There’s no agony like bearing the agony of untold story Maya Angelou.
She continued, as the struggle to find yourself in the midst of these practices continues, You find you will be needing a man full time because here in our culture there are some particles of Do’s and Don’ts without a man in your house you can’t do.
Here we continue the traditional way of building a new house leaving the dead his house. These materials nobody gives you even your child, the wife doesn’t allow her husband to help you build this house.
“utangangana peke yako mpaka useme noo”. (I tried getting the meaning but like she wrote; it’s complicated)
You can sometimes get a man who wants to stay with you, at long last he will not agree to help you change the house, as you remain there hanging with him yet hunting for another man to help you do this because the in-laws eyes are on you even while you’re sleeping. If you don’t change the house, you are chased out of that clan claiming you want the children of their son to die.
As the culture say you must not have a man in your house with your children whatever their age. It is a threat given to widows or their children will died. You have to find not just a man that will stay with you but will build another apartment you can both stay in your compound. Imagine this, often because it was you who went to look for him they treat you as they like and 88 percent of them behave the same.
Also when your son builts the first house, when he brings a wife home, when he goes to pay dowry, when your daughter is to get married, for any visitor to come for such occasions for your children and the rest, you must have a man in your house. All these happen to us
When your husband dies leaving you in their home. There comes a time you are to build your home, the man found (living in) will run away from you after hearing you want to build a home. ‘Man’ you start a fresh begging for women’s husbands to help you build your house, here you use your own money until you stand a home.
All of these I under went when I entered my widowhood. And all these make our ●society poor, ●poor health, ●lack of education, ●a lot of school dropouts, ●lot of early marrieges, ●lots of abortions, ●a lot of elicit brewers.
Young widows go through a lot of difficult activities to earn their living while their children compete with their mothers.
I am not ashamed of saying that all these silly acts has made our society full of ●infections as we pass it one to the other.
Yes, I say a big no to some of our widows who think that drug abuse is the way to relieve all these stresses, yet all of these I personally have undergone EXCEPT brewing, selling and drinking alcohol.
Despite all these challenges, I used to ask God to help me move on. To me it is only me and my God who know what I have gone through in my journey widowhood.
My advice to women is that when their husbands are still alive, let them talk about their wealths especially land issues. Their husbands should divide their lands according to the beneficiaries especially the communal one.
I lost my husband’s properties, I am a victim of gender based violence because my husband had a sudden death leaving me with a block of ancestral land to share with my in-laws which I lost all.
My advice to widows of any age is that, in our journey of life. Death is a must. It is either the man or the wife. One must die before the other. In between them, one must remain with the responsibilities of taking care of your children. It is not a joke, it is not a laughing matter. You must be a God fearing widow. I do discourage widows from listening to rumours. You can choose to have a man and anything you feel like as a widow since you are alone as long as you protect your children but you cannot manage taking care of your children and doing your own things like drinking alcohol, roaming about with different men coming back to your house both of you drunk. To me it is a strong NO in capital.
Singing strange songs where your children are(lol). Let us turn our eyes to God. He knew why He took our husbands and left us with these difficult tasks.
“una weza, don’t panic. You are not alone wherever you are, you and some other widows like me. We are sailing in one boat even though we don’t know each other. Sometimes I hear from media that that a widow from some place is mudered by the inheritor, or a widow commit suicide because she is deafeted by this journey of life of widowhood. It is a stumbling and falling journey of life. But God for us all but mostly widows and orphans who fear God.
During all these tough moments we undergoes, getting a traditional leader who can just come out and volunteer to take an action to alleviate these pain is hard and if I am to count them they may be 1 in 100 traditional leaders who may empathize with a widow and defend her. The same goes to the spiritual leaders because the protocol they follow while solving these issues for widows don’t favour our side especially land conflicts.
And on the action our Government are taking to help a widow achieve her goal. I believe it is by helping her to solve her problems with policies and protection so that she can boldly chase her perpetrators.
Hhhmm. In the luo tribes of kenya, A woman especially A widow is to be seen in the community but not to be heard
Thank you mum, lala salama
Patrisiah from Nyanza province Kenya
The reality is this, we all see what she’s state happening, while some play apathy, others pulls sympathy putting a blind eye to the needful. She’s been widowed, someone’s turn it must be. Who? I don’t know.
A Widow's Window 