Women and whatever suits them

Women have had this thing of relaying the wrong information since Adam's time, and they never learn. They belittle big things, give wrong messages and in most cases, they never reflect on their wrongs, business as usual. Men often get into trouble because of women right from the beginning of the earth. The story of creation and the first woman, Eve tells it. I have to admit I read this many times before getting it, and a man of God put me in the right direction, and then I saw it, and then I repented.

'And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV). These were the istructions given to Adam by Lord God before He made Eve. Note that in Gen 1, the bible refers to 'God', but in Gen 2 that changes to 'Lord God'. This indicates that He was the Almighty God, God of Adam. Adam was expected to acknowledge His Lordship.

'"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." (Genesis 3:1-3 NIV). Satan did not submit to God, therefore Lord God was only God to him. Eve went on to ignore the Lordship of God and just refered to God.

The bible refers to 'The Lord God said', but Eve just said 'God said'. The Lord God's instructions were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yet to Eve it was the tree in the middle of the garden. Considerng that Eve had not been created when the Lord God gave Adam the instructions, was it Adam's fault. Did Adam give her the wrong instructions to just simplify things, or did she just want to simplify the instructions to understand more. I can visualise Adam pointing at the tree and saying that they must not eat from 'that tree', and Eve asking, 'which tree exactly', and Adam wanting to make it easy for Eve to understand saying 'that tree, no, not that one, the other one, the one in the middle'.

"Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves". (Genesis 3:7 NIV), and in Gen 3:21 NIV we see that "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." Man looks for temporary solutions for his problems, but regardless of how much you have wronged our God, He will have a permanent solution. He always knows what is best for man.

And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." (Genesis 3:22 NIV) So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground. (Genesis 3:23 NIV). This tells me that it was not our God's intention for man to die. He wanted to protect man from knowing the difference between good and evil. Man was His child, but man disobeyed.

Alone and lonely

So I lie here in the dark, alone. This bed should be a playground. I'm idle, I need to play. I try chess, I'm the queen. The pawns are too slow, the bishops too holy. I need a king to protect.

I think of scrabble. A successful scrabble game in the dark can only be about building and demolishing my own projects in space, even before they fruit. It is fun to some degree, and very exhausting.

I don't mind being alone, but, I sure hate being lonely.
The cure, my beau. Please hurry up.

This is 2012

Time: 18:00
Year: 2012
Month: May
Place: Rome

My husband and I are visiting his brother. This is a day after my brother in law's graduation and he has offered to take his mum and her 70 something year old sister siteseeing. My husband and I are left behind to prepare dinner for a few guests coming tonight.

We have cooked, baked, roasted and whatever else people do when they are entertaining. I am so tired, and suddenly remember I have not eaten all day despite all the cooking. I put a little food on a plate before we all sit down. I lean against the kitchen counter and my husband offers to wash the dishes and check on the roasting while I eat or while we wait for the others. Suddenly we are chatting and laughing. Still leaning and holding my plate, and my husband washing dishes, we notice his aunt standing at the door. Not sure how long she's been there, but long enough to see me eating, talking, laughing and my hubby washing, laughing and kissing me.

She raises her voice, calling her younger sister, asking what's wrong with him (her nephew). How can he be washing dishes and cooking and whatever else while his wife is just there watching, eating and maybe waiting to give him the plate to wash?

What is the best response except 'This is 2012?'

Surnames

Every country has its set of common names. If you take a Kenyan telephone directory (do they still exist), there’s bound to be hundreds of Kamaus, Njoroges, Otienos, Mutuas etc. Some of them have
the same first names too. Kamau Peter, or Otieno Peter could appear like almost a hundred times and you may not identify them. You are likely to find the same thing with the Papathopoulos of Greece, Martins, Campbells, Smiths and Jones of UK, USA and maybe Australia, but these ones are easier to locate with post codes.

But talking of Kenya, the Kamaus and Njoroges have this naming ritual pattern where children are named after their grandparents, aunties and uncles, making them one of the few people who change surnames. A husband will have a different surname with his wife and children. If say, my name is Wambui, and I married Kamau Njoroge, my name will be Wambui Kamau. My children will not be Njoroges, but Kamaus. My first born son will be Njoroge Kamau, and his wife and children will bear the surname Njoroge. This will carry on for every one of the children, meaning that if my father’s name is Mwangi Kihara, my second son will be Mwangi Kamau, but his wife and children will bear Mwangi as their surname. My third son will be named after my husband’s eldest brother, or if my husband is the eldest, the immediate junior brother (or who should have been named). If his name is Maina, his wife and children’s surname will be Maina. You've guessed right, my fourth son will be Kihara Kamau.

The girls will bear set middle names. If my husband's mother's name is Wangui, my first daughter will be Wangui Kamau, and her second daughter will be.........yes, Wambui.

We, the Kikuyus do not fish for names, names find us or found us. We already know what our children's names long before they are born. I knew my second born girl's/boy’s names when I was a little girl.

Gikuyus do not retain surnames, and it saddens me that when Gikuyu women get married to their fellow Gikuyu men in the western world, the authorities kinda force them to adopt their father-in-law’s surnames to prove they are married to their husbands. Their first born sons end up losing their surnames, and some loose identities.

Get the drift?

When the other woman becomes the other woman

Most of my life I have always hated Camilla. Yes the 'future queen'.

I always looked at her as the other woman, the woman who wrecked Diana's marriage, the mistress. She had nothing Diana had, beauty, charisma, the list is long. But didn't she meet Charles before Diana? Didn't Charles say he was in love with her long before and after Diana? Hadn't she at some point also looked at Diana as the other woman?

Imagine for one second that Charles and Camilla had gotten a child before he met Diana. Imagine also that Camilla and Diana were good friends, close friends and that Camilla introduced Diana to Charles as a friend, and that Diana, being the woman she was, used her feminine charms to get Charles, then slept with him coz she felt that Camilla didn't deserve him. Imagine too, Camilla kicked Charles out and that Charles went to live with Diana, not married, but cohabited for almost 10 years. Then Charles decided that Diana was not the woman, that Camilla was, just like he decided in real life when he accepted publicly that Camilla was the love of his life and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And imagine that Camilla accepted Charles back into her life, just like she did only that it took Charles more than 7 years to win Camilla back, and imagine that Charles and Camilla got married in the end, just like they did, except in this case, there was no Parker Bowles, and lastly, imagine that Diana lived to see Charles and Camilla's wedding.

I so much feel like Camilla right now, and although I was so bitter with the Diana who did all the above and my Charles for lowering his standards coz my Diana was not pretty and had no charisma, right now she also thinks of me as the other woman.