Silas Nyanchwani: The Problem with Kisii Women

Did you know that the first ever socialite — was her name Toxic?,was Kisii. She was some decent pair of goods, light-skin, beautiful and curvy.

My friend Boni declared in February 2011, that he WILL NEVER EVER date or bed a Kisii woman again. He had tried like 3 of them. The first one was disastrous, the second catastrophic and the third, calamitous. One of them was temperamental, the second was bad in bed (can’t risk to describe in his exact words) and the other I can’t remember the exact charge. But that was it for him.

Back then, I was an idealist and I had barely dated a Kisii girl. In fact, I have scarcely dated two or three of them. I had this belief that will probably marry from Central or Western Kenya. Or Coast. Some Taita lasses used to excite me, wacha tu! Heck, I even wanted to marry from Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, African-American. Everywhere, but my clanswomen.

I have never had any specific problem with Kisii ladies, expect maybe the amount of dowry I will pay in the event she is university educated. I have always held that Kisii women make the best contenders for good wives. They are not overly or crassly materialistic, for one. At least they never used to be.

As a boorishly patriarchal community, our ladies were fairly tamed and I believed if you married one, provided for her and made her feel that she is the best thing after the first sip of beer, she would raise the healthiest and brightest kids you can dream of as a man. And Kisii women are generally good keepers, if they are not corrupted or distracted. Also if you trust them with a business and believe in their abilities, they tend to be fiercely loyal and can build you an empire. They are decent homemakers, and the best to give you the freedom to chase paper. Often, as Kisii men, we take these attributes for granted, and I hate it. Most Kisii men are terrible players, and it hurts me seeing some good, beautiful and decent ladies being cheated on and their lives being ruined pretty unnecessarily.

But I love their humility and their belief in making a marriage or a relationship work. Only Meru chicks can be better at keeping a man. I would recommend a Kisii woman to any man, anywhere. Besides, for them, they are marriageable to any tribe. We have a higher compatibility to all tribes than most. We can swing both the Nilotic and Bantu axis, without the stereotype that encumber our GEMA sisters.

Even though, I have advised them in the past to stop dating Luo men. They always take the kindness of our women for dumbness. I have like 27 cases to back up my case. I have advised some to pass on the romantic nonsense that Luo men sell. They never listen. Often they so are taken in with the flowers and cards, and fancy dinners until they realise, there are other women being treated to the same. Then they resent the Luo folks so much, they even end up voting for Jubilee. And I don’t want that us losing votes on this basis. And at this stage, I will ask the Omondis and Otienos, to treat my sisters with some dignity and decency to rescue a few votes for Tinga.

Anyway, Kisii ladies are usually not ranked among the hottest in Kenya. Which is bullshit. For I know as many beautiful, curvy women from my motherland as like from any other part of Kenya. They just tend to be invisible. But try find an Embu chick. Did you know that the first ever socialite — was her name Toxic — was Kisii. She was some decent pair of goods, light-skin, beautiful and curvy. Her ass was and probably still is the SI units of those things in Nairobi. I mean, like her name, she was ‘toxically’ beautiful. .Where is she by the way? Anyone…Hit my inbox. She burst into the scene a couple of years ago. Sheila Kwambokas, Angela Angwenyis, Corazon Kwambokas, anywhere you look, there are no shortage of hot Kisii mamas. Go to the main SDA churches in Nairobi and you will be confused. Even at universities, some of the really hot ones were and still are Kisiis.

It so happens that the most beautiful Kisii women are always out of my league. The ones I ever desired were so out of my league, I have never even been worth to drink their bath water. I have seen a number taken by men, simply because the men drove better cars than my two shoes. Simply because the men held better jobs that writing this stupid, absurdly stereotypical blogs. I may have said that Kisii women are not materialistic, but show me a woman who will not fall for a man with a good job and a good car, and I will show an intelligent politician.

People accuse Kisii women of being temperamental. But scientists did establish long time ago that prolonged eating (and exposure) of bananas, can predispose individuals to a lot of potassium and sodium, the two ions that power the our nervous system. So the more potassium and sodium you have in the blood, the more temperamental you become. That is why countries that are permanently at war mostly have bananas as the staple diet. Just sample all the unstable countries in the sub-Saharan Africa..

I know, some Kisii women can be volatile and violent when exposed to male bullshit. Just don’t cheat and avoid going home drunk. If you married a Kisii woman toe the line. Generally, I don’t rate Kisii women higher on the Sobriety Index among Kenyan women. Women from Western Kenya score poorly here. Mess them and they will paint your white shirts with tomato sauce and deflating car tyres is still good sport to them. Some like the sound of the windscreen reacting to a heavy stone. Some know many ways of using a wife. And some are good in walking away, leaving you to eat your bullshit.

Kikuyu women to me are the most sober, and aware of their rights in a relationship. Truth be told, Kikuyu women are hardworking, and less dependent on their men. They are always in some chama or investment group, and one day you may discover she is a millionaire without your knowledge. That kind of hard work has taken longer than necessary for our sisters from Western Kenyan to catch on. But they are not entirely to blame, since our societies did some serious trampling on them, it is now they emerging.

My only beef with Kisii women is that they never want to speak our mother tongue. There are some stupid Kisii men raised in towns too who think that not knowing mother tongue is the embodiment of civilisation, the pinnacle of coolness and ultimate marker of intelligence. But their heads are emptier than a politician of questionable sexual orientation, interested in foreskins. But men are fewer and far between.

Kisii women, once they step in Nairobi or any 19th century town like Nakuru for that matter, have this annoying habit of pretending that they don’t speak our noble and royal language: Ekegusii, hitherto the foremost and purest Bantu language in Kenya. Yet, we know they went to some primary SDA boarding school in Kisii, even worse in Nyamira before proceeding to Nyabururu or Kereri Girls. Of course they all join small universities in Eldoret, outskirts of Kisumu or the small one along Thika Road that Obama visited recently (cue: named after our first president).

So you can understand my frustrations when I meet them, and they insist on speaking in Swahili, or even more boringly some insist in English. It makes me sick. It gives me Malaria. Can some Kisii woman tell me why they hate our precious mother tongue so much? Some Kenyans think that we speak in some shrill, irritating, high-pitched soprano that can disrupt ancestors from their sleep, but our women should know that those are our enemies, and they don’t like the economic progress and milestone we are making as a community and they will find ways of putting us down. E.g: saying that we are witches, we are thieves, we are conmen or we have a bad language. But really, don’t listen to them. Every language sounds strange, weird and unfunny to non-speakers.

I mean, ever listened to a beautiful Meru chick talk in Meru? Or those Kiuk women you meet in a club in Outering, you agree you are taking them home, and in the back of the car they start talking in mother tongue and all over sudden you think they are conspiring to kill you. All those on a Matatu to Wangige who erupt into mother tongue when the conductor overcharges them. They speak so fiercely, they give you an idea who Wangu wa Makeri was? Kalenjin when spoken by a woman is just as bad. Kamba is playfully annoying. How is spoken Kamba better than Kisii. You get the point. Just about the only language that sounds right is Luo and coastal tribes. So, Kisii women, just speak your mother tongue and be proud of your roots.

There refusal to speak Ekegusii made the Esaga Saga night lose a potential customer. Even if you gave me all the Eurobond money to attend Esaga saga, I wont. As long Kisii women insist in Swahili and English, I will stay away.

Another thing with Kisii women is that once exposed to the cities, they tend to abandon their humility and the wifable qualities. Nothing is more distressing than a Kisii woman who has been exposed to money, higher education or these thing they call rights.

Granted, I am down for equal and fair treatment of women, but I like a society where men are men, and women still retain their feminine allure. As in learn to make those damn chapatis, they are the bedrock of any marriage. I will always fix the electronics in the house (OK, I am crap with electronics, but men generally should handle the masculine tasks around the house. I am also an A student in Physics. Just goes to show).

A Kisii woman who is properly educated can be a handful and I have met some who thought the idea of washing their husbands’ clothes, somewhat condescending, backward, barbaric, chauvinistic, masochistic, misogynist, retrogressive, and abusive. You name it. And that is why I’m seeing many not marrying Kisii men anymore. They run away from us, and five years down the line, they are regretting.

Kisii women in Nairobi and even abroad are a source of so much pain to many Kisii men. They abandon our pristine and best culture and they buy this equality business and they have ended up ruining families, killing their men, sending some to jail only to discover it was not worth it when it is too late.

I urge my sisters, come back home. We are still your best bet. I personally love all of you. And all your best in your dreams.

Ni hayo tu kwa leo. Hadi wakati mwingine.