Ngahika Ndeenda

I knew all my friends would get married before me, except one, but she recently told me she thinks she might have met –the one- so anytime I should be hearing wedding bells, and out of the crowd, I’ll be the last woman standing.

My other friend is getting married in November, and I feel terrible that I might not attend the wedding. See, we talked about it long and wide,, I was going to be a maid, and we would not wear all those fake silk lilac dresses, we would go full kitenge all the way to the evening party. I imagined taking pictures in her wedding, maybe packing her bags for the honey moon. I couldn’t sleep when she sent the text, I thought in all directions; should I get a job, do the Nigerian connection, marry some rich dude quick so that he can buy me a flight to attend the wedding. , then I thought maybe I should do a refresher course for my sewing skills and design and stitch her wedding gown, send it as a surprise. Then I thought maybe I should just keep saving(yeah yeah) and maybe by November I might be able to send her a cheque for her cake if not a one night stay at a hotel for the honey moon, then I narrowed it down to knock off earings at Petaling street.

It’s funny, So far, my age mates have kids in upper primary, most of them are married, but I keep running if I could call it that, telling myself I still can’t cook chapatti and Iron shirt corners so, why even look at a guy. Today, my other friend really entertained me. She has met – the one-

‘Man! You should meet him. When I met him, I tell you Cecilia, I bowed.’

‘And when he passed by and checked me out I tell you Cecilia, he bowed, believe me’

Ok, I was laughing too much before I got her point. So she explained. The guy stands out in a crowd, he is respectable, he knows how to dress properly, and he carries himself around like he owns the place.’ I tell you Cecilia, if you don’t respect the guy you marry, that’s trouble and if you don’t click’{showing me , if you don’t click right away…aa ..there’s nothing there}

Lew; yet another friend, his last single friend married last December, and two of his close friends are raising 3 month olds. He told me the other day he’s going out of his mind, and I joked maybe we should just marry each other, since our crowd paired out and we are the two left standing, though it would be like marrying a cousin.

So I’ve been thinking that maybe I should bring my age limit down a bit, from the number that the bowing friend says- ati what age Cecilia, who’ll look at you ?’

But I was thinking about it seriously again my friend-told me the other day-You know, you loose 5000 brain cells each day when you reach twenty. And I thought,well, multiply that by 12 years and see, when I 'm 32, there will be no point in marrying another fool.

(not sure how many thousands,All numbers sound the same to me so, she might have meant 10,000 or a hundred)

(the title is adopted from Ngugi wa Thiongo's title- in Kikuyu and English- I will marry when I want-)