1. A married woman.
She belongs to someone else. Not just legally. Emotionally. She has a history with another man. She has a home with another man. She has a life that does not include you. You are not the exception. You are the escape. When the excitement fades, she will not leave him for you. She will go back to what is familiar. And you will be left with nothing but the memory of borrowed time. The affair is not love. It is avoidance. Do not become someone's escape plan.
I'm trying to imagine my mother being shown a video of me being beaten by my woman for cheating, while she's asking me, "Kwani hautosheki?"
Then my mother pauses the video, removes her glasses, rewinds it, and watches it again just to confirm that the man receiving "ngundi" like free government fertilizer is indeed her son.
Now imagine my friends visiting me in hospital.
Not because I was robbed.
Not because I was involved in an accident.
But because I was beaten for cheating.
"Pole sana bro."
"How many stitches?"
"One woman or a coalition government?"
The worst part is explaining how I got the injuries.
Doctor: "What happened?"
Me: "Domestic misunderstanding."
Doctor: "Who won?"
Me: "...she did."
At that point even the village elders will refuse to hear my case.
Where will I bury my head?
Not in sand.
Not underground.
I will need a whole quarry to disappear permanently.
My daughter brought her new boyfriend to Sunday dinner last month.
He’s 24, works at a COMMERCIAL TIRE SHOP, and has grease permanently stained into his cuticles.
He didn’t say much, just ate three servings of my pot roast and nodded a lot.
After they left, I told my wife I wished my daughter would date someone with a bit more ambition.
Someone who didn't look like they just crawled out from under a semi-truck.
Two weeks later, my alternator died on the shoulder of Route 9 during a torrential downpour.
I called AAA, but the wait time was two hours.
My daughter must have seen my text in the family group chat because twenty minutes later, her boyfriend's beat-up Chevy truck pulled up behind me.
He didn't have a raincoat.
He just got straight to work in the pouring rain, leaning over my engine bay while semi-trucks flew past at 70 miles per hour, spraying us with dirty highway water.
It took him forty-five minutes of wrestling with a rusted bolt to get the spare part in.
When he finished, he was soaked to the bone and shivering.
I pulled out my wallet and tried to hand him two hundred dollars.
He looked at the cash, then looked at me, and gently pushed my hand away.
He said,
"Sir, you don't pay family.
Just make sure your daughter gets home safe tonight."
I sat in my dry, warm car on the drive home feeling incredibly small.
I had judged his worth by the dirt under his fingernails,
completely missing the size of his heart.
I have seen some people chide this man. Say what you want but...
This man woke up, counted his fare, boarded a matatu with a paper bag of chips, chapo and avocado, and still showed up. Millions of fathers cannot even name the school. Some cannot even name their own child. This one knew the visiting day date, packed what he could afford, and made the journey. The food was not fancy. The effort was everything.
HE SHOWED UP!!