What Happened In Regina?

You marry someone. You share a bed. A table. You know how many sugars they like in their tea. You learn to live with how they unroll the toilet paper like a child with Parkinson’s Disease. How they leave their clipped nails all over the sink. You love them through their copious drinking, their irresponsibilities, their lack of accountability, their bad money habits – the usual hit list. Of course, you aren’t Jesus’ first cousin yourself; you aren’t perfect, but you are in a marriage, and marriage’s other name is compromise. However, one day, seven years later, your gas runs empty, and you walk away from the ruins of that marriage, its resentments and bitterness having piled all the way up to your gills.

Broken, teary, soul-weary, you run off and run into a friend’s arms, and you two get a baby.

Of course, it’s not ideal. By Jove, it isn’t. This isn’t what the plan was, your friend mutters.

“Of course that didn’t work out, he wasn’t ready for anything serious. So that ended after a short while,” you tell me. Me being Biko, who’s having an overnight fruit salad at the balcony on Sunday. You just came back from church. You are in your bedroom, door closed because your son, now 10, is lurking about, and you don’t want him to hear mum’s sordid love tales. Ha-ha. At some point, he will budge into the room, and you will turn away from the camera and tell him, “I’m on the call, dear.” He will come and stand next to you and stare into the camera. Dark, handsome boy; full head of hair.

You will tell him, “that’s my friend, Biko.” He will say “Hi.” I will say, “Hi, I love your jumper.” When he closes the door behind him, you will say, “You can tell he is one of you.” I will chuckle because “one of you” here means he is Luo, which implies that we own him, and if things continue to go sideways in this hovel of a city, we can always show up at your door and tell you, “We hear there is one of us living here. We are here for him. Hand him over please, the bus to the village leaves in an hour.”

Anyway.

So you find yourself single. And it’s not bad. Not really. You have your son. Motherhood takes the time your job leaves you. And then there is school; because what is a single girl doing if she isn’t doing a Master’s degree? So, busy like a woodpecker, knobbing at life with a solid neck. But after a while, the chill of loneliness starts blowing under your door in a small whistle. And it creeps into your house. When you go to bed and are lying on your back in darkness, you feel it under your sheets, and it does things to your heart, to your body. It stirs a longing, which slowly rises to a boil. You crave someone, a man, to share details with about your day, your great consuming fears. Someone who will have an answer, or an ear, or both. Someone to touch your breasts and look at them like those men in the gold mines of Ikolomani look at specks of gold in their muddy hands.

“I have a friend who relocated to Canada. I mentioned to her that I was searching; if she knows someone nice and single, she can introduce me to him.”

Much to your delight, she responded, “Actually there is a guy here, divorced, children all grown up. A nice guy. I will ask him!”

Two days later, she comes back and says the man is keen to have an introduction. A day later, you are introduced.

He was 52, nine years older than you. You talk for a few weeks, then start a long-distance relationship.

Wait, wait, what did you like about him?

“He seemed like a transparent guy,” she says. “He didn’t have any reservations talking about his life, his past marriage, his failures there which were similar to my ex-husband’s, but he had turned a corner. He spoke about his drinking, which he had managed to stop. He was sober. His life seemed more organised. Against my ex-husband, he was ticking all the right boxes. I liked that he was clear that he wanted to settle down again, get married, build a life with someone.”

And what did you want?

“A father figure for my son. Someone who would build a life with us, a family. And we were on the same level. We soon started making plans for the future, to marry and relocate to Canada. He told me of great job opportunities there, especially if I came with my Master’s degree. Great schools for my son too. A good life, you know? He was very encouraging. Very positive. I felt like it was a jackpot coming my way. I felt lucky because I had been very unlucky with love in Kenya. I don’t know if it’s important to say, but he is Maasai.”

Oh yeah? With the whole loopy ear-lobe thing?

You laugh. “No, Biko.”

How boring. Can I ask you a very intrusive question?

“Sure.”

Is it true that when Maasai men circumcise, they leave a strand of skin hanging from under their glans? This thing that does magic tricks.

You roar with laughter. “Who told you that?”

