Thursday, 13 February 2014
11:00pm
Dear Jennifer,
I have decided to write a personal journal to help me cool off my head over the tough times I face with my family. Should anything weird happen to me one day, I hope this book will find its way to you and help solve the riddles around my situation. I am not predicting something bad to happen to me or my family any soon; however, the future, and all its occurrences, is inevitable.
Since my husband won the elections, he has been acting strangely. I hope, by now, you know that we no longer live in the 'boondock', but in our new home in the city. And I am struggling to cope with this life in the city - as a housewife, you know. That aside, my husband has been one on constant motion. He attends meetings upto, sometimes, hours past midnight. He no longer has time for me and our two kids. Every day after supper, he leaves for the so-called impromptu assignments and meetings. I wonder whether my marriage is on the right track of living.
Today, dear sister, my husband came back home quite earlier than usual. Though he was as calm and quiet as always, my instincts told me something was wrong. Imagine your husband, the Godlike thing the Bible states we women were made out of, walking into the house and right into the bedroom without either a hug or a hello-my-dear gesture. What a supercilious and denigrating attitude! Anyway, I have lived to understand and brook his nagging lifestyle.
Georgie, so to say, is of course one of those explosive introverts and I would not even think about asking him what was wrong. So, unminding him, I went about warming his bathwater, and while he took the bath, I prepared his evening tea, taking note of the specifications given by his doctor for the sake of his digressing blood sugar levels.
When he finished bathing and came back into the house, I went straight to the bathroom to pick his clothes as usual. It was then and there that the most uncertain moments dawned. On the window stool lay a tiny glimmering object, a beautiful rare thing to behold. My eyes must have waited eagerly for a lifetime to capture such a profulgent ornament, for barely had I stepped into the bathroom when I beheld it, an expensive gold ring! I took it into my palm and watched, both fear and anxiety nibbling at my spine. I was like a hornbill hit inimically by the rain in the night and feeling a tidge of hope mixed with uncertainty at the onset of daylight. To be succinct and sincere, I have never worn or been worn such an ornament, and even as I write this, I think perhaps he is holding up a surprise for me; who knows though, a man's real intentions are hard to define.
I placed the ring back onto the stool and made my way back into the living room, but my husband met me halfway, a towel still wrapped around his trunk, and with unnerving looks all over me. I planted myself in front of him and waited for those uncertain moments, of maybe a clout or ruthless inquiry. Instead, he asked me in a silly cracking voice, "Woman, have you seen it?" And I replied almost incoherently, "What was it?" I corrected myself, "I mean, what are you talking about?" He hesitated awhile and then replied, "So, you haven't seen it, Woman?" I insisted, "What, my lord?" I reasoned with myself that suppose it was going to be a surprise for me, then it would not be good to say that I had already seen it. He grunted and moved quickly past me into the bathroom.
I think he must have taken a minute or two in the bathroom. When he came out, he went back to our bedroom and finished grooming himself. He then came to the living room, quietly took his tea and left us as usual without putting in another word. As I make my first entry into my journal tonight, all alone in my bed yet it is approaching midnight, dear sister, I feel like a boat left in the middle of an ocean, anticipating a favourable surprise or another hell on wheels in the coming days.
