Believe me when I say that as a fellow Mzee, I am sick and tired of in-laws who, after being invited abroad by their children, decide that they will never go back to Kenya. Despite the fact that they have other seven or ten children back home, they choose to come and live forever with their children!
How is that even fair?
Look, when I was growing up, fathers could not even go inside their daughter’s houses. A stool would be brought outside and a cup of uji served with nduma or ngwaci. After the old man finds that his daughter and his grandchildren are doing fine, off he would board the next Msamalia Mwema and head off from whence he came from.
But wazee wa siku hizi hawana hata aibu bwana! How do you live in your daughter’s house for months or years on end? How does it feel to know that your own daughter is being nyanduliwad the next room by her husband? It is loathsome. It is unAfrican! Go back home and take care of your goats and cows.
I have no problem with those that visit due to illness or for a graduation, a wedding, different functions. But for crying out loud, as soon as you are done enjoying the sight of the land, pack up and go back home. Please!
There are those wazees that are not too old. Maybe 50s or 60s. They can get papers filed by their children and get gainful employment. After your first paycheck, please start looking for a bed sitter and haul your behind there. Let your children build their families without undue interference from your nosy behaviors.
We know what you tell your daughters, oh! He is calling his mother too many times in Kenya. Oh! He is sending too much money to his brother in Kenya! Enda utawale nyumba yako Kenya niache na bibi yangu.
Kama umesikia vibaya kwa huu ujumbe, tafadhali rudi Kenya wewe mzee. Ama utoke kwa mtoto wako ukatafute apartment uishi kivyako. Nuuyu!
By Mzee Moja | mzeemoja14@gmail.com
