Saroney

I met him in a matatu.
When I really didn't feel like talking to anyone. My goal was to get home and sleep through the night, if I could.

 Then he sits next to me in the most uncomfortable seat in the matatu. The middle seat behind the shotgun riders. And I could tell it was a bad idea for him. He was at least 6 feet tall. But I said nothing.

Then he started telling me stories when we started moving. And I became so interested, I made him get off the matatu earlier than he should have. Just so we could plan for a proper interview.

So I met up with him, at the Node. And learned more about the private, intense, boot wearing Maasai.

Saroney was born and raised by the most amazing parents. If he had a choice, he wanted a marriage exactly like that. Transparent, romantic and full of passion even after decades spent together. When he met the girl his heart was looking for, he treated her like a queen and she reciprocated every thing his helpessly romantic side did.

They dated for three years till he asked her to get married. A beach wedding and a Malindi honeymoon later, he realized, she had secrets. The type she planned on keeping for a long time.

A year into his marriage he met the love of his life, a baby girl. By then all his ideals of a perfect marriage had crashed and burned. His wife didn't trust him even one bit. She said she wouldn't trust any man.

She was crazy possessive and jealous, despite him never giving her reason to be. A woman would just breathe the same air as Saroney, and she would blow up.

About 3 years into their wedding, he found out she had separate bank accounts. Taking cash from their current farming business and what not. Even after he made her signatory of all his accounts.

Not just that. Everything got significantly worse. She would go days without speaking one word to him. Her longest record being 9 days. Anything he asked her was met with silence or cryptic answers. When he got home and his daughter wanted to run to him she would hold her back and force her to sit back down.

On his trip abroad that year, he broke down and cried to a pastor about his wife and he gave Saroney two pieces of advice.
"Never fight with your wife. She. Will. Always.Win.

And don't give her anything that she can Lorde over you. She'll use it as a weapon or punishing tool when she's angry. If she hasn't cooked, make yourself something to eat and move on. And  sex is not food, you can live without it."

He went back home and vowed to live by those two rules. He also went 14 months without even a kiss from his wife.

At thirty five, Saroney retired to have time to home school his daughter throughout primary school. Then unretired to build the life he wanted for him and his family.

Ten years into his marriage, Saroney discovered his wife's biggest secret to date. The thing that made him understand a bit of why she was the way she was.

His wife (let's call her Michelle) was thoroughly abused by her step mother. She would go days without being given anything to eat, and Michelle had to go and beg for food at the nearby shop. The shop keeper used to give her bread and soda and on one of these occasions he threw Michelle on the ground and raped her.

"Because of her step mother" he tells me "she grew a tough skin and such a strong defense system that noone can get through to her."

As Saroney tells me his story, he has no idea of how much I'm taking in. From the fly that decided to keep us company as the story unfolds, to his big hands that resemble a manual labourer's hands. His voice that softens as he tells the story. As if he's not sure if he's authorised to tell it to me. He's one of a few men I've met that can multitask. Eating and thinking and telling me a story. While I nurse a cup of coffee and listen.

I wonder what went through his mind when he first heard her story. I wonder if he tried to hug Michelle in comfort. I wonder if she cried as she told him and I wonder why she took 10 years. Well, 13 if you count all the years she's known him. I wonder if she ever gets tired of putting up defences 24/7.

Now they're 18 years into a really unhappy marriage and I ask him why he stays.

"First of all I don't believe in divorce, and noone in my family has ever been divorced. We'll, apart from my sister. That was a special case and my parents helped her because the guy used to beat her.

Mostly though, I stay because of my daughter. I'll wait for her to finish school then see what to do. Because I don't want an incidence where I remarry and my baby gets mistreated"

I can see how his eyes light up when he talks about his daughter. Like her happiness will make all his sadness disappear. He constantly brags about her every now and  and then. Her achievements and all. I feel like I already know her.

" My wife is a warrior, with warrior blood" he tells me. " And I can honestly say she has made me a better person. I can live with almost anyone now" he laughs.

I suppose that's the upside to this.

" I believe, that everything God does, everything he allows, ultimately, is for our good." He continues and i think about that statement the rest of the day.

We end our interview soon after. Although I suspect, if I didn't have somewhere to go, we would go on sipping coffee and sharing stories for a long time.





Photo by Mugoya Mokua.