The Making of Single Women -- "Old Poultry"

Growing up sometimes in the 1980s, I was "old poultry" in the making.
It was a wrong time to be raised, but there was real stuff to enjoy in James Bond movies where truly voluptous and elegant Bond girls were paraded.
I saw young girls struggling to control their sexuality. They fought a dangerous battle, often drifting to unknown places, albeit valiantly, and somewhere in between, they replaced cotton wool with o.b tampons.
They developed a weird love affair with strapped spaghetti tops and hipsters, which were later to be "weapons of mass destruction".
Testing the waters and maybe soaking up emotions, they first wore trousers during weekends. Then they took to few days of the week, but now they wear trousers 24/7. Most women in the country had dresses, once upon a time, but today only a few have one that is misused in attending weedings and funerals.
Few, if any, seriously go to church for spiritual stability, but rather sexual stability. It was survival for wildest.
Strange was the speed at which they adopted thongs, yet some wore them with track suits. I knew we were moving from a confused society to confusing the society.
Some looked ugly, cheap, hapless, eccentric and at worst diabolical, especially when they applied the wrong lipstick. There was a positive note too. They were ambitious, an encouraging trait at a time when the Big Daddy lenders were prescribing poisoned economic recipes.
But now, most red-blooded women think it's sexy to don spaghetti tops, spilling their cleavages all-over and G-strings that expose their bums, thinking a combination makes men jerk-off. Worse, the fashion industry made it a gospel truth that slim women were the best.
This encouraged disastrous weight-cutting antics. I know they envy the "air bags" of Pamela Anderson, the "boot" of Jennifer Lopez or the lips of Angelina Jolie.
This lifestyle change was brought by the passions of "career women". Lawyers, corporate chiefs, editors. Others thought only hard work would make them pilots. A pauper country proved them wrong. Little did they know that they were venturing into a world of gender politics. A world where success is determined by anatomy.
I never heard many dying to work for the UN, which today excites droves in University of Nairobi's Box hostels and USIU, a factory that grinds up-class egos.
That time, many girls wanted to be like Catherine Kasavuli or Maddona, but without adopting kids. Oprah was not as famous as she is now. They thought it was their turn to be sexy and do what men had denied them since the industrial revolution.
The pill had arrived, and so had the results. Never mind, this erotic pill was not sold over the counter, but under the counter. A generation of eroticamaniacs was born.
It was also the time when coconut oil and curly kit were in vogue. "Sokoni" and "Ngoma" -- textile-made ready-to-wear strappless shoes -- and later on Morcussins and velvet high-heels were the only affordable, yet decent shoes in the market. Cable TV was yet to bring the marvels of Tinseltown boutiques.
A cult called "feminism" was in the works, courtesy of a few whose relatives had benefitted from the Kennedy airlifts and brought home a few lifestyle magazines in addition to American accent and a passport with Uncle Sam's Visa. Most valuable were cardigans with Norter Dame University or Morehouse College logo.
Clothing lines, Njiris Stores, Y fashions and Deacons, never stocked girlie-only trousers. Too bad, the main stock was unisex jeans that was imported from South Africa, Malaysia and Singapore, where they had been disposed as "cleared stock."
Meanwhile, men opted for Gikomba to grab T-shirts emblazoned with Michael Jordan, MC Hammer, Diego Maradona and George Bush Sr. I was not among them since mama did shopping for me and I was a villager. Who would accept to be overtaken by events?
That time, mothers could not leave their girls go for a Saturday walk without wearing petticoats. They believed culture, or for that case, stereotype, was the guardian of discipline in society. Most of them were circumcised and they loved it.
Viva, Drum and other lifestyle rags were the magazines of choice for the "modern woman." Then, courtesy of the Marlboro ads, few "wonder" girls cared to start smoking, inflated their bras and padded cotton wool under jeans to enlarge their bottoms -- "VW Passat's rear bonnet," one called it.
Others too poor to afford cutex nail polish, which ran out of stock in upmarket chain stores, plucked Heena from river banks, despite its awful Mogadishu odour. Pedicure and manicure were yet to replace razor blades and table knives in shaping nails. Never mind what they used to clear their vital private parts jungles.
But there was no windfall for all and God was too real for them. With parental advice or threats or both, many tried a hand in the church. Then, houses of worship were a haven of sex predators, some of whom, got their cash from bonuses.
