• To poor people, sex is a form of entertainment undertaken as often as possible
I don’t know about you but the sun in Jiji Ndogo seems to have brought all its relatives with it. And we’re not talking nuclear family (although it does feel like a nuclear bomb exploded at Jiji Kubwa and we’re taking the heat), I mean the sun’s great grandmamas and papas have camped above us.
The insult to injury is the tough times that just keep on going. When we’re called to an embarrassing incident down at the river, I recall something I heard a long time ago. It was an attempted explanation for why people of lesser means seem to have more children than their monied neighbours.
“To rich people,” the man had argued, “sex is a marriage obligation, like paying rent. To poor people, sex is a form of entertainment undertaken as often as possible.”
Without vouching for that guy, I think the number of births in Jiji Ndogo in the past one year is one point in his favour. This incident at the river is another. When Sgt Sophia and I get there, we find a sizeable crowd gathered.
“Make way for the law,” Sophia says, parting a path through the throng. “Haven’t you had your eyes’ fill for the day?”
“It’s like a train accident,” says one man. “You know it’s a disaster but you can’t look away.”
“I feel the same way looking at you.”
If the man gets the dig from my partner, it doesn’t show.
We get to the river bank to find a man and a woman hugging neck-deep in the water. I know the couple; two good, married, productive denizens of Jiji Ndogo. The first problem is, they’re not married to each other.
I move as close to the edge of the river as possible. “Mr Kibiro, how’re you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” A mix of dread and embarrassment in his eyes. “I just want out of here.”
“We’re working on it. Mind telling me how you came to be where you are?”
“Well, apart from being caught with our pants down, literally, someone came along and nicked those pants.”
“Someone stole your clothes?”
“But that didn’t stop them,” a woman says from behind me. I turn to see it’s Mrs Kibiro. “Look at them. They continued doing it in the river.”
“It’s not like that,” Kibiro pleads.
“It’s not?” His wife looks good enough to blow a fuse. “Then why are you stuck together, huh? You’ll know God doesn’t eat githeri.”
“Can you move?” I ask.
Kibiro shakes his head. “We’re stuck tight.”
I elicit the muscles of three young men to assist me in the water, but all our efforts come to nothing. We can’t get the two illicit lovers to barge.
“Ask your wife for forgiveness,” pleads a concerned citizen. “She’s the one who bewitched you. You won’t come unstuck until you do.”
“Are you responsible for this?” I ask Mrs Kibiro.
Sophia is having none of it. “Why are you entertaining that nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense. These things happen all over the country. If it’s true, they might have to be surgically separated if he doesn’t do good by her.”
“Hogwash. Penis captivus is a medical condition, nothing at all to do with witchcraft.”
“What does she know?” says the concerned citizen. “She’s not even from around here. These newcomers think they know everything.”
To the further embarrassment of the lovers, we decide to send the most experienced diver into the water to investigate. He’s submerged for nearly three minutes. When he comes out, the woman is free.
“What was the problem?” I ask.
“They got stuck in the mud.”