A Little Matter of Faith

Wednesday afternoon my son accidentally cut his finger on a rusty piece of metal. We live near the beach and in time every other piece of chuma eventually turns rusty, so we're used to being surrounded by dangerous, rusty, metallic objects. We also know the harm that a rust infected piece of metal can do – read Tetanus! that horrid bacteria that can kill you after turning you into some frozen-bent up-crooked-piece-of-human, so I wasn’t surprised when he went directly to the sink to clean up. But I was stumped silent when he turned around after rinsing his hands and began muttering to me and to himself, “ok, so where’s the oil”?

Clearly I hadn’t heard right.

All this was taking place in the kitchen which is my Central Commanding Base - it’s my office, my hospital, my News Centre (radio is always ON) and my security watchtower because from up there I  can see the whole front yard plus the gate -  and he knows exactly where the First Aid Kit box is - but instead of him heading towards where the Dettol and Hand Sanitizer were stashed, he insisted on moving towards the cooking oil.

Me: Son, don’t you mean Dettol for your finger?

SON: No. I mean OIL

Me: Silence

SON: I don’t want to get Tetanus or a bad rash

Me: So clean it with Dettol…

SON: No, oil is better.

Me: Silence

I’m thinking random thoughts…

He’s 12.

He ain’t dumb, no way, not by a loooooong shot….

…. so where was all this coming from?

Me: Eerrr, where is all this oil business coming from?

SON: I will put oil then pray to Jesus and I’ll be fine.. I’ve done it before.

Wham bamb! A bulb lit up in my head like a flare gun! Aha Moment! My eyebrows shot up while my eyes opened wider and my diaphragm contracted and I took a deep breath into my lungs..

Reader: This is where you take a sip of your coffee or tea…

Ok, so 2 (two) Sundays ago at our Church (The Ocean) we had what is called Family Sunday. That’s when kids don’t get to go to Childrens’ Church but instead sit with their parents during the Main sermon. On this particular Sunday, the preacher was old ‘Babu Bob’, as our regular pastor-don’t-call-me-Pastor-call-me-Charles had travelled..

Here is a compressed Zip file on Babu Bob’s sermon:

“We used to be dirt poor, so poor that we could neither afford medical insurance nor to go to a hospital, so every time the children got sick, or grazed or cut themselves while playing outside, my wife and I would get some oil, pray over the children in Jesus name, anoint them with the Holy Oil and then tell them, ‘there, you’re healed in Jesus’ name, now go out and play!’ Well it so happened that one day I had a rather severe accident. I was mowing my landlords lawn (we lived on the edge of his property) with his lawnmower, one of those posh tractor-type of lawnmower that you sit on and drive as you trim… well, at some point I yanked the steering wheel too hard to the side and it toppled over while I was up on it. I fell off, but as I landed on the ground faster, the engine fell (in slow mo) smack – on my outstretched hand – breaking it at the wrist. I think I heard the appalling ‘crunch’ as my wrist bone was mashed and subsequently shattered. My 5 year old daughter happened to be outside playing  and she seeing what happened, she rushed into the house screaming to my wife, ‘Daddy got hurt bad, Daddy got hurt real  bad’. Cradling my throbbing arm, I hobbled painfully to the house through the back door which led into the kitchen with the terrible knowledge that since we didn’t have money for a trip to the hospital, all I could do was to take some pain-killers then go upstairs and lie down. My daughter had other ideas. She rushed in to the kitchen and climbing a stool, snatched down the container of cooking oil. In her hurry to open it, she poured half the contents on the floor, ran back to me and grabbing my throbbing shattered hand (ouch!), she pushed back the sleeve, poured oil all over it (and in the process spilt the rest of the oily contents on the floor) and told me sternly while massaging my hand, ‘Daddy, close your eyes, I’m going to pray to Jesus’. And she did.  ‘Jesus, please heal Daddy’. She opened her eyes, looked me straight in my eye and announced firmly, ‘Ok Daddy, Jesus has healed you, you can go out and play now’. Oh! My word, I couldn’t tell her that it didn’t work quite that way for a broken and smashed bone. But as I looked into her faith-filled innocent and trusting eyes, I could not, I simply could not tell her that it was impossible for cooking oil to heal a broken hand. She believed Jesus had heard. She believed Jesus had answered her simple prayer. Who was I to take that away from her? So I nodded, asked my wife for some pain meds, bandaged my now very, very swollen hand plus wrist, and went upstairs to rest. The next morning while my wrist was still sore and painful, the swelling had subsided. A little surprised, I took some more pain medication and used my other hand to eat and do simple jobs around the house. That afternoon, I remembered that I had volunteered to help in a building project and since my hand wasn’t hurting so bad, I went, deliberating that I could use my left hand to hammer in a couple of nails here and there. I recall clearly that half-way into the afternoon, I switched the hammer automatically from my left to my right hand without a thought – the pain and swelling had both diminished completely!

