A man’s house should be his sanctuary.
How far is the president with his affordable housing programme?
A friend of mine, who is totally real and not made up just for this article, reached out recently. We have not talked in years, mostly because we deal in Nairobi aphorisms: Nitakupigia. Tutaftane. And Usipotee hivyo, then proceeds to potea hivyo. Anyway, on that other side of the line was an over-educated voice, smoky, slightly terse—the full-toned voice of a man at the apogee of youth, self-assured, mellifluous. He tells me he reads ManTalk and he thinks I am best placed to give him some, well, erm, man talk. I don’t know how he knows my love language is words of affirmation but he has my attention. I, for one, think a lot of advice is hogwash; wrapped in irony, especially if you get yours from Twitter aka X. What it lacks in range, it makes up for in rage. He insists. I desist. We have a Mexican standoff.
Eventually, he talks me down, promises to make it worth my while, even says his sister is a big fan. Now he really has my attention. I am a big fan of his sister too, for selfish reasons, but I don’t tell him that. Bro, he says, I need a BDU.
A BDU, in the male lexicon multiverse, is a body disposal unit. Their main job is to get rid of vermin and clear all evidence of said vermin, by any [legal] means necessary. He goes on and on about this woman who he picked (or was picked by) in a club along one of Kibaki’s roads.
“Thika Rd?” I ask.
“Thika Rd,” he says.
“Nothing good comes out of Thika Rd,” I say. “Let me guess, she is a Gen Z, 22 or 23? Too young to remember Hulk Hogan?”
“Yes…”
“And she lives in Roysambu...”
“That’s the thing,” he says. “This chic doesn’t seem to have a place of her own. It’s been two weeks; she hasn’t said she is going home. Kiko tu.”
Baas. There we have it. State capture.
This is not a new phenomenon but a common occurrence. I tell him he has been hit with the effects of the president’s failed promises, a crumbling economy, liberal sexuality, and (un)affordable housing. The hustler has been hustled. In the past, in my heydays, you would pick a woman in the club, take her home, or she takes you home, you do your business and by 6am the next day she’d leave how she came—like a thief in the night.
For the men who are still free range, it is a catastrophe to pick up a lady in a club. They are not looking for a one-night stand, they are homeless. They are hobosexuals. They will sleep with you tonight. And tomorrow night. And the day after—they will sleep with you every day for as long as you don’t chase them out of the house. Hobosexual (noun): a person who has sex with strangers to prevent homelessness. They’re also called romantic hobos, love train riders, and nitaenda kesho. The ethic of the hobosexual is that they are good in bed. And by “good in bed” I don’t mean sleeping.
The female hobosexual is the worst kind of hobosexual. She melts and becomes one with your house. I have always maintained that a man’s house should be his sanctuary, that people carry spirits looking for a place to inhabit. A house has a physical definition; a home has a spiritual one. A house you can easily describe. It is made of wood, or concrete or precast. A home is more ethereal—for that sort of feeling is an external metaphor for something that should be internal, a tranquillity so that you can concentrate on this other business, living, breathing, paying taxes.
I don’t think men take their spaces as sacrosanct anymore. When I was growing up in Kakamega, I couldn’t wait for the day I would get circumcised, become a “man”—that process of shedding blood an outward sign of an inward change. I especially looked forward to moving from the main house to my own isimba, a place I could call my own, where someone had to knock and I reserved the right to open the door, just like our ancestors taught us.
Isn’t it the same ancestors who said a spider’s cobweb isn’t only its sleeping spring but also its food trap? In this isimba, only Nekesa, my village weakness, would be allowed to visit. I was serious about her you know, but I came to Nairobi and kumbe the beautiful ones have already been born? Nekesa, nitakupigia.
The point I am making is that a home is an intimate endeavour, and one should not invite every Njeri, Naliaka and Ndinda to be on familiar terms with intimacy. Research done by me has come to a damning conclusion. A vast constituency of women are not looking for a relationship but a roof to live under. Well, sometimes the relationship comes with the roof to live under but this is not always guaranteed, not in this country anyway.
Does the president know Kenyans have been providing affordable housing to other Kenyans, charging a premium of volatile sex? If not, can one of his handlers get the president to call me so I can report everyone who is sabotaging his manifesto? It shouldn’t be too hard—to get the president to call me, but also to sabotage his manifesto. My number is out there. Prezo, nipigie.
I too have been a victim of a hobosexual but I cannot tell you that story because there is a girl I like and she thinks my only character flaw is that I didn’t meet her earlier in life. Cute. While I do sympathise with the desire for men to have one-night stands and take people home, I insist that your home is your sanctuary, and your bed the holy of holies. I’ll tell you what I told my friend, a hobosexual is like a bedbug (bedbud?) once they move in, there is no way to exterminate them.
She won’t just Lean In, she won’t Walk Out. The only way out is a kamikaze mission—leave your house to them and fall off the face of the earth or go start a new life as a keeper of sheep (sheepkeeper?) in Uzbekistan. This is the way. This is the only way. Na usinipigie tena.