I heard…in the bar.

“Well, he didn’t have that!”

So, no dangly earlobes and no hanging skin. This is going well. Is he from Olotokitok, at least?

“No, Kiserian. He’s not your typical Maasai man.”

What’s the point? I mutter under my breath, if you are going to be Maasai, be a Maasai.

You do the whole online dating thing for ten months, now engaged to be married and seriously talking about life after. In January of 2022, he flies down to put a ring on it. His flight touches down at 11:30 pm. You stand outside the arrivals, holding your breath with all the butterflies in Nairobi in your stomach. You are holding a single stem rose. Throngs of people spill out and run into hugs or taxis. You wonder what he will look like in person. You realise you have never seen his legs before, just his torso. You don’t know exactly how tall he is, if his belly is bigger in person. Your hands shake a bit. Your rose trembles.

Then, there he is. Your fiancé. You hand him the rose and hug. He grins boyishly and stares at the rose. A Maasai man holding a rose. No bolt of lightning smites him. The world doesn’t end. He’s chatty. He’s also nervous. He pushes the trolley, looking around, saying how things have changed, how good it feels to be back. The sky is dark, but your heart is shining bright with love.

“I didn’t feel it right for him to come into my house with my son on the first day,” you say. “And anyway, I think around that time my mother was also visiting. So we got to an Airbnb and settled in. I must have made him tea.”

You made him tea?! Sweet!

“I don’t recall, but yeah, it was too late to eat. So I made tea. We sleep. The next…”

Wait…wait…wait. You sleep? Did you not consummate that meeting?

“Biko! That’s private.”

Which part?

“Ha-ha. Well…no…we didn’t….”

Why not?

“I can’t really get into it…but you know…anyway, he said he was tired.”

Canada is far, I imagine.

“Yes. That wasn’t even an issue to me, to be honest. The first issue was when he didn’t refund me for the Airbnb I had booked. We had talked about this before he came. There was a deposit involved, but he never brought it up. I assumed he would take care of it. But I left it because he had many other bills he needed to take care of, including meeting the parents on both sides, the cost of the AG wedding, and all that.”

Your parents meet. Your siblings meet. Everybody meets everybody. You tie the knot at the AG’s office in Thika. You wear a solid cream dress with a flirtatious shoulder design, and he stands next to you in a three-piece suit and a red bowtie. Your son rocks a suit and a tie. Lunch later is at Taji Gardens. The reception is a very intimate and small affair of 70 people at Parklands Sports Club, and then off to a honeymoon at the coast for three days. You tell him, “This isn’t a honeymoon babe, we will need to do a proper one.”

He tells you,” I will take you to Mexico City, baby, you will love it”. “There were money cracks there during the wedding. I contributed some money, but I felt like he felt like I should have contributed more. But why should we go Dutch? He’s the man, he is marrying me. Couples should talk about money.”

He goes back to Canada and starts processing the papers. You settle into an online marriage. He suggests a great Catholic school for your son. Education is free. Healthcare is free. He is an engineer and lives in a home he’s paying a mortgage for. The forecast of your life looks promising. You will get a job, and you guys will settle into making a great life for yourselves, and your son. You will send money home, invest in property, grow wealth. This math is not bad, to be honest.

After five months, the papers are ready. Time to pack your life up. You sell some furniture and send some stuff – like your car – to your mom’s. Your son is excited. He has been telling the whole world that he’s off to Canada to start a new life with his new dad. You say goodbyes. You promise to write frequently. (No, this isn’t 1976, there is the internet). All your life fits in two suitcases.

“I’m excited and nervous because this is a new life I’m starting, with a new person, in a foreign country. I don’t know what awaits me. I know I’m ready for it because I sought it, but I feel like once I land in that country, I will have less control of my life.”

A layover in Amsterdam. Touchdown in Calgary. A little layover, then another flight that lands in Regina, Saskatchewan. You walk out with your son’s little hand in your hand. Dusk and cold have gathered to receive you. “Mama, will we see snow?” your son asks. You don’t see snow, but you see your husband waiting with two bouquets of flowers, one which he hands you and one for your son. He’s grinning widely, talking, asking about the flight, turning in his seat as he drives to look at your son and laugh at something he asked about Canada. You are a family again.