Now years later my wife and I were in the Amboseli, Kenya which is at the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro where I had an accident and broke my wrist again. Same wrist, same place. But we were in the Amboseli, a 5 hour road trip to Nairobi, so despite the fact that we were now more liquid plus we had Medical Insurance, I still could not get medical attention. What to do? The day was gone, it was almost dark. We could not do the trip at night.  I grabbed a couple of Panadol and bandaged the throbbing hand. The next day, my wife and I drove the 5 hour trip to Nairobi Hospital where a surgeon examined my broken wrist. It was broken but the surgeon, on looking at my x-rays and examining my hand minutely, gazed at me, extremely puzzled. ‘I can see that you’ve broken your wrist before, here, and here, but your surgeon must have been exceptional because I cannot see any signs of a scar where he operated to set the bone’.

The End of Babu Bob’s short Narrative.

Back to Wednesday and the oily business.

I sat my son down on the sofa and spoke to him gently, ‘but that was a miracle story based on the faith of Babu Bob’s daughter. That is why he was healed. The daughter’s faith healed the Dad. Cooking oil doesn’t heal, otherwise we’d not need to go to the hospital for any broken bones or health problems, we’d just use cooking oil for all our health problems!’

Said he, ‘MOM!! I know that, but Jesus heals and I believe that if I put oil plus pray, I will be okay. But it doesn’t matter  -  if there is no oil, I’ll still pray, and Jesus will still heal me.’

©NYAKIO MUNYINYI-OKALLO for The XpenSieve Report. December 2012

SOME MEN!!

Yesterday while having my lone dinner I switched on my TV and pressed buttons on the remote until I got to what looked like an interesting story. It was the Crime channel, and despite the fact that I was eating and should have kept my mouth shut, I found myself repeatedly having to close said mouth that had fallen open during the hour that the show was on air.

The show was about a husband and wife, both working for the FBI (yes!! FBI in the US of A), and how this man, who promised to love, honor, cherish and take care of his wife, turned into a sadistic monster that twisted their union into a horrible caricature of a marriage. My mouth kept hanging open because of the horrors he put her through. As if it wasn’t enough to abuse her physically and battering her like his personal punching bag he would also torture her mentally by playing loud music at night when she wanted to sleep, placing her – legs bound, hands handcuffed and mouth sealed with tape, in the trunk of a car for hours in the hot sun and when he removed her, pleading with her for sex immediately after; hiring people to put dynamite at her work place, and to do it so that it looked like she was the one who placed it there…. And when he was eventually arrested, pleading mental instability as an excuse.

I don’t want to get into what she did or didn’t do. In fact, I don’t want to get into what SHE’s should do or not do – that’s a whole other article.

Today, I want to get into Men’s Minds...

... Men who batter their wives or girlfriends repeatedly and women who do the same. It’s incomprehensible to me. Really. I simply do not understand, which is why I ask. Why do men whollop their treasured possessions and the mothers of their children? Why make her weep and cry and live in total fear of him and in misery?

