Lets spare a thought for beautiful Arunga

LET US SPARE A THOUGHT FOR ESTHER ARUNGA

By George Marenya

As a man you must have bumped on a lady, your heart skipped two stairs down, and you blamed yourself for not having tried to even say hi.

Funny thing, sometimes it is a question of meeting a woman in the lift. But something still tells you, “George, what man are you? You couldn’t even take her number?”

So it was that sometime in early 2008, in the company of my frenemie Wilberforce Akidiva, I met Esther Arunga at The Stanley.

Arunga on screen and in person is as comely as they come. Soft spoken, crisp, sweet. For our part, we wanted to meet her for the sake of it. 

Don’t call that perversion.Just understand us.

That was then. After which all hell broke loose. There was marriage, a fringe church, a husband, political ambitions, press conferences, psychiatric care, law suits or threats thereof; the works.

As Maurice Mashiwa insists, it all boils down to choice. Choice to chart our destiny, choice to live as we please, choice to be free from family and societal ambitions. Yes, the ability to be a freeborn and live as such.

Upon achieving majority age, the liberal juggernaut is supposed to reign supreme. At the heart of civil liberties lies the sacrosance of the individual.

But does it work? Is man happiest when they listen to their own melody?

The Good Book ordains that we respect our parents and that this is the first commandment with a promise.

Indeed we are told to“respect your father and your mother, so that you may live a long time. Exodus 20:12.”

Theologians may argue about the meaning of the word respect in this context when weighed against the edict that  “a man shall leave his father and mother and be united with his wife.”Genesis 2:24.

This same notion was repeated by Jesus at Mathew 19:15. But “leaving”, a stepping out, a moving out of the immediate purvey; this cannot confused for a casting away, a disowning a rebellion. No, don’t eat the orange and throw the peel away.

Man is a social animal.He does not do very well in isolation, he does not thrive as a free radical.

The heady feeling that comes with carving our own fiefdom, a nirvana within which nobody should interfere, is fleeting, momentary, transient.

Once the magic has fizzled away, we sober up, take a panoramic view, then feel like John Rubadiri’s drunkard waking up in a prostitutes apartment somewhere near Nakulabye.

The Bill of Rights comes with freedom of association and the right to make unfeterred choices. But  choices  have consequences. This statement, though popularized in Kenyan parlance as if it was discovered yesterday has always existed since the Garden of Aden.

Arunga was quoted in the local press as saying that she entered marriage with very little idea about the institution. She blamed her mother for not having taught her abit more

I don’t know whether this is the same mother who had been slapped with a suit at the height of the controversy surrounding Arunga.

I don’t know about the details. I even don’t knowEsther Arunga apart   from our fleeting encounter in early 2008. Actually the post – election violence was still full throttle. So the   conversation was a clipped as could be. But    alas!

Yours truly walked away happy that I had met a shaken hands with our “princess Miranda.”

I only use her experience (s) to show how it would be good to have a close knit family. How people should breathe in hard before making the most important decisions in our lives.

How we could do well if we looked at our parents in the eye and told them asante for the years they have put into raising us.I don’t know what lies ahead for Arunga Downunder. Australia, at least part of it has the same clime as Gem Yala.

So that while the terrain may be familiar, their current circumstances are rather unenviable. I look forward to a time they can pick up a phone and have a healthy conversation with their families and friends back home.I hope they will do that soon. Out of Jail of course.

George Marenya is Director of Yala Outcomes.