that’s where it all began.
Gift you see how that couple was planned, they had no hurry they waited until they had finished their education and had their lives well sorted out. ( ata mimi nashangaa alijuaje hio na tunawatch na yeye hapa kwa nyumba.) I am left wondering, so mom no masters no wife? Then she continues,
unaona ata wamenunulia mzee wa mschana suti, mimi nataka nishonewe kitenge ya arusi yenye itamatch na suti yako. Haha,, yes she said that… believe you me, she did.
That’s when I remembered how we laughed ourselves off, my two friends and I (not literally), sometime back when we saw some guy on a boda boda dressed in some embroidered suit, utathani alishonewa na material ya kutengeneza kitambaa ya meza. So maybe the mother too had insisted on having her kitenge match her sons outfit on the wedding day. If that’s what mom has in mind, then respectfully, hell no.

The show comes to an end. All I heard from my mom was how to have a successful marriage by having a degree and a masters and a PhD.
I love you mom but hapo jameni ni uongo.
And that was the evening.