Because closer to home, right here in East Africa, cases of GBV have risen – especially in homes where both husband and wife hold at least two (2) University Degrees between them, both drive cars, children go to international or good local schools and in quite a few cases, are religious and considered devout.

If, and I say IF the man is uneducated, he can tote and quote ignorance, but a Degree holder? What is his excuse? Clearly it’s not ignorance.

And as clearly, a man knows when he’s putting his wife through pure misery. Oh you women and wives and ladies who have not been battered -  don’t put your hand to your cheek and gasp and widen your eyes in shock and cruelly believe - when the woman who complains to you about the misdeeds in her house – that those are hallucinations or exaggerations of her mind – no, no, no!! Man takes time to think and proceeds to act and he knows exactly what he’s doing. Is that an insane mind? Kitchen knives put side sharp up in drawers where only the tissue box is kept, items left in a dark room so you trip when entering, TV watched on full blast at midnight when you’re trying to get some sleep? Not a TV story. Reality that happens, and worse, right here in East Africa.

Ok, so men - I have heard - think and act within mental boxes in their heads… apparently they have ‘cabinets’ or ‘drawers’ labeled, ‘WORK’, ‘PLAY’, ‘LOVE’, ‘EAT’, ‘REST’ , etc… and that only ONE can be opened at a time. I prefer to think of men like Cars.  Whether it’s a sleek fast Bugatti or a Shinde, or an old battered VW 1968 Vintage model – men are all the same in thought. Like a car in motion, the gear-speed that he is using at that particular time is the ONLY one that can possibly work. You cannot drive a car and engage two different gears at the same time. Impossible…. And neither can you shift from, say, 5^th gear to 1^st gear – you’ll blow the pistons pap! So if this man’s got his ‘PLAY’ gear on, the only thing that will occupy his mind is ‘PLAY’. Now, he’s at the local or where-ever. In the meantime, if wifey calls to remind him that … let’s see… ‘Dinner is ready' – that’s the ‘EAT’ gear - he will have to gear-down (or up) before he even acknowledges her  - and may appear at home 4 hours later and bitterly complain plus beat her thoroughly for serving cold food.

Now, let us continue assuming that the man described above has no Tertiary learning –we shall pray he will stop being an oaf and learn to shift gears speedily where his wife is concerned.

But, if he has a degree or any form of higher learning, we know that apart from much reading on his specialty, culture is learnt. And in learning culture comes the knowledge that women are not slaves or brute animals to be pushed around, brutalized and tortured, but tender human beings who need a whole batch of loving – and there are thousands of books out there that will instruct a man how to LOVE his wife and partner.

So why then all this violence against educated women by their educated hubbies?

Is it so difficult to talk and communicate to her?

To agree that differences can be lived with?

That women can’t be ‘changed’ or ‘chained’?

That if it’s the relationship that is not working, to allow the wife to bounce? With your children?

That to be tender and loving* is manly?

Where is LOVE?

I laugh hysterically (yes, certifiably insane, that’s me) when men confess their hurt feelings and attribute their ill behavior towards their wives on the singular principle, ‘but she doesn’t love me!!’ 

Why do I laugh?

Because, unfortunately – depending on which side of the coin you’re looking at - * the onus for LOVE is placed squarely on the shoulders of MEN.

There is not one single place in the Bible (which is the Christian Guide book on living) that says that a woman has to love a man. Not one. Rather, it’s the MAN who is told to LOVE his WIFE.

Oops!

Didn’t know that?

Well, now you do.

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, LOVE your wives..

Education is a good thing.

It is the man’s duty to LOVE. And loving means to cherish, to honour, to adore, to respect his partner. In thought and in deed, in the doing. Despite all and everything.

Doing meaning being affectionate, being a friend, communicating an emotion of tenderness towards her..