What was your initial impression of Canada?

“The house was smaller than it looked on video calls, and the walls were so thin that for a while I couldn’t bring myself to get intimate, certain that my son could hear us,” she says.

“Our bedroom door didn’t lock, and in those initial weeks, my son was always needy, so he would simply walk into our bedroom. Many times I woke up to find him standing over me, looking at me. That irritated my husband. He felt that my son was too needy, and we quarrelled about that. I told him he had forgotten how children behaved because his were all grown and gone. My son was 8, in a foreign country with the only person he knew, so obviously he was going to want to be around me for a sense of security.”

Canada never really grows on you.

“I have worked outside the country before, done a bit of travelling, but Canada never really felt like…home. But I said, come on, give it time.”

Your son goes to school and settles in fast; he enjoys it and makes new friends quickly. You, on the other hand, really struggle to settle in. Your home doesn’t feel like one, with the thin walls, and tenants that live in the basement. Life doesn’t pan out as you had predicated on paper.

When you tell your husband that you have some responsibilities back home – chama loans, sacco loans, etc. he says, “We can’t talk about money until you get a job.” That takes you back. Thankfully, you have some money from your pension, so you send some home to take care of those loans as you apply for jobs. You make numerous applications, but nobody responds, not even a regret. After a few months, you start panicking. You have a Master’s degree; what’s going on?

“Maybe you should try in another field, homecare”, your husband suggests.

So you do, and after a few applications, you get a job in a private home for the elderly. Your job is to feed them, clean up after them, and give them medicine. Three days a week when your husband isn’t working because someone has to look after your son. All factors being what they are, you realise that you have a money problem when he sits you down one night, and breaks down how bills work. In short, you are living on credit. No matter how hard you two work – and you can only work so hard because you can’t work any more hours because you have a son to watch over, and a nanny costs an arm and a leg – you can’t break even.

You are a hamster on a wheel. You take three buses to work, leave early to come and be with your son at home when he’s home from school. You aren’t making much, maybe 1200 dollars a month to take care of some household obligations to ease the pressure on him, but it’s not enough. You are borrowing from Paul, and running away from Sarah. The circle of credit is relentless. So one day, a particularly harsh winter, you sit him down after your son has gone to bed and tell him, ‘Look, it seems that whatever money I earn and give you isn’t going to be enough to pay off your debts. I can’t work more because we can’t afford a nanny. You can’t work any more than you already are. What is the way forward?”

He dismisses it, says it’s not easy in Canada for most people, and that things will settle down.

Things don’t settle down. At some point I ask myself the ugly question: “If I can’t make money and better my life in Canada, then what am I doing here?”

You have a conversation with your husband, a difficult one, and it doesn’t go down well because you get angry, and at some point, you tell him, “I feel like you brought me here to help you pay off your bills; I’m not that someone.”

You say that this was not what you expected of your lives here.

“How are we going to retire back in Kenya if we are barely making enough to save? Maybe I should go back home and try to make it work there?” And he looks at you and says, “Yeah, maybe you should try that.”

So after a month or so, you pack another two suitcases, hold your son’s hand, and off you go.

Calgary International Airport.

Amsterdam Airport, Schiphol.

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

You land at JKIA in May 2024 after a tremendously difficult financial and domestic year in Canada. You then embark on rebuilding your life. Looking for a house. Making calls, shaking trees for jobs. Calling old contacts.

“Oh, I thought you left for Canada?”

“I did.”

“Uhm, are you back for holiday?”

“No, I’m back.”

“Oh.”

That kind of thing. You are happy to be back. You don’t mind the long-distance marriage. You will work here and make the retirement dream work for both of you. But then in December, while on a video call, your husband says, “Look, just a heads up, I have filed for a divorce.”

It’s May now. When you look back at the prospects, at what seemed like greener pastures, at the three-year marriage, it felt like a dream that happened and ended very fast.

**

What’s the hardest thing that happened to you last year? Ping me: [email protected]