They pretended to have repented to convince no-nonsense village parents to let them out on their "Sunday Best" after preaching. Some were even choir members thinking they would end up like Whitney Houston or Gladys Knight or even Yvonne Chaka Chaka.
For many, the Full Gospel -- where there is a poor imitation of break dance -- was the "christian disco" since Omega was reserved for major trade fairs. These girls danced and flirted on the Holy Floors and met the local "Frank Sinatra" and "Elvis Presley".
I never witnessed explicit sexual activity, but I remember seeing a girl pull a man's hand over her breasts "when the orgasm was still at top gear." The other day, I was told the girl got married and divorced somewhere near Mau Forest. She now has seven children.
I wanted to discuss this with mama, but age mates warned me against shameful curiosity that could be so dangerous. Matters of sexuality were only spoken in parables and in low tones. Kids were not allowed to think sex, talk sex or have sex, at least in public. The only book recommended was the The Book of Bible Stories.
Women's chat could be creative, as it is now especially in weekends at the rural versions of Arboretum or Ngong Hills, where most women and few men believe Eros resides. "When a man is ejaculating, the penis turns red," I overheard one girl say, going on to discuss plans of having sex with a son of a neighbour. I did not follow it up.
At my age, which was not-too-young-to-notice or get-noticed, I was flummoxed. I knew the church as a beacon of discipline in society since, just like my contemporaries, mama usually made sure that we went to SDA's 'mission reading' every Saturday.
The most fascinating set in the SDA was the women's ministry, a Christian version of female circumcision. Girls in courtship thought they were old enough to abandon the youth league and cross over to the ministry, a class where, innocent or naive women could be transformed into professional male molestors and underground grinders of gossip.
The ministry was a purgatory for young ladies. Whoever was in the women ministry and later moved to the city was sure to end up as a single woman.
Botox and cosmetic surgery were movie fodder, leaving room for daily showers, then applying a slim layer of coconut oil for the poor and perfumed Valon for the rich. In poor families, milking cream was the only option. It was odourless and nobody could notice.
In those days, any girl away from domestic chores thought she was middle class and would get a man to date her. Others were old; they had reached their expiry date.
Parents who knew God were against pills or at least pretended to be. After all, sneaky girls got them anyway and had sex in the bush. AIDS had not cut across the population and condoms, Rubber Johnny -- were an anathema.
Burning with ambition to win villagers' respect, the girls baked their skins with Ovacado concoctions and copied the hip-swinging style Yondo Sister and a times Tshala Mwana, a pair of sensual Congolese mucisians with a thick layer of a mixture of cosmetics.
Most of my agemates thought they were beautiful, but later did agree that they could not reach the standards of the Marylin Monroe and Dorothy Dandridge. Leave alone Katharine Hepburn. They believed beauty lied on the size of the bosom and bottom, and not on the much-hyped character.
Rexona and Lux were for beautiful girls or as the ads did say. Tahamaki and Tushauriane were highly-rated in the local scene. New readers like Khadija Ali and Anderson Kalu never stilted their language trying to cut a niche in the bars. Morden newsreaders try wicked coquetishness on the screen. But the truth is, they are barely voluputous. They are mechanical and they know that.
When Ebony, Glamour, Cosmo and Elle magazine hit our news stands, the girls read and thought they were 'independent women'. In them, recipes promised girls new culinary delight that would transform chicken shit into chicken fries.
The real "Drum" magazines, with its dull pages and unappealing font, never dolled out bullshit columns like "sexiest men in Kenya" that are strewn in a recent "True Love," parading a hidious bunch of "misfits" who drink on loan.
It is an omen to remember this.
All the problems that faced our girls was a result of the "feminism" movement that had crossed borders into Kenya in the 1990s.
That was when girls frequented bars recklessly: ceaselessly drinking Tequila and smoking marijuana in the backstreet alleys.
The metamophorsis was a long and sad experience. These days, girls have taken control deciding what they are going to drink on a date, and when to call them and what brand of drink they are taking.
I recently got two women in the PorterHouse drinking Jack Daniels then changing brands of Malibu and finally settling for Tonic Water, before getting drunk enough to expose their G-strings while wearing tight jeans; all along thinking they were being sexy.
Sample this: My colleague Otto Bakano is merciless with women in love. He had advice for me.
At the Graveyard, the name given to PorterHouse because "it is a parlour for broken hearts", I asked him on the way foward to get a girl, Khadija Salat, rejected my overtures.
