Meet to set plans for husband, dad-to-be

What you need to know:

Twenty minutes later, the young man appears and before he takes a seat, he bends towards Davy and whispers something.

You, plus two ndugus, are having a drink at a place located a bit far from your neighbourhood. Why, there’re serious issues to discuss and you need privacy, away from your regular and intrusive drinking buddies.

So, we’re in this far-flung part of Bongoville off the Dar-Bagamoyo road, where you arrived sharing a vehicle with Yesaya, this ndugu who doubles as an on-and-off drinking companion.

We give Vita our driver strict orders to take only sodas and his response is: “Of course, wazee wangu, I won’t touch alcohol today, trust me; I’m actually on medication entailing a one-week drinking ban.”

“Okay, we trust you; take a seat somewhere and have a soda of your choice,” says Esaya after noting the fellow dragging a chair towards our selected table. There’re some sensitive family matters we want to discuss and we don’t want any third party around. “Okay boss,” he says as moves to another table.

There’re a lot of family issues that need deliberating on; like matters about brats who are now grown men and women who, however, consider themselves children. And all these several Form 4 leavers who attained a good grade but are declining to join high school. Like this one who has argued:

“Why should I go to high school? Sister (gives name) and brother (gives name) went to high school and then, to university; what have they benefitted from their degrees?”

A ndugu (call him Davy) who has just joined us reports about a clan member who has put someone’s daughter, who is still a student, in a family way.

“You mean,” Yesaya says, his lips trembling, “the crook has made some one’s school-going child pregnant? Poor guy! That means he’ll spend the next 30 years of his life in jail unless we act fast… he’s joking with JPM!”

“Hey, bro,” says Davy, “why are you jumping to conclusions so quickly?”

“It’s not a mere conclusion; it’s fact… when you impregnate a student, irrespective of her age, you get 30 years in prison,” insists Yesaya.

“But the girl in question is neither in primary school nor in secondary school,” says Davy.

“Ah, so, why do you call her student…where is she?” asks Yesaya?

“She’s at university, second year,” says Davy.

“Ah, then there’s no issue here,” says a visibly relieved Esaya, who adds, “why don’t they simply get married?”

His matter of fact that statement—si waoane tu chap-chap?—reminds you of the hit song by Chege, a Bongo Flava artiste, Waache Waoane.

According to Davy, if you put a grown girl in a family way, the one and only way forward, unless you’re a crook, is to move fast and marry her. And, as they, damn the consequences!

Now there are only three of us here, all ndugus to the culpable clan member who was reckless enough to see no need to use protection as he went about breaking the Sixth Commandment with someone’s daughter. We convince ourselves we comprise a quorum; that is, a group large enough to claim the mandate to plan what to do next since nothing can be undone regarding the mistake of the two “misguided” youngsters.

However, Davy comes up with a suggestion that it would be more appropriate to involve the culpable clansman for any decision we make implementable. We endorse that and ask the proposer of the idea to summon the young man.

Davy says fine and rings him, putting his phone on the speaker mode so we can follow the conversation. He informs the father-to-be the agenda at hand before directing him to where we are.

“Come here as quickly as you can,” Davy tells the young man at the other end, “I suggest you take a bodaboda, but tell the driver to be careful… you’re too precious to lose.”

“Poa uncle; I’ll make sure he doesn’t ride recklessly,” says the expectant dad.

Twenty minutes later, the young man appears and before he takes a seat, he bends towards Davy and whispers something. Then, Davy pulls out his wallet and produces some money which he hands to the father-to-be who dashes out, while saying to us: “I will be right back in a minute.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Esaya asks Davy, “I saw you give the husband and dad-to-be some money, what was it for?”

“For paying the bodaboda driver,” says Davy.

“How much did he owe the bodaboda guy?”

“Two thousand bob.”