From: HELLON OGALLO

This interesting and true. What could be the reason for this double character? Is it the instinct to preserve the family unit?

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Lion in the office, lamb in the kitchen

Published on

By Edwin Makiche

During my days in high school, we had a no-nonsense principal we had nicknamed ‘Amin’, partly for his heavy-handed running of the school and because he bore some resemblance to the former Ugandan dictator. When he spoke during assembly, you sensed that he would kill somebody if given half a chance. News of his approach sent chills down the spines of staff members and students alike. It was whispered that he was an ex-air force officer who had switched careers after the abortive coup of 1982. Apparently he had brought all his military skills to bear on school administration. He was a man of few words but plenty of action — and reaction. To him, anything short of tidiness and punctuality was a crime. He had turned the school into something similar to a military camp. Amin was known to employ military combat skills on students and his victims would remain in sickbay for the better part of the week. He preferred using his fists to the cane. Word was however rife that Amin the family man was a totally different kettle of fish. He was a softly-softly man who wouldn’t hurt a fly. A boy who hailed from his village said that neighbours feared his illiterate wife more. It was whispered that she sometimes locked him out if he came home late.

Kick the door open

We however dismissed this as mere propaganda. How could Amin, of all the men, allow a woman to torment him? It was unimaginable to think of him standing sheepishly on the doorstep pleading with the wife when he could simply kick the door open. But we confirmed the rumour when the principal fell ill and some of us were picked to accompany teachers to deliver a get-well message to his home. We expected the man to boss his wife around and order for things to be done, but this was not to be. Apparently, in his home someone else dictated the rules and that was his wife. We were surprised to discover that Amin had no control over her. Everything he said was either ignored or dismissed. When he suggested, for example, that she makes tea for us, the wife ignored it until the man went to ask the house help to do it. The wife also operated independently, at her own pace and at times interrupted our discussion with Amin with irrelevant matters. But perhaps the most interesting part was when she restrained him from seeing us to the gate and the man docilely complied.”Hey, where do you think you are taking him? He is not yet back on his feet and you still want to use him? Finish whatever it is here and then you can go wherever you’re going,” she ordered. Amin had no choice but to bid us goodbye in his sitting room. Though nothing about him had changed, from that incident we knew that Amin was after all a vulnerable man of flesh and blood.

Social life

The tough-as-nails principal is no exception. Apparently for many outspoken and tough-looking men, someone else runs the show in their private lives and it matters nought whether or not she matches his qualifications. The tough talk dies at the doorstep as ‘the boss of the home’ takes over. Jonah’s boss was a bureaucrat who went by the book. He seemed detached from social life and unlike other men, rarely discussed issues about women. To his juniors, his married life was a mystery and they wondered how such an aloof person could cope with a woman.”He seemed not to have human blood running through his veins and we often wondered how he would treat a woman,’’ Jonah says. Then one day the boss’ wife stormed their offices demanding to see him. She wanted answers on where he had spent the previous night.

Business trip

Jonah says the boss was so shaken that he almost wet his pants. And it was not out of shame but fear of the woman. The man ordered his secretary to lock him inside his office and tell the woman that he was out, but the woman would not budge. She insisted on seeing the inside of his office. Nobody knows how matters would have ended had some women in the organisation not convinced her that the man was out on a business trip. Another person with a similar story is Jemu, a secretary at a government ministry. She scoffs at men who pretend to be tough when in office and yet are putty in the hands of their wives. She is particularly critical of her male boss who, she says, sometimes uses her like a machine. The man loves dictating rules and giving tight deadlines. She challenges him to do the same to his wife whom, she says, he has no control over. According to her, there isn’t a worse moment in her boss’ day than when his wife calls. The woman always seems to be complaining and the man will be seen walking around his office trying to cool her down. She says on these occasions, the man uses the sweetest words and one cannot believe that it is the same boss she knows. She recalls an incident when the woman paid her husband a surprise visit and the man jumped out of the window and hid in the sentry box.”Just tell my boss that the woman is coming and he will wet his pants,’’ she says with a laugh. But is it only wives who floor these larger-than-life characters? Juliet, a sociology lecturer, says that the easiest way to get into a tough man’s heart is through a woman. It doesn’t matter whether it is mama watoto, a mistress, a teenage lover or someone he meets on the street. She brags that it is a woman who holds the key to a man’s heart.

She cites the example of accomplished men who are rendered desperate by teenagers who say no to their advances. The otherwise tough man will do anything in the name of love including buying flowers and gifts.

Terror to students

“Men are just vulnerable creatures, it matters little whether they are accomplished or not. Once the woman discovers his weak point, then she becomes the pilot,’’ she says. This rings a bell in Mwende’s mind. As a student at a university campus in Eldoret, she remembers a professor who had fallen for her and she virtually controlled him. Though the man had several degrees under his belt and was a terror to students and colleagues alike, behind the scenes he worshipped her. She had access to his office any time she liked, borrowed his car, used his money with abandon and when she wasn’t in the learning mood or was out of campus, she would just call him and he would cancel a lecture. When her male classmates learnt of this, they stopped nagging her lest she reported them and this spelt doom at the end of semester examinations.”I operated him like a puppet. Any time I wanted something, I got it,’’ she says

Nina knows of an influential politician who, despite being a charismatic public speaker who sends jitters among his opponents, will never face his wife unless he has taken several bottles of beer. She says that his wife is a holy terror and when it comes to matters concerning the family, her decision is final. Sometimes the woman confronts him demanding answers on his spending habits and the man would plead like a child. But what could be funnier than a stone-faced colleague who sheds real tears when his harmless girlfriend threatens him? That exactly describes a campus friend called Victor. He had a village girlfriend called Doro who operated his moods through remote control. Though he was a gigantic athlete who caused tough men to tremble, Doro had the power to turn him into a jelly. And when she called, he acted like a freak. Even if he had little money, he would rather starve than fail to load airtime for calling his prized girlfriend. And when he called her, sweet words such as ‘I am sorry, darling’, ‘I swear to God’, ‘Please don’t be mad girl…’ left his moth him even when he had committed no offence.

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