MWALIMU ANDREW: Could Fiolina be having fake KCSE certificate and name? 

The people who know me well will tell you how stubborn I am when it comes to standards: I do not compromise on standards and quality. Anyone doubting this should look at my original leather, sharp-shooter shoes, my unique blue Kaunda suits, my choice of university and degree, my state of the art modern house that’s under construction and more importantly, the high calibre woman I chose for a wife.

You will all remember when, a few years ago, I decided that it would be Fiolina. Before then, I had been searching for a quality woman to marry but what was available in the market was not what I was looking for. Once you remember that Catherina, my current boss, was once considered for permanent residency at my place; I was indeed looking for quality beyond just beauty and brains.

And that turned out to be Fiolina. When my eyes first set on Fiolina that day in Senje Albina’a house, I did not need a Bible to know that my search for a wife was over. Fiolina was the best in the entire region: Beautiful, tall, respectful, humble and well-dressed. Upon interacting with her, I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that she was well educated. 

I told you that Fiolina was well educated. But I did not tell you about her English. Fiolina has impeccable English. So when Fiolina said she wanted to go to a TTC and had dreams of becoming a teacher and may be overtaking me in the teaching profession, the only thing on my mind was fees. I had no doubts about her academic papers.

So you can all understand what I felt when enemies of development planned to thwart my plans to take Fiolina to Mosoriot TTC about three years ago. At the time, I had made a mistake of telling my sister Caro, Mwisho wa Lami’s Minister for Information and Broadcasting, of my plans with Fiolina. Even before she could know which college I wanted to take Fiolina to, the whole of Mwisho wa Lami was aware of my plans – since Caro always becomes sick whenever she has some information and doesn’t tell people

The next day at Hitler’s, Alphayo called me aside.

“Huyu Fiolina umemchunguza vizuri kweli?” Alphayo asked. I told him that I knew Fiolina very well.

“Umejua hakusoma mpaka Form Four?” he asked me. I told him that Fiolina was well educated and had scored a C minus, although her C minus was not as stronger as mine.

“Alienda shule gani, mwaka gani?” he asked me.

I told him I could not answer that. Although I did not have the answers to these questions.

“Wacha nikuambie,” said Alphayo. Although I kept denying, Alphayo said that after Standard Eight, Fiolina had joined Form One but dropped in second term, and then got married. “Huyu labda ako hata na mtoto mkubwa huko nje,” he said.

I could not stand that. And I never asked Fiolina about it. I had invested too much in the marriage to start asking such questions. It was unthinkable that Fiolina could have been married to someone else.

I ignored him, but the story of Fiolina having not reached Form Four kept doing the rounds in Mwisho wa Lami. Since people knew I could not believe them, they never told me directly. They told my parents. I was not surprised that my parents believed them, after all they have always believed that I should have married Catherina. In fact, my mother still considers Catherina as my wife and treats her like her daughter in law. To cut a long story short, although Fiolina completed college last year, I never got to see her report forms.

“TTCs do not give report forms,” she said the last time I confronted her. As she await her graduation, she has been looking for a school to teach as board tecaher. I could have allowed her to teach at Mwisho wa Lami, but you know what happened the last time I tried it. With people like Kuya still teaching in Mwisho wa Lami, only a fool would allow his wife in such a school – especially a young, beautiful wife!

“I want to teach in an academy,” she told me and challenged me to find her a good and well-paying academy if I knew so many people as I claimed to.

While going for my salary last month, I met Mr Maina. Mr Maina was a headmaster in our school who was interdicted for stealing school funds. I was happy to see him. He was doing well contrary to my expectation.

“I have an Academy,” he said when I asked him what he was doing.

I asked him if he could hire my wife. “She just completed her course at Mosoriot TTC and she is very good especially in English,” I said.

“Bring me her CV,” he said.

Fiolina was excited and although I wanted to take the CV myself, she insisted on taking it. Everything went quiet after that. Until last week. I left class to find five missed calls. I called back. It was Mr Maina. He was quite happy when I called him.

“One of our teachers has left us and we need to replace him immediately,” he said.

“Can you ask Penina to see me?” he said.

“Penina? Who is Penina?” I wondered.

“Kuwanga serious Dre,” he said and laughed. “You don’t know the name of your wife?”

“No, my wife is called Fiolina.” I said.

 “Tell her to see me tomorrow,” he said.

I was excited and left school early to go deliver the good news. But my happiness was cut shot when Mr Maina called me when I was on the way.

“You have seen that WhatsApp photo I have sent you? Your wife is called Penina,” he said. When I checked my phone I was surprised to see Penina on her certificates. There was no Fiolina. It then hit me. Fiolina had never allowed me to have a look at her documents. I decided to go to Hitler’s first.

“Who is Penina?” I confronted her when I got home, later that day. She at first argued but when I showed her the photo on my phone, she started sweating.

“Let me tell you the truth,” she said.

“My actual name is Penina, when I was in secondary school people started calling me Penina so I registered as Penina for KCSE.”

“How come your ID and KCPE certificate have Fiolina?” I asked her.

I also reminded her that she had a sister called Penina who had even attended her wedding.

“No, that is my cousin,” she said.

“So you don’t want me to get a job because of a small confusion in names,” she asked me. “If you look at me you don’t think I am educated?” she asked.

“I believe you,” I said, “But how do we explain the names confusion?”

“Believe what I say,” she said. “Or you can go to Hitler’s and listen to drunkards.”

“Any way food is ready,” she said. After food, we went to sleep. For obvious reason, we woke up late the next day. Although she sounded confident, I am still wondering: Could Fiolina be having fake KCSE certificate?

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