I repeat, despite all and everything. In a world full of trouble, men get battered with a million insults when they step out of their homes. And they are mostly powerless to correct those slurs on their characters. Even though, that’s not an excuse for the educated man to direct his particular brand of annoyance and slap, hit, push, batter, dishonor, abuse verbally and hate on your ‘better half’ like an uneducated village buffoon.

If you cannot bring yourself to Love her and treat her well, then let her go, release her, let her live in peace. And in the process, educate your children whether they live with you or leave with her.

And if you say ‘bah! I’m not a Christian, I don’t have obey God’s command to love her’, then consider this. It is a crime to beat your partner. A crime punishable by imprisonment.

And more recently, frowned upon by society. 
Think - honestly, how would the knowledge that you are a wife-basher affect your relationships with business associates and closer to home, your relatives? I’ve said this before, I will repeat it again. Saying you don’t care is a downright lie. Man is not an island and he Affects and Infects those around him.

Therefore, what will your legacy be?

_________________________________________________________________

Note from Nyakio:

This week marks '16 days of Activism against Gender Based Violence'.

Click here to read about it in the Daily News.

©NYAKIO MUNYINYI-OKALLO, NOVEMBER 2012,

FOR The XpenSieve Report

GIVERS

Have you come across a species of Human that is extremely generous? Not with their money per se, but with time, smiles, hugs, and a particular gentle patience – especially the - being loving towards you for you? These are the people that when you spot them in the street or at the supermarket or gym or wherever, you veer out of your way to greet them because YOU KNOW when they see you you’ll be rewarded with a huge grin and a big special interest in YOU, plus you’ll walk away with a bounce in your step and a zest in your heart!

I call them GIVERS. They give and hand out Generosity Packages from a seemingly endless reservoir, and I try to imitate them as much as I can…

Well, I try….

Like, I have OCD - I am a clean-freak and want everything ‘just so!’. But I am also a Hugger. So, I rein in and put on Bugatti Disk Breaks to curb my ‘clean’ instincts when I pick my kids up from school or if they come with School Transport and find me at home… I open my arms wide to receive their messy, sweaty, dirty, smelly hugs and kiss them on their smelly, sweaty, grimy cheeks because I want them to know that I love them for who they are, not how they look or smell.  And after enough hugs have been disbursed and they are assured that their status in my book is WELCOMED and LOVED, then and only then do they know where they can put their smelly, stinky school uniforms.

That is my Generosity Package right there to my kids. It teaches them that Love is important, not looks and grade-cards. Yes, there is a place for those, but what honestly is more gracious and giving than being appreciated pap! - right now – as soon as I glimpse you?

Because who else should we be generous to if not those at home? It’s okay to be sweet and kind to the whole world, but why be downright nasty, rude and a selfish miserable miser at home?

I am sad when I write this article because unfortunately, I’ve witnessed those who do just that, as I’m sure you have too…

Wispy tendrils of smoke-talk like  ‘yes, I’ve heard he’s a charmer but at home he’s a brute’, or ‘she’s so charismatic but ngai fafa, aki fika home she’s a ka-total bee-aich!’

Hmm.

People respond to people in the same way that they respond to us – if I grin and smile at you, you’ll most probably (unless you have Bipolar and you’re off your meds), grin and smile right back. If I am a Hugger, people around me will begin to be Huggers, this is true, this is how I became a hugger and many many kids now hug their own mothers because I insist on sweaty hugs…! But… If I yell and shout at you constantly… well, in time you will do the same.

If your man comes home all sweaty and clammy after being out in this current Dar heat, do you shrink back, holding your Generosity Package to yourself or do you see him for who he is and hug him anyway? What type of WELCOME do you give? Maybe you don’t hug. Maybe shaking hands is your thing, or removing his shoes when he sits down, or smiling and bringing him food, or singing and dancing, or laughing is your welcome… so, do you hand out the Generosity Package or not?