"Matrix Reloaded," he told me, reffering to the 2003 directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski.
"Drop your ego, go and reload and then pursue Salat."
But Salat was no ordinary girl. Middle-class and well-paid, she thought she was in a Paris boutique.
Unfazed and unintimidated, I called her for the hell of it. She responded beautifully, afterall she wanted a free drink which I gave her. I knew my ship had come. Nothing women like a free beer. I wish she knew that the fun is in the chase, not in the catch.
I moved forward, now with turbo-charged zealousness, until everything bursted. And I do regret it because women who wear borrowed, expensive clothes are usually "thick". They cannot cook French delicacies, frequent Kenchic and most commonly, do not know the right lipstick.
Finally the truth hit me. Her boyfriend was an uncircumcised fisherman. And she wanted me to "fix" their shitty relationship. But my agenda was clear. I wanted to get her home for the evening, and just for that since I had learnt that marriage is a hopeless and unproductive career. A white elephant that milks dry men with slim wallets.
A week or so, she called me. "I thought you are very stupid," she said, going on to the lecture me on why I should comb my hair, play "decently" and wait for a girl to crawl from the woodwork of Nairobi.
For three weeks, I pursued her, until one day she threatened to get a restraining order. That relationship lasted eight days with one evening out. She drank my red wine. At first sight, she was a Bond girl, but attitude was a problem.
Then, I knew. We have an epidemic of single women in Nairobi, many living and dying hopelessly, sitting in restaurants from Friday evening through early Sunday, gossiping men. At home, they leave a can full of unpaid utility bills and a long list of men's cell phone numbers.
These cabal of women drive cheap Toyota Corollas and Nissan Sunnys from Japan, brands that an upscale prostitute who frequent luxurius hotels in Nairobi and Mombasa can afford after 17 dates with "Real Men."
Over weekends, these "old poultry," who cannot find a decent man -- either because they are divorced, too ugly, or they wet their beds -- sometimes gather in one's apartment to gossip, fondling teddy bears that are reserved for young kids and hoping that men will drop from heaven like manna.
"They should go back to their traditional values. They should stop going to bars and instead drink from the privacy of their homes," retorted Mwangi Ngamate, a journalist and car seller. "These days, they even fight in bars and abuse men."
Edwin Kagunya, an accountant who sits next to me in office said curtly. "It is very bad, women have chosen to disregard the institution of marriage."
My friend Paul Oyier, a a decent bedfellow running a production firm, told me that image was everything in the morden world of dating.
"You hold off until, many of these girls will come to pursue you," he said. The soft-spoken Oyier, a decent man with an acceptable demeanor, always blamed me for lacking a serious woman. But what for?
How do you expect to spend you evening in bars to raise your family, leave alone your own child? Family lawyers are increasing being pushed out of business to the awful pro bono work, not because families are increasing being stable, but because families are dead.
"People like you are causing the problem of single women because you are not serious," Oyier lectured me. We laughed, but he did not tell me if he knows any woman who uses her brains and uterus at the same time. I am dying to know.
But I pushed on but Salat refused to respond to my e-mails despite "reloading". Eventually, I not only realised that I was chasing "aged poultry," she had already joined the mean, poisonous and dejected league of singly women -- la femme fatale. They can kill to mantain their ego that has been bruised by years of sleeping alone.
Good women however are hard to find. Take one Anne Kiguta, a newsreader at Capital FM. I tried to fix a date with her. "I have no time, I am busy except Tuesday's and Fridays . Anyway, most of these days, I usually have plans," she told me, going on muttering and sputtering. I was told she study's evening's.
Others think that parading their man in public could prove a point. Nope, they should know the aged maxim that 50 percent of a woman's power is taken away when people know who she sleeps with. Either way, just have a look at Sheila Mwanyigah and you will know that you can have a good heart and sexy face. Then conclude the beautiful ones have been born.
Even if all these women decide to be single, men will never venture into the cyberspace in search of sex or somebody to cook or wash socks. Men can do everything, virtually, doing dishes, driving, cooking, cleaning white collars and soaking towels. But they cannot make a family with children. That is when women become necessary -- but for those with no plans of getting kids, why marry?
Or, ask Micheal Otieno, this decent guy who navigates the Scanad PR wing, whether there is time to undergo these grueling dating rituals or we just go for "easy option" after a one-so-many.
Somehow, the sexy bombshells -- hourglass shaped women -- have imploded.