What’s Wanjiku supposed to do about security – carry a machete?

It is a good thing that the Kenyan population seems to look at life as a puzzle whose parts are completely unrelated.

One day the President asks what we as Kenyans are doing about security, and before anyone can answer, the charges against him at The Hague are dropped, and all is forgotten and forgiven.

Nonetheless, I think he asked a very relevant question of a society whose solution to every problem is violence.

There was a time when one way to shame men if they were violent at home was to expose them. But now there is no shame in being violent at home, on the streets, in schools, at county assembly meetings, or in Parliament. Name it, we are violent through and through.

READ: Security cannot be left to government alone, says President Uhuru

I used to enjoy using the words "violently opposed to an idea", but that joy has been taken away by what I see in our society.

This still leaves unanswered the President’s question of what I am doing about security as Wanjiku. Well, let me see! First, I have had thoughts of carrying a machete.

Yes, all those derogatory references to machete-wielding Africans are finally being made real by this African.

Note that I may need some clever lawyer to defend me, given that in Kenya public servants are rewarded for thinking of strategies, never mind if they are implemented or not.

DEVIANTS WHO WANT FREEBIES

The insecurity we are experiencing as a nation may be contributing to our letting violence become so commonplace. Unfortunately, women, being biologically disadvantaged as far as physical strength is concerned, will bear the brunt of this violent society. We have no place to run and hide in an increasingly violent space.

If I walk the streets in search of daily bread, some deranged social deviant who wants freebies from my hawking business may strip me. But I take all in my stride, and who do I turn to? It has been years since I heard anything of the Gender Desk that was established in police stations. Years.

When I do better, work hard and earn an income that can afford me some househelp, I find that the help I pay to take care of my child has beaten her senseless, but as far as part of the society is concerned, it is my fault. Why did I hire help? Why did I not go hawking or to the office with my child? Where was I? What was I doing?

I was out trying to earn a living, making amends to society by ensuring that my child gets better than what I had.

But I fully understand the people who think it is my fault. What choice do I have anyway?

NO REPRIEVE

When you have had the best money can buy, you will wonder what the rest of us are doing when things go so wrong, you from that portion of our society that wonders why we cannot eat cakes if we are short of bread.

But I refuse to give up on life, so I ask family members to take care of my child while I try and make a living. It just gets worse when I find that these brothers, uncles or grandfathers, have molested my child, and it no longer matters if the child is a boy or a girl. Apparently my child is only safe holding on tight to my skirt, which had better not be short.

When the President asks me in an address to the nation where I was, can you even begin to imagine what the police will ask me when I show up to report the traumatising crime of incest at the nearest police station?

I will probably do the best I can with unaffordable medical bills, insecurity at street level and no place to turn to for reprieve. Not at home, not from the State.

There you have it. Having murderous thoughts and hanging on to dear life, that is what I am doing. It may seem like little to you, but it is soul-crushing to me!

Twitter: @muthonithangwa