Dude, when you get home, do you hand out a GP like buy flowers before you get home, - or do you bypass your Baby Mama like those new Highways in Nairobi and head straight for the shower then talk her when you’re all clean and Spick ‘n Span 2 hours later? Forget the -  ‘I didn’t want to touch you until I’m showered…’ business. We women hear only the first 6 words of that sentence… yes please, go back and count.. If you want #peace@home, first begin with her, let the wife be the one to say, Welcome home, phooooie…. Go shower!

(And anyway, what were Imperial Leather and Nivea For Men invented for?) Or are you hiding the perfume smells from hugs given by other women??? Ya, right! It’s not just me Nyakio thinking and writing that, my voice is just an echo of countless women who wonder why their men’s I’M GLAD I’M HOME shout  has disappeared!

So…Why aren’t you so welcoming anymore?

When we peer more closely at the Naturally Generous Person we learn that they are very tender-hearted. Their hearts are huge, but sensitive. Kind of like an egg. Pressing an egg and exerting gentle pressure between your palms will not break it. But hitting it with a sharp object will…. And the same is true for those who are naturally generous. They appreciate first and foremost that you’re aware of their boundaries and you understand that while they have let you enter one circle, there is yet another circle within that circle - there are like concentric circles within a tree, so please, don’t push in all the way right now….

(Lol, sounds wrong, but you get the picture….)

What’s that inner circle? It’s the one where you respect my values.

Don’t pick up and “borrow” my stuff without letting me know because we’re friends and I loaned you a gym bag last week.

True, I want you to come to my house and enjoy yourself, and you’ve come here for 3 continuous weekends, but when I tell you I need some me time, don’t be rude and ask me what you did or what’s wrong. Simply understand what I said… I need ME time.

Or don’t come to my house and find it nice and clean then trash it.

Return things where you found them. Don’t re-arrange my office-desk or worse, my FRIDGE OR WARDROBE!!

I know I have a vehicle but don’t make your plots  or kande’s around me driving you round town.

Yes, Karibu to my home, but don’t leave at 3am when you know I have to wake up at 4am…

There’s an old, old saying, ‘You give an Inch and they take a Mile’. Me, I prefer mine – I give you a Sandwich, you sneak into my kitchen and take the loaf…

The Relative as the best example:

……. if there is one type of person that pushes the Generous person’s RED BUTTON, it is the relatives and in-laws. Your relatives plus their own – the inlaws. This is a special breed of person who at the worst can camp in your home and DARE the Generous Partner MAKE ONE NEGATIVE COMMENT and crack! the spouse responds (usually) to – THIS IS MY BROTHER, OR MOTHER, OR COUSIN, how Dare you suggest they shouldn’t come visit??

The Egg Cracks…

Because when your relatives are in my home but they treat me as:

TICK AS APPLICABLE (maid, poor hubby, slave, inferior, that-lesser being-who-married-my-brother/sister/cousin/son/daughter/niece) ___________________ (OTHER)

Ladies scream: Why can’t hubby see that?

And Men ask, why can’t my wife see that her ______ is driving me INSANE?

(maybe I should say sane, as insanity has been branded as The New Normal )

Most, not all - women find it hard to be generous to their in-laws unless they live on another continent (if not planet) and leave you as a couple alone to deal with all the upheavals that strain marriages, but unfortunately, what happens is:

• most hubbies unkindly tell their wives that they ‘have 2 characters and are schizophrenic’ – even going as far as calling their wives hypocrites and having hypocritical natures.

• many men demand that we women should treat  their in-laws the same way women treat their bosom buddies.

• I have heard cases where men ask their wives to treat his best friends like her friends…(no problem, let him wait inside for an hour or so while I make my way home in traffic….)

Yes, the above applies to friends as well. Plus spouses, sisters, brothers, people close to us. In the name of religion, family, culture, whatever! That sandwich that I took time to make, the Turkham sandwich receipe that I stole from the (Ocean) Culture Café,… listen, I took time to buy the Turkey, (NOT Kuku!!!) yes, I buy Mayo, Lettuce, Thousand Island, mix it all together, buy some good nyummy bread, make you this delicious food, plus I give you a glass of Tall Cold freshly squeezed juice (not ju-wees!). I go into all this effort to make this… this nyummy sandwich for you then you refuse my offer, chuck it aside, walk into my kitchen and grab the loaf and BB in my fridge instead!

