Velonah has recently received a lot of bile from both men and women for daring to chastise Sue Owino for her content that demeans women. Or not. Depending on which subjective lenses you look through.
Here is Velonah’s letter
Not hating, just posting this girl here once more for clarity’s sake.
See, some of us grew up like #SueOwino.
And some of us growing up that way did not fill us with joy and contentment. That’s why seeing Sue doing these acrobatics in public for likes and popularity irks us.
I’ll tell you for free that there is no joy in being shoved outdoors in the evening after a heavy downpour, to dig a trench of the remnants of an outside cooking pit.
Line it with ashes borrowed from the neighbours, and light a fire with semi dry wood or raw maize cobs in order to cook a gummy cassava ugali for a group of 10 hungry mouths.
Sometimes you even have to go borrow fire, where you had borrowed the dry ashes to line your dug-out wet pit outdoor stove.
Sue’s content is therefore relevant, but in a wrong timeline, or niche.
Maybe she should direct her content to the off-grid niche. There are individuals who still want to live like savages in the bush, rubbing sticks together to start a fire to roast yam.
Some of us who grew (partly in the village) in scenarios I have described above, are out here striving to live with ease, comfort and never to have our children digging wet pits of mud to prepare meals with semi-dry wood emitting smoke that can choke an infant to death.
You must be wondering now how horrible my childhood was, or how poor we were. On the contrary, my families were never dirt poor, especially my maternal parents and my biological paternal families.
For example in my maternal grandmother’s home we grew up eating on luminarc kitchenware in the 90s (if what you knew was plastics and baraol you understand this is a big deal), and using cuttlery (remember when I told you that I was raised as a thoroughbred (lady) for a world that no longer exists).
And that makes you a good audience for reading my memoir. My childhood had the sophisticated, highs and lows and drudgery mixed all in one. It’s those experiences that made us well-rounded individuals poised to survive in any environment and situation.
Back to Sue…
Sue may be using her cooking methods to earn, but in a way still propagating a narrative. The narrative of the humble (poor) submissive and down to earth homemaker housewife who is contented to stay at home cooking for her husband in whatever circumstance.
Even right now during Elnino, I am surprised she hasn’t set her 3-stone stove inside a canoe or on a raft and slaughtered a whole goat to cook for her husband. Because nothing will stop her from cooking for her husband, not even Elnino.
Us girls who tasted some elements of this girl-child struggle are today giving relief to our mothers and the women before them. The women of yesterday deserve all the breaks they can get. And it’s our duty women of today to foster that change.
For example, my joy is to see my 70-something grandmother right now waking from her bedroom, stepping into the bathroom for a warm shower, then walking a few steps to the kitchen, turn the gas on and put a kettle or a clean stainless steel pot on the gas stove to fix her breakfast. Then sit on her favourite chair with a remote in hand catching up with the current local/international news on the television.
👆That is the life I want for my 70-something-year-old grandma (for those of you who’ve seen her here, or know her in real life) and my mother should enjoy the same in that her “hacienda” I built for her in the village.
These are homes I should stay in when I visit back home and still be able to enjoy and feel the comfort I experience here, because it’s right, it’s possible.
I do not desire to touch afududut (hollow metal pipe to blow air through to light a fire) again.
The only thing I want to blow in life is a flute to play some soothing music while swinging in a hammock underneath a mango/avocado tree on a sunny afternoon when I visit home.
Sue’s videos irk me and maybe it’s just my own projection.
It’s like having gone through a bad harassment experience, then you see someone replaying those events publicly and being lauded and praised for it.
That’s my take.