Long ago, when the hills were still whispering the secrets of our ancestors and the evening fires burned like small red suns in every homestead, there lived my grandmother: a woman the color of rich earth after rain.
In her old age, her back was bent like a bow ready to release a story, and her hands were wrinkled like dried mango leaves. But when I looked into her eyes, I could see the spark of the girl she once was; a girl who must have walked like a queen across the ridges of our land.
She would sit on her njûng’wa, three-legged stool, as the goats returned home, and I would sit at her feet, tracing patterns in the dust. That is when she would begin.
“Wanyona ûguo ûí nyingíríte mathingira maigana?” she once asked me, her voice half serious, half teasing.
I did not answer. I was still young, still soft like unripe fruit. She had just finished telling me, “Mũirĩtũ mũthaka ahĩtũkagĩra thome wa ngĩa.” A young girl, she said, must not wander into poverty the way a goat wanders into a thorn bush. Then she laughed — that deep grandmother laugh that rolls like distant thunder before rain.
“Girls,” she told me, “only avoid the house of a poor man. The other houses? Ah!” She waved her hand in the air as if brushing away smoke. “Those ones, they only laugh.”
I did not understand at first. I thought beauty was just the smoothness of skin or the brightness of teeth. But my grandmother knew better. She had been beautiful — not only in face, but in wisdom. She knew what it meant to be desired, to be watched, to be chosen. And she knew the power and danger that came with it.
One evening, as the moon rose big and yellow over the banana trees, she leaned closer to me and said the words that have followed me like a drumbeat through life, “Mûndû wína mbeca aríaga kíría ekwenda.” A person with money eats what they want. She did not say it with greed. She said it with truth.
In our village, we had seen it. The woman whose husband had cattle never queued for milk. The man with land never begged for seed. The child whose parents had coins never missed school. Poverty, my grandmother said, is not just hunger of the stomach — it is hunger of dignity.
She would tap my knee with her walking stick and say, “My child, beauty is expensive. But money? Money can beauty.”
She was not teaching me to chase girls with money. She was teaching me to chase strength. To chase independence. To chase a life where I would not laugh out of pretense, but laugh because I had choice.
And I understand now. My grandmother was not telling me to use my money on girls. She was telling me not to let poverty choose my destiny. For in our land, as the elders say, a bird with strong wings chooses which tree to rest in. And my grandmother wanted my wings to be strong.
In her old age, her back was bent like a bow ready to release a story, and her hands were wrinkled like dried mango leaves. But when I looked into her eyes, I could see the spark of the girl she once was; a girl who must have walked like a queen across the ridges of our land.
She would sit on her njûng’wa, three-legged stool, as the goats returned home, and I would sit at her feet, tracing patterns in the dust. That is when she would begin.
“Wanyona ûguo ûí nyingíríte mathingira maigana?” she once asked me, her voice half serious, half teasing.
I did not answer. I was still young, still soft like unripe fruit. She had just finished telling me, “Mũirĩtũ mũthaka ahĩtũkagĩra thome wa ngĩa.” A young girl, she said, must not wander into poverty the way a goat wanders into a thorn bush. Then she laughed — that deep grandmother laugh that rolls like distant thunder before rain.
“Girls,” she told me, “only avoid the house of a poor man. The other houses? Ah!” She waved her hand in the air as if brushing away smoke. “Those ones, they only laugh.”
I did not understand at first. I thought beauty was just the smoothness of skin or the brightness of teeth. But my grandmother knew better. She had been beautiful — not only in face, but in wisdom. She knew what it meant to be desired, to be watched, to be chosen. And she knew the power and danger that came with it.
One evening, as the moon rose big and yellow over the banana trees, she leaned closer to me and said the words that have followed me like a drumbeat through life, “Mûndû wína mbeca aríaga kíría ekwenda.” A person with money eats what they want. She did not say it with greed. She said it with truth.
In our village, we had seen it. The woman whose husband had cattle never queued for milk. The man with land never begged for seed. The child whose parents had coins never missed school. Poverty, my grandmother said, is not just hunger of the stomach — it is hunger of dignity.
She would tap my knee with her walking stick and say, “My child, beauty is expensive. But money? Money can beauty.”
She was not teaching me to chase girls with money. She was teaching me to chase strength. To chase independence. To chase a life where I would not laugh out of pretense, but laugh because I had choice.
And I understand now. My grandmother was not telling me to use my money on girls. She was telling me not to let poverty choose my destiny. For in our land, as the elders say, a bird with strong wings chooses which tree to rest in. And my grandmother wanted my wings to be strong.
