Confining beauties to keep off poachers?
Sep 24, 2012
Soon after my mother passed on, 20 years ago, a young couple invited me to live with them, to help me cope with the overwhelming grief that tossed my little life.
Men's say with Bob G. Kisiki
Soon after my mother passed on, 20 years ago, a young couple invited me to live with them, to help me cope with the overwhelming grief that tossed my little life.
They rented the servants quarters in the home of an elderly gentleman, who embodied everything typically Ganda. He had, among other attributes, two daughters. One was above average in looks and manner, the other…I can’t help putting it this way: She was something else.
She was fairly ample in build, dark in complexion and hard not to look at hard and long, every time you looked at her, because it was pleasurable to look at her. My friends and I named her Cheshire, from the English expression about the Cheshire cat smile, which lingers on long after the actual smile has faded. Cheshire had such a sweet smile. That, plus many other good traits.
And that was her undoing. Cheshire must have woken up tired, and gone to bed worn-out, every day, every week. Why? Her parents, especially her mother, were keeping her out of harm’s way. Hehe. I don’t know what used to happen when we were away from home, but from the moment my friend and I returned home, Cheshire’s peace just evaporated like ethanol. Know ethanol? That was Cheshire’s peace and joy.
I can’t even recall her real name, so I’ll name her Sanyu. So we would walk into the compound and her mother would go like ‘Sanyu, go buy tomatoes.’ And Cheshire would go. When she returns, the mother would say, ‘Ggwe Sanyu, I need help in the kitchen. Come here.’ And she would go, like she was the only child, doing practically everything, her parents thought if they didn’t keep her out of reach of adult males, she would be preyed on.
Not that I am saying it was completely impossible, but at least the danger wouldn’t have come from our house.
Do you know how many girls suffer confinement at the hands of their loved ones, because they are allegedly saving them from potential ‘poachers’?
They are denied a chance to be out in the open, to literally smell the flowers and watch the sun retire. For when the sun is busy displaying its setting splendour, these unhappy beauties are being told to mop the house in the evening, because the young men in the neighbourhood have come back from school, campus and work. They never take evening walks, to see life in motion, because out there are vandals who would tear her heart to pieces in just one love affair.
They never sit on the huge veranda with the folks in the neighbourhood, to mull over the beauty of Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention; or Ugandans’ love for recklessness or the latest movies and music hits on the local market.
Why? The discussion will veer from the theatre arts, to the art of her face and body.
Cheshire was unhappy. I know, because once in a while we talked. She had a little cute sense of humour and, since my male friend, his other friend who used to come by regularly and I always engaged in funny chatter, Cheshire would linger by, smiling her eternal smile, then sneaking in a timid word once in a while.
Then she would intimate that she was sad about her parental guidance agenda, and would be able to protect herself if allowed to.
Her sister, too, was not happy. This protection her sister received meant that she, the little sister, was neither as hot as Cheshire, nor as important.
I imagine her esteem wasn’t enough to fill one little bottle, like the type we find injection drugs in.
I wonder why a parent would subject his/her child to such treatment.