Bride Price

             “I bought you, woman!”  He bellowed as he kicked her.  “You are my property!  You hear me?  Mine!”

            “Vumilia.  Get used to it.  That’s marriage,” her mother and aunts told her whenever she could sneak to them in tears.

But she could never get used the beatings that took away her ability to have children, left her left eye partially blind, third degree burns on her right shoulder all the way to her waist and half a moon scar on her forehead.  No, she could no longer be tolerant.  She begged him for a divorce, but the more she begged the more beatings she received.

            “You want to leave, huh?  Go!  Afterall you are good for nothing!  You can’t even bear children!”  He screamed one day as he kicked her.   “Pay me back the mahari I paid for you, then  leave!”

He had paid five goats, a sack of rice, a barrel of local brew and a blanket for her grand mother.  The next morning after he had left for work she rushed to her relatives and borrowed whatever little money they had, but it wasn’t enough to buy even a baby goat. 

She walked back home with her shoulders slumped, her eyes blinded with tears.  A shirtless sweating man pushing a heavy laden mkokoteni cursed her as he nearly knocked her down.  Another shirtless man covered in soot, carrying a sack of coal cursed her mother as he collided with her.

            “Mayai, mama,” a little boy pushed a tray with hard boiled eggs to her face, “shillingi mia mbili tu.”

Dazed, she looked at the little boy who should be in school.  In tattered school uniforms and bare feet.  The little boy stood there for a few minutes, waiting for her to buy.  Concluding that she was just another crazy woman, he cursed under his breath and left.  She followed him with his eyes until his little frame with the tray of eggs on his shoulder disappeared in the massing crowd.

After that day, everyday she woke up at the crack of dawn, pounding rice which she bought with the borrowed money to a soft flour and made vitumbua, which she sold at the roadside to students and workers rushing to school and work. 

Every afternoon she bought more rice, beans and spinach from the money she got from selling vitumbua and made food for construction site workers.  Mama Ntilie they called her.  She would carry buckets of food on her head, balancing one on top of the other and looked for a site that didn’t have a Mama Ntilie already selling. 

Every evening after cooking his dinner, she would buy fish, cassava and paraffin oil and made food for late workers.  At a street corner she would set up her stall, selling to prostitutes, thieves, robbers and those who worked double shifts, under the moonlight and dim light of the paraffin lamp.

The smoke from the coal stove always made her cough until she choked and tears of pain ran down her tired face.  The distance she walked with the buckets on her head strained her already frail shoulder.  A doctor warned her to take it easy, that she should take better care of her health, but she never gave up - that could wait until she was out.  She had to repay that bride price.  Wanamgambo in olive green uniform always chased her as she didn’t have a permit to sell, sometimes even spilling her food - but she never gave up.  The next day she came again - more determined than ever.  She had to raise that money to pay back the bride price.

After months of sweating and toiling she raised the money and some change.  She slept in that day, she did deserve the rest afterall.  After waking up, she quickly cleaned their two rooms and went to a msusi.  She has to look at least presentable when paying back her bride price, she thought as she hummed happily. 

She came back that evening with neatly plaited hair, a mkokoteni on tow laden with a sack of rice, a barren of local brew, a blanket and five goats tied together to one handle of the mkokoteni, bleating as they went.  She tied the goats at the back of the house were she and the other tenants did their cooking, the blanket, the barrel and the sack she took inside their two rooms.

He watched her as she moved gaily preparing him dinner, humming as she went.  The goats at the back bleated as if in chorus with her humming.  His eyes kept darting from her to the packages in the room, not saying anything.  After serving him dinner, she rushed to her relatives, asking them to join them the next evening.  She hummed happily as she walked back home.

When she came back she found him sitting with a group of men.  She could smell a feast.  Dazed she walked to the back.

            “Shoga,” one of the neighbours started, “shemeji is full of surprises!  A party at this time of the night?”

            “Yeah,” another one jumped in, “he untied two of the goats and told the men to slaughter them and us women to cook pilau!”

Blindly she walked back inside, where he was with eight other men.  Eating, drinking and shouting.  As his eyes met hers, he got up and walked towards her.  She flinched as he drew closer.

            “So you found another man, huh?”  He hissed.  “You thought you could leave me?  You are mine!”

Even as she cleared the dishes, she could not believe what her eyes had seen and ears had heard.  Her tongue felt lifeless in her mouth.  She stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to do.  She felt like weeping but no tears came out.  She felt the wall surrounding them could feel her pain, shame and dismay.

Yes, she had indeed been bought.  Only a sign on her forehead saying, ‘once bought can’t be returned’ was missing. 

