FACT: No matter how connected one thinks he or she is to their partner, there are certain situations in life where it is just not possible for a women’s perspective to remain in unison with her partner’s.

*Examples will follow later on in the article.

I tried to find out the reason why this was the case by bouncing around a few scenarios with my fellow brothers with no game, but to no avail. It wasn’t until I started to have the same discussion with my mother that I realised the answers to my questions laid dormant within the precious Pandora’s box otherwise known as African wisdom.

Anyone with African parents would tell you that there is a riddle or proverb for any and every question that one could conjure up.

A Scenario only possible in an African household

Wife: “Darling, Tunde said he saw you go into the bedroom with another woman”

Husband: “Chief Iba once said: It is better to have seen, than to be told”

Tunde: “But daddy she was making noises like the ones mummy makes at night”

Husband: “The chief once stated: Ears are usually uninvited guests”

Thirty years on and Tunde’s parent’s marriage is still going strong. I realised, if I wanted to understand the disparity between men and women, I had to take it back to Zamunda.

Scenarios where men and women see the world differently

Guys, I am sure we have all had this particular experience.

There is a girl that you have been seeing for a few weeks and she let you hit it *sorry ladies man-speak* a little bit sooner than you expected, so you are not entirely sure if she is wifey material or she just lets any brother get it early.

So to you she is what we call a link, but to her you are en route to becoming her man. Then it happens, you both have unprotected sex because neither of you had the Johnny and you didn’t want to kill the mood.

You: “Shit, what the f*ck have I just gone and done”

Girl: “Don’t worry babes, I am on the pill”

Little did she know, that was the least of your worries. You were thinking of the possibility of you catching the dose (STD), because you don’t know the last dude she slept with could have been carrying the dosage.

But like everything in this world, there is an old African saying for this:

“Where there is a bush fire, the antelope ceases to fear his hunter’s bullet”

Which basically means with statistics such as 1 in 4 people not knowing they are HIV positive (bush fire), the worry is no longer about bringing  Jamal or Jamelia into the world (bullet), but trying not to get burnt.

But many people would ask “why sleep with a girl/guy that you don’t trust in the first place?” I would agree with such a statement, because sex can be dangerous as we all get lost in the moment and with this lack of consciousness we could end up doing things in the a split second which could lead to a lifetime of sorrow.

There is an African saying for that scenario too.

“A man who goes to bed with an itchy bum, wakes up with smelly fingers”

So if you know your chick or guy is playing around, or think they are; then handle your business when you are at a state of consciousness or you could wake up to *a madness.*

Women being called Whores, men being called Players

Now I know a lot of women are going to be like, “who are you to be telling me I can’t sleep around or call me a whore because I have slept with so and so many men? when you sleep around society applauds”.

Now ladies, I am all for equality but that is one argument I could never let any feminist win.

The reason why a man is not ridiculed for having multiple partners and women is because of one of the oldest African sayings:

“A farmer must first question his fence, before cursing the thief”

Now ladies, let’s keep it real. The most important component in consensual sex is a woman’s consent. Anything other than that equates to rape or a sausage fest. A woman’s nani (for the lack of a better word) is like the fertile soil, society is the farmer who has taught her to respect her feminity and those lessons enable her to build a fence around her nani, and the tolerance of that fence is dependent on how high she is able to build that fence (self esteem). Men are thieves waiting to pounce on another man’s hardwork at the earliest opportunity.

If you are familiar with the Heskey article, you would know that the Peckham dude represented a thief *I have officially written my self off in SE London* and Heskey was nothing more than the farmer’s assistant who was watering the seeds for weeks for another man to eat.

There is an Ethiopian saying to support that argument by stating:

‘The man who marries a beautiful woman, and the farmer who grows corn by the roadside have the same problem’

So ladies, of course we will question your ladyship first before we call another man a dog. Any wise farmer would look to the fence first, because it means he is not doing its job. From a western perspective: how many of you ladies would put your savings into a bank that continuously gets robbed?

The Importance of knowing his or her sexual past

History is imporant in a relationship, and our elders teach us this by stating that “Before dating a widow, you must ask her what killed her husband”. So dudes and dudettes don’t be afraid to ask questions early on in the relationship, as you need to make sure  that you know what type of person you are dealing with. Once you get caught up and start having feelings, its hard to make the right choices and you start going around in circles.

One thing I have realised is that certain chicks seem to fall for the same game, lines, facade and “I love you stories” each and every time and then end up calling us the players, when we are just using a formula that obviously worked for the 10 other guys you let hit it on the first night. Where did we learn that from? Your history!

Girl: “My last man was a dog, he used to buy me Crystal and used me for sex”

*Crystal pops*

Girl: “079…”

Ladies, do not wait until mandem kick you out of their mama’s house in the early morning for you to realise you have been played. You too can use your own history by looking back to the beginning and start to learn how you came to  get in this situation in the first place.

“Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.”

Where are all the good guys/girls at?

One line of conversation that both men and women seem to be having of late is that we are all in agreement that there aren’t enough serious members of the opposite sex around. But to be honest maybe it is the fact that we are looking in the wrong places.  A great African chief once said: “A fool looks for dung where a cow never browsed”

How can a dude try to find a wifey at Bashment vs Soca, or a chick try to find a hubby at a Giggs concert? There is a saying from the streets of North London, “waste gyal attract waste man”. So before you call your ex or current man or chick: waste, you better check yourself. It is like Chief Eba once said: “He who dines with dogs will eat feces”

But don’t get it twisted, traditional places such as the church are no longer reliable places to find righteous chicks, because you would find that it is the same chicks from Bashment v Soca repenting their sins from the night before and would be back at it the following weekend. Now although the Lord forgives, man should be wary of her actions for “The frowning face of a goat doesn’t prevent it being taken to  the market”. In other words, her righteous behaviour (frown) is nothing more than a facade, if she is a goat (Promiscuous woman) take her to the market (bedroom).

African Proverbs…gotta love ‘em

The Yak!

What you say readers? Which proverbs and quotes resonate heavily in your mind? Holla back!