This story begins with a culturally incompatible marriage - that of a Kikuyu woman and a Luhya man. Being from Nyeri in Kenya, I had two strikes against me. One, I was from a different tribe than my husband-to-be and two, I was skinny. Intermarriage is prohibited and slender women, like myself, are not valued. Bigger women are seen as more attractive and fertile. My mother in-law even asked me when I was planning to set her son free so that he can marry a descent Luhya girl.

Regardless of the obstacles ahead of us, we married and we were blessed with two beautiful children, a girl and a boy. Everything in our young family was rosy and life was treating us just as we expected. The only problem was my husband’s frequent absence from home. This, I always attributed to his work since he was a civil engineer who was expected to travel frequently to supervise various projects. One morning as he was going to work, he was involved in a terrible car crash.  He survived narrowly and he had to spend several days in the hospital. It was while he was in the hospital that his infidelity came to light.

Several of his friends visited him but I couldn’t help noticing that most of them were women. One particular woman who appeared to be a couple of years older than him frequently visited him. They would speak in low tones and whenever I went inside the room, they would keep quiet and the woman would appear irritated. I asked the woman if she was my husband’s relative. She rudely told me that she was his wife and that they even had a child together. She accused me of being selfish since I was taking care of our husband all by myself while we both shared him in bed. He tried to calm her down, seemingly irritated by her insults and at the same time ashamed.  He said the woman was only his girlfriend and nothing more. In as much as I wanted to leave him right then, the idea of getting a divorce and starting a new life was very challenging.  I was determined to make my marriage work. However, a few weeks after this incident, he passed away due to a blood clot that the doctors were unable to detect. This was the beginning of the greatest nightmare of my life.

Luhya customs dictate that the dead must be buried at their rural home and not in a cemetery. My husband’s body was taken to his rural home where several traditional rituals were performed. Being his legitimate wife, I had to accompany his body in a hearse. I had to sit beside the coffin.  Finally, when we arrived, his body was removed from the coffin and it was laid down on a bed.  That night, I had to sleep with his body and I was forced to have sex with him by his clan’s men.  That was just the first ritual. I was given instructions on how to go about the whole gory act. First, I had to remove my clothes then climb on top of him and force his penis on me. I was to repeat this three times the whole night. During this act, the village elders and some elderly women were camping in the room next to my bedroom, dancing and taking a local alcoholic brew.  There was no way I could have managed to escape.

His body was damn cold and it smelled like a morgue. I always heard about this ritual but I never thought it was real. In the morning, an elderly woman signaled me to go to the bathroom to shower. While I washed myself, a popular village elder went to the bedroom to inspect his penis and see if there were any visible signs of penetration. If there were no telltale signs of sex, they would have forced me to spend another night with him, this time with an escort to assist me. Luckily, everything was in order.

I did not do it three times as required. I only did it once. It wasn’t easy. Especially because in the culture that I came from, we feared the dead. The thought of going near a dead body was terrifying. I had to make myself think that it was just a bad dream.  I had to do it. It was their culture and no one could save me out of this situation. Besides, a wife needed to do this to prove her fidelity. If you didn’t do it then it meant you cheated on your husband during your marriage.

I spent the rest of the night standing by the door. It was only in the wee hours of the morning when I finally went to bed and slept next to him.

After his burial, the second ritual was to have sex with a mad man. This was supposed to cleanse me so I could get ready for my second husband. He was considered a “professional widow cleanser.” He is not really clinically insane, but due to his frequent use of alcohol and drugs, he does not behave like a normal person - but at least you can reason with him.

This was to take place in the same room where I slept with my dead husband.  Fortunately, someone had tipped me about giving him plenty of beer and lots of money while we were both inside the room. And this is exactly what I did. The moment the door was closed, I pulled out a bottle of whiskey which was actually a mixture of several brands of strong drinks.  I poured a lot in my glass and in a nice way, I requested him to take the drink with me so that we can be in the right mood.  Once I discovered that he was becoming drunk, I told him that my husband had left me with a lot of money and that I was willing to share it with him on the condition that he would not sleep with me. The very thought of having sex with him was petrifying. What scared me the most was the fact that chances of him being HIV positive were very high. To my surprise, he quickly agreed. I offered him 100,000 KSH, which was equivalent to 900 USD.  He continued to take his whiskey and after a short while, he passed out.

In the morning, an old woman opened the door and instructed me to take a shower.  This time, no one was required to verify if sex ever took place. The man woke up later and could not even figure out what had taken place the night before.  By morning, I had removed the empty whisky bottle and I put it in a bag so no one could see it.  On top of that, I had some nice-smelling cologne which I sprayed on his dirty clothes so the whisky smell was not so evident.

He must have thought that we had sex because he never came to me again to ask for his reward.  I am sure by now most readers are wondering why I never attempted to run away.  Remember that on such occasions, you are always kept under lock and key by the village elders.  Every movement you make is closely monitored.  Once you get married in their community, you become their property.

After all of the death rituals were finished, I was declared clean and ready to marry my real inheritor.  I was sent to the market to buy groceries for my new husband. I took that opportunity to run away.  I have never gone back there since then.

I went back to the capital city of Nairobi, where my job was still waiting for me after a long absence.  I moved to another neighborhood because I knew my in-laws would go to the house where I lived with my husband to perform another ritual.  They will hold a big feast at night to let the deceased know that he was loved.  I was reunited with my two young children and we started over with a new life.  I could not go back to my family because I was already an outcast for marrying my late husband - a man from a different tribe.  I was even more of an outcast now after being involved in a death ritual that they considered evil.  They just could never accept me back.

Now, I am always on the lookout for young women of my tribe who want to get married to people from my late husband’s tribe.  I tell them about my horrifying ordeal in an effort to warn them.  As for other widows, it is really hard to talk to them against this culture especially when both the husband and wife are Luhyas.  They think evil forces will come to haunt them if they do not perform this ritual.

Until now, I have never been able to forgive my late husband.  Unfortunately, my son resembles him so much and he keeps reminding me of him.  Initially, I had turned to alcohol just to numb the pain, but I realized that I was just hurting myself even more.  I have not turned to religion because the idea of forgiveness is just foreign to me.  How can I forgive such people? Never  ever.  I simply try to live life one day at a time.  It has now been 9 years since that traumatic event happened. 

Our country is a man’s society. Even though human rights activists are always trying to empower women, the legal system is just corrupt and controlled by unjust men. The best I can do is to talk to any young woman about my experience and share my message.

Further Reading
1.  Wikipedia article on the Kikuyu tribe
2.  Wikipedia article on the Luhya tribe