It was mid last year when a girlfriend asked me if i was a member of Kilimani Mums Group. I told her I wasn’t, because obviously I no longer live near Kilimani or the leafy suburbs. She said she wanted to add me to the group and I agreed because she really is a sweet girl , those ones who smile and one just says yes.
It was a dull group but I didn’t leave. The Kenyan “Stepford Wives” posted about what they like to call their DMs a stuck up grand sounding title for their housegirls. They asked of each other who was the best pediatric doctor for their LOs, yaani Loved Ones, the best dermatologist, the quickest remedy for razor burns around bikini areas.
They asked which school charges more than the other, how much kindergarten and daycare costs. A typical question goes like “Mums, where can I buy a good mattress for 40k?” Or “I want to start a side hustle with a small budget of 500k, mums what would you recommend? ” Or yet another “Mums, I pay my DM 12k and she doesn’t like to iron the clothes, should I get rid of her?”
A pet peeve is MWKs (mke wa kando), I too must confess my dislike for them, and a typical question will be like “I am asking for a friend, her DH (darling husband) has a side chick, should she leave? Such a question directed to a group whose composition is largely the said MWKs and “legal” second and third wives seriously serves no purpose but to keep the rest entertained.
Another range of typical posts asks about the best fridges, cookers, washing machines, should I buy a front-loader or a top-loading one?
They asked each other if a child who ate ten sausages every day was at risk of a disease, or was this a normal thing….
Over the last two weeks of December the DMs left for Christmas holiday and the wives dutifully reported on their magnanimous natures and talked of their selfless acts, typically, I gave my DM her full pay and fare and shopped for her family.
The cluelesss mums then set about managing their palatial homes without the help of the domestic workers and wrung their hands in despair as they discovered that little babies actually needed diaper changing and they really did eat the food for which many an innocent DM had been accused of eating.
This first week of January by a rough estimate from the online whining, three quarters of the DMs didn’t turn up, remember how good we were to them?? The mums petulantly posted about how all DMs were created from the same devil of a woman and deserved their lowly station in life.
They had dared to quit their jobs “na vile walitolewa mbali wakaoshwa”, some of them had never even drank orange juice before they landed the good fortune of being a housegirl to the upper crusty bitches. Sigh…
I will tell you this for free. Kilimani Mums has had a good run. They had their peak when they successfully ran the “My Dress My Choice” campaign. From any peak, there’s only one direction. Down. With the high handed deletion of any topic that brings a slight curve to your lips, the group can only become a frosty graveyard. There are topics that are appropriate for the wives of the nouveaux rich. If you are not a connoisseur of brands, you are going to drown at the dinner table.
Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not a member . Your life is no worse off, unless you actively enjoy commiserating about the misfortune of having too much money with a bunch of uptight bitches who’ve got their underpants twisted in a bunny. If you’re looking for intellectual discourse, I would say, keep off…an embodiment of what’s wrong with society where women are limited to discussing the household.
The main difference is that whereas the village gossip mama Akinyi walks into her neighbors house and perches herself on a stool and proceeds to yap, well the Kilimani Mum uses her dainty manicured fingers to deliver the accurately aimed venom.
P.S. if you enjoy good stories and the doctor has prescribed laughter, join the UNCENSORED Kilimani Mums who broke off from the original group..