City wife and village wife exchange notes

We all flock to cities, but there is something healthy, exotic even, about growing up in the village. For starters, organic, a sophisticated concept in the city, is the everyday life of a villager. Even the air back in the village is organic!

I was raised in a village that sat at the feet of two towering hills in Eastern Kenya. Most of us kids had never seen a river, other than the seasonal flooding of shallow valleys during the December rains. Every season, we’d dash to witness the bravery (or folly) of a villager attempting to swim.

“Ndabay is swimming!” a kid would screech, running past our house.

I’d be out in a flash, before grandma could hold me back. (Our swimmer of the season was always rescued near death, and I’d get a proper spanking from grandma for my behaviour, which she called kuthena – running off without a second thought).

Life then was structured, idyllic, routine. Then I moved to the city and quickly learnt that no girl worth her salt walks around with bushes under her armpits, on her legs or arms. Her eye brows must be shaped as well. 

In marriage, other lessons came in galore.

“Mount Venus must be clean shaven. As in, pluck every hair out.” Obliged and ouch!

Last month I took a drive back to the village. I put up at my cousin’s. We had loads to catch up on. Inevitably, we got to discussing husbands. Seeing as she got married decades back, right after high school, while, according to her, I married too late, in my mid-thirties, more lessons were in store, from both of us.

PUMPKIN SEEDS

“The only hair on you should be the one on your head.” That was me, the city wife. I went so far as to recommend the shaving creams and waxing strips and lingerie.

“Oh, and there’s the cleansing and scrubbing.” She laughed, when I described the procedure.

“That’s just a money-making scheme, why do I need to peel off dead skin? That’s nature’s work!”

She probably had a point, but tell that to a city woman; we live by the mantra of cleansing, toning and scrubbing our skins raw.

“Feed him well,” she advised. “Itu, I hope you don’t give him rice and chips,” she continued as I laughed.

“Guilty!” I said, thinking of the menu nicely displayed in my kitchen that features more of rice, spaghetti and chips than githeri , nduma, mukimo or ncaabi.

Then she revealed her secret recipe and assured me that the reason they have three sons and two daughters, the reason that they are still going strong, 20-plus years later, still at it like a newly married couple, was because she had learnt early what to feed her man on.

“What?” I inched closer. She stood up, walked towards the kitchen and I, of course, promptly ran after her. She pointed at it.

“A pumpkin?” I asked, laughing. “My husband cannot stand the taste of that…”

“No, the seeds. Pumpkin seeds,” she replied.

If hubby cannot stand the taste of pumpkin, you can be sure it would take a torture squad to get him to eat the seeds. She seemed to read my mind.

“Si you city girls have blenders? Blend and mix them with the mango juice. You will thank me for it.”

 I tried to smother a giggle.

“Be ready for more babies…” she said and winked at my horrified expression.

Weeks later, we exchanged notes.

“The lingerie, worked,” she informed me, but not the other bit, so she is back to growing the bush back.

I had searched online about the pumpkin seeds.

“He has no idea what hit him, but he thinks the morning run is really paying off,” I said.

 We giggled.