I am hurt, people!!

Out of the box advice

Generous people are sensitive and take time to understand you. Now it’s your turn to try and understand them… because pushing the Generous spirited person causes what I label as the RED BUTTON of Defense. If you continue playing with their kindness and taking  the whole loaf of bread when a sandwich was offered, that’s when the GP begins to build The Wall and you start to wonder at the ‘sudden hostility’ pouring out of this previously generous person.

Short sentences,

Avoiding you,

A lack of smiles,

Don’t ask ‘Did I do something?’

Dumb Q!!

OF COURSE YOU DID!!

Crack….!

So now we have a couple that’s disagreed on the home front about their differing views and levels of generosity..

And in the crack created by that snap, out seeps a gooey mess of un-generosity.

We stop handing out smiles like delicate gorgeous flowers but hold our mouths pursed and ugly, we don’t look for time to be with people, we refuse to return calls, because when they call it’s to ask, ask, ask, ask, ask and never to give, even if it’s just a simple ‘they just called to say Hello! I mean, how many calls have I simply let R-I-N-G!!!! because I know it’s an ‘AKS’ call?

Truly, our generosity can be so broken within us that often we end up creating an unwelcome spirit to those closest to us  - workmates, friends, Pastors and those at home - guarding our tongues and smiles and hugs for fear of rejection or more hurt.

• That’s when we may scream mindlessly at our kids for coming home dirty and smelly and snarl at them for each and every misdemeanor.

• That’s when we won’t welcome our wife home and simply sit, not getting up from the sofa but blindly staring at the TV with a bored ‘oh-you’re home’ grimace and increase the volume of whatever we’re watching when she tries to talk to us.

• That’s when we women will growl in Church and ask the poor young thing very rudely – what you doing sitting there? THIS is my CHAIR!

• That’s when we as 18+ & over 20’s snap-back at our Parents for no good reason.

• That’s when I give everyone a cold up and down haughty dismissal look as I walk past them…

• That’s when we growl at the check-in-counter in the Supermarket at (again) the poor young thing and ask her scathingly ‘what’s taking you so effing long to work that cashier machine, I don’t have all day to stand here!”…..

Woiyeeeee, Poor thing… she wonders what she did wrong. She didn’t. Our Generous person is simply hurting….

That’s when we behave like kindergarten children holding our GENEROSITY toys to ourselves and shouting ‘MINE! IT’S MINE!’ No you can’t PLAY with MINE!!

As you wander through the rest of this week, ask yourself a really simple question: Why have I become such an ungracious person, why have I built up all these walls?

And deeper yet, about that graceful gracious friend that’s close to you, ask yourself:

Why has SHE/HE built walls towards me? What may I have done? Remember: It’s impossible for a genuinely generous person to close up for too long. It’s in their DNA genetic make-up to BE a Giver.

They just won’t give to YOU if you hit their Red Button.

That sandwich up there? The one that the Generous Person is handing out to you? Often we forget to accept it with a smile and a simple thank you, instead demanding the whole loaf simply for the sake of it –not that we’re hungry but because we’re greedy and we think it’s our right. Let me tell you a secret: you haven’t earned it. Nope, you haven’t. So say Thank You and act like you mean it!

Learn to be sensitive and accept what you’re given graciously. Be generous back to the Givers in this life, we need them, they really do make the world go round while the rest of us groan and moan continually at what life throws at us. Pushing it and being insensitive to Givers will only result in you turning them into  miserable, hyper, stressed out porcupines that you don’t want to venture too close to.

© NYAKIO MUNYINYI for The XPENSIEVE REPORT, NOV 2012