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Plate Of Ugali

My mama used to say a real African man doesn’t eat chips or pasta.  That’s food for a mzungu man who gets his nails manicured, face scrubbed and lips conditioned with lip balm.  A real African man eats ugali, my mama used to say.  With their calloused fingers with rough nails he would mould the stiff porridge into little balls, dunk each ball into a stew then dunk the stew covered ball into his mouth with chapped lips.

I would sit at the corner of the room watching his Adam’s apple bopping up and down as he swallowed a ball of ugali and meat stew.  His jaw always moving in super-human speed as he chewed, making the veins on his forehead pop out angrily. 

Ugali would make your man strong, my mama used to say.  Strong enough to take care of you and our family, she would add.  What she didn’t add was that ugali would make him strong enough to beat me black and blue.  But maybe she was always right, because it was a plate of ugali that gave me strength today. 

It had started with his plate of ugali not being warm enough.  Then the following time he beat me black and blue it was because the bowl of stew did not have enough meat.  The other times before that it was the disciplinary slap, as the elders called it.  Married women needed the slap every now and then, they would say, to keep them in check.

Then he beat me again black and blue when I failed to pound his kisamvu the way he liked it.  I had been vomiting the whole day; infact even getting up was a problem.

            “My mother cultivated a whole farm the day she was giving birth and you say you can’t cook for your husband?”  He had bellowed.  “What kind of a woman are you?”

            “But mume wangu, the doctor said …” lamenting, I had tried to explain before I was interrupted by a slap.  The room started spinning around me.

            “Has the doctor married you?”  He gave me another slap which sent me reeling to the floor vomiting blood, “is the doctor your husband now?  Or are you having an affair?”

My baby did not make it.  I almost did not make it too.  I broke a few bones and I almost became blinded on my left eye.  After that I became numb to the pain.  It was one reason after another – as long as I was his punching bag – and almost always it was a plate of ugali that started it.  Yep, his source of strength.  Like the hair on Samson in the bible.  Maybe ugali makes one mad.  Maybe it had a drug. 

Today he broke my two front teeth – after breaking four others last week.  I laughed madly as I looked at my four year old with his milk teeth missing.  He grins at me nervously showing his gums.

Today he beat me because I refused to serve his mistress a plate of ugali.  Like my body numbing to pain, my heart had numbed to reason.  Maybe it was my fault when the plate of ugali wasn’t warm enough because I had run out of coal to warm the food; maybe it was my fault when I didn’t negotiate with the butchery to give me more meat than the money could buy; maybe it was my fault that I was too lazy too pound cassava when I was due; maybe it was my fault when I had used to the last of the flour to cook my baby porridge for lunch instead of cooking him his ugali; maybe it had all been my fault.  But how could this be my fault?  My mama told me my husband came first, then my children.

I had put some food aside for my husband, then fed the remaining to my children.  How was that my fault?  I never said anything when he brought her and moved me out of our marital bed.  I said nothing.

He kicked his plate of ugali when there wasn’t enough for his mistress and made me eat from the floor after beating me black and blue - wounding the scars that had not even healed.  On all fours I bent down and ate like a dog.  As I lay clutching my stomach I see the mouse that I have been trying to catch for a while, rushing to the last crumbs of ugali on the floor.  No amount of rat poison seemed to kill it.  Rodent.  Maybe I had been giving it the poison with the wrong food.  Rodent.  Rodent.  I should have mixed the poison in ugali.  Rodent.  Or is it rodent and man.  Rodent man.  Kick.  Rodent man.  Kick.  Rodent man, I think. 

I feel humiliated when I hear her cheering him on.  It was okay before, as I probably needed disciplining.  But it’s not okay now.  She is not supposed to be here, cheering on.  But the ugali gave me strength. 

            “Stupid woman!  Go make another plate,” he had kicked me on the shins as his mistress laughed again, louder this time.  “And make it enough to give us strength for the work ahead of us tonight!”

Ugali has given me strength too.  I look down as I limp to the back yard.  I don’t want them to see my face.  The smile on my face.  Yes, ugali has given me strength. 

Quickly I grab a khanga to hide my new scars, covering myself I dash to my neighbour to borrow me some money from her.  Just as quickly I send my oldest to the market.  Flour, kisamvu, coconut, curry powder, peanuts, nyanya chungu and some powder that will kill that rodent.  Today I will make the best plate of ugali ever.  The kisamvu will have peanut sauce and the dagaa will have coconut milk and nyanya chungu.  Today I will catch that rodent with a plate of ugali for sure.

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