A Kenyan man in Boston, Massachusetts in the US cannot find a wife because he is a great cook. Albert Kiage is not your average ‘hustler’. He has everything going for him. He has a good job, a string of real estate properties in the United States and Kenya and drives top-of-the-range SUVs.
His house is furnished with all the fancy electronic gadgets anyone would wish for in life. What’s more, Kiage’s says he has a balance worth writing home about in his bank account. What Kiage, however, lacks is a wife.
Not that he has not tried getting one. He is divorced once and has watched three women leave him because he is not only too clean, but also a great cook and a perfectionist to boot.
“I think I am an incurable germophobe, with an OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) that drives women away. I had constant wrangles with my first wife over small matters of hygiene and we divorced in 2007 after two years of marriage. I couldn’t stand her. I found her too dirty for my house. We just couldn’t cope,” complains Kiage.
Biggest problem
He says he has dated three women since then. In all the cases, he says, the relationships were serious and he hoped they would lead to marriage.
Unfortunately, that was not to be. “The problem has always been the same. The first one always complained that I am a perfectionist. The two other cases were almost similar, with one complaining about my insistence to cook all the time. Truth of the matter is she was a joke in the kitchen,” says the accountant.
His biggest problem with most women stems from the fact that he is an incredible cook. Having lived his entire adult life single, save for the short-lived marriage, he has perfected his cooking skills and can’t stand bad food.
“You can only eat out for so long,” he says. “As a gym enthusiast, you want natural foods which you cannot find readily when you eat out. I am also very keen with my diet, it has to be balanced,” he says.
Living alone has taught him many things, culinary-wise. He can whip up every discernible Kenyan meal, including chapatis. “In fact some Kenyan female friends even come for chapatis, cake and barbecues at my home over the weekends. They know I am good at it. We always laugh over my obsession for cooking and cleanliness, but it’s never that serious,” he says. This, however, comes at a cost. It has continuously kept potential wives away.
House wife
