Dear sponsor, her house is not yours!

A living room. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • That house is not yours, even if you pay the rent, stock her fridge and pay her bills. It may have your shirt here and a jacket there, but that gives you zero bragging rights to it.

I swear this is the last time I am writing about sponsors. Please, don’t turn the page. I will be as brief as I can be.

Okay, last week, I called out the dirty old men, the sponsors who will not give pretty young things like me time to breath. I thought I was doing all of us a favour by being the moral police but alas! I was met with vitriol, and told to mind my own business. I was told that this sponsor business is the in-thing right now, and I should sit at my corner and return to insulting bloggers.

Anyway, I thought today, I should give these sponsors a little advice, seeing as I am the representative of all city girls in this town.

I thought I should give the sponsors nuggets of advice given the increasing number of sponsors dying in the line of duty.

Dear sponsors, listen to me, I am only going to say this just once.

Your mistress or "sponsoree" is not your wife. She is not your property and you do not own her. You have not paid dowry in the form of a Toyota Hilux (Double Cabin) to her father and she does not belong to you. She has not taken your last name, she is not putting up with your mother’s demands and she does not have your child. Therefore, your PYT is just that, a sponsoree having a good time.

Her house is not your home. Get this right. Even if you pay the rent, stock her fridge and pay her bills. That house is not yours. It may have your shirt here and a jacket there, but that gives you zero bragging rights to it.

So please do not, and I repeat, do not, go to your "sponsoree’s" house unannounced.

You will die of heartbreak. Literally for some. Your "sponsoree" is a pretty young thing for a reason. She is young, she is pretty and a free spirit. Occasionally, she will invite young men half your age but her age to her penthouse to savour the goodness of your sweat. Nothing wrong with that. You are also savouring the goodness of somebody’s else’s sweat, so deal with it.

You might want to know that as a sponsor, you are closer to 50 that 40, and sometimes mwanaume anasaidiwa. A man must be assisted. You know, you feed the cow as somebody else milks it? Water the tree as others enjoys the apples?

When you want to enjoy the warmth of your PYT, that pretty thing you are paying rent for, please, call first. Not at the gate, while exchanging words with Wafula the watchman who keeps saying "Madam amesema nisikufungulie" because he is working under strict instructions from your PYT not to open the gate for anyone unless advised otherwise.

Call shortly after you have attained a visa from mama allowing you to go out “with the boys”. Or else, you will find her in the throes of ecstasy with that young man she has been telling you is her favourite cousin, while really, that is her future husband.

Your fathers and grandfathers were not stupid when they were singing loudly around the village as they staggered home from the chang’aa den. They knew what they were doing; warning the youngest and prettiest wife to get her house in order and kick out that young stud because mzee is on his way.

PYTs love surprises, you know, a surprise pink Vitz and a surprise M-Pesa message. But not a surprise visit from you, while you had agreed to meet next week and she had other plans that did not include you.

Because she is young and hip (some, literally), a PYT has got to have a little fun on the side. She wants to hang out with her friends from MBA class once in a while, she wants to visit a girlfriend on Sunday afternoons and sometimes, these girlfriends have names like Tom, Dick and Harrison.

Just because you pay bills for a PYT does not mean that you should tether her to yourself. Let her be.

A real sponsor has got to give his PYT breathing space. Time to oil her hair, paint her toes red and watch them dry, perfect her cooking skills for you…catch up with old friends. She is not your slave, please; take those rules to your house and your wife.

No, it is not unfair that you pay rent only to have another man come and enjoy your fruits. It is just karma; you are cheating on your lovely wife (and two lovely daughters) after all. So you too, deserve a dose of deception. Checkmate!