Friday, 14 February 201411:50pmDear Jennifer,I am worried about the safety of my husband. He has not returned home since he left yesterday and the kids have been all over me with questions. The first to ask me about him was my 10-year old Harriet. She has a soft spot for Georgie and whenever he disappears from home, she is always the first to ask. Today she had a light pyrexia and headache in the morning and when I sat at her bedside to give her some maramoja tablets to easen the pain, she aptly inquired, "Mama, did Baba really come back home yesterday?" I did not pick up a reply immediately. I wondered, what if I just tell her YES to pacify her fear and anxiety, would that not be helpful? But then, I remembered how she had previously turned ballistic when she realized that I had lied to her about her father's absence. So I held her right palm and repl
Saturday, 15 February 20146:15PMDear Jennifer,I am seated in the backyard of my house as I make this entry into my journal. The orange flickers of the sinking sun falls on the round wooden table in front of me leaving a lustrous surface that seems hard to stop staring at. It reminds me of the first time I met Georgie back in Asembo when I came to visit you after completing my high school studies.I remember that it was evening and you had sent me to Akado Market to buy some fish for supper. I passed by a posho mill where a group of thuggish-looking boys stood by chatting merrily. One of them who appeared distinctively tall, mascular and black, came out of the group and barricaded my way. I tried to find my way off but he incessantly kept blocking all sides of the path. When I stopped right in front of him and cast my piercing looks onto his face, he asked rather politely in English, "I'm sorry, miss,
Sunday, 16 February 201411:45PMDear Jennifer,My husband has not yet come back from a fundraiser he attended in the afternoon after church. Perhaps he decided to spend the rest of his day at our home back in the boondock. I wonder why he never keeps me updated on his whereabouts, not even after a holy mass in town and a stressful afternoon.Georgie loves the church, though I would lie, to be sincere, to say it has ever had any spiritual impact on him. We have never been part of a specific congregation since he began his political career. We just keep maundering about from one group of believers to another.So today being a worship day, he told me in the morning that we were going to attend sermon at a local church back in Seme. Thirty minutes later, he changed his mind that we would first attend sermon at a church in Nyamasaria, and then he would leave us to attend a fundraiser at the
Monday, 17 February 201411:00PM.Dear Jennifer,You taught me that no metal is too hard to bend. You also taught me that the weakness of a man lies in his ego. Today, dear sister, I proved your teachings right.My husband came back home a few minutes after I had sent the kids off to school. I perceived that he was jittery with me for spoiling his speech on Sunday, and I would not take any chances of apologizing for granted. So I prepared his bathwater and made him breakfast as usual. After he had bathed and sat down to eat in the dining section, I served him tea with tears cascading my cheeks uncontrollably. Then I sat down opposite him, still heaving with emotions and crying helplessly.When he saw my tears and figured out my depth of grief, his looks quickly turned pallid. At this point, I knew he was touched and had to say something. He looked away from me and asked, "What is i
Tuesday, 18 February 201411:15pm.Dear Jennifer,My husband told me this morning before he left for job that he would be leaving for a one-week benchmarking trip to China with his executive the following week.What is funny about this trip is not the period it will take but the nitty-gritties of the benchmarking. I did not want to sound so snoopy, but I was tempted to ask how a small county in a developing country could benchmark with a developed country of the likes of China. I mean, what is even common between the two geographical units. Or perhaps my education inadequacy denies me a better understanding of economic concepts and development methods.That aside, I am still scrutinising the pieces of advice you gave me on phone in the course of the day. I wanted to know how to handle my husbands secretive and absolutist nature, and you told me three things.First,
Wednesday, 19 February 201411:30PM.Dear Jennifer,I am shocked by the latest developments regarding the strange gold ring. Just when I thought life would return to normal, something really fremd just occured.See, my husband left for work in the morning as usual, and I guess he took along with him his ring, 'cause it was nowhere to be found in his coats' pockets or trousers or anywhere in the house.At lunchtime, however, while lower primary school kids returned home from school, my Harriet came back with something in her palm."Mama, know what I have found?" she shouted happily and playfully."What is it, my baby?" I asked."Promise you won't snatch it away from me," she demanded."Um... Well, I promise. What is it?" I replied with a full deck of curiosity."A gold ring!" she exclaimed, stretching out her r
Thursday, 20 February 201410:53PM.Dear Jennifer,I woke up to some sad news today. Edith Alison, one of the two nurses who attended to me at Moderncare Private Hospital, has passed on. Her body was found dumped in a bush at Manyatta Estate. Her counterpart, Faith Earnington, who was with her at the time they left the hospital has written a statement at the police station in Manyatta.I called her to pass my condolences when I heard the sad news on radio in the morning. She told me that a gang attacked them yesterday evening, barely two kilometres from the hospital, and kidnapped Edith. They live on the same plot here in Milimani Estate and had boarded the same motorcycle home when they were attacked. She said her phone had died down, thus she could not call the police. But she went to the nearest police station and reported. The cops tried to locate the gang on their devices in vain. It seemed they had
Friday, 21 February 201411:03PM.Dear Jennifer,It has been another unusual day for me. I could not sit back and watch my marriage stoop on the precipice of failure, owing to a strange gold ring. My husband, the Georgie I knew, who was full of wisdom and love, is no longer the one I see. The one I see wanders back to the house from work, cold and shifty and unwilling to protect his marriage.So today I took a private walk outside our street to see a pastor I was well-acquainted with at Kona-kayona Estate. Since it rained heavily in the morning, I knew the area would be filled with trenches of dirty water and so I wore my gamboots and put on my cardigan and a pair of gloves to keep warm. I also wore a bucket hat to conceal my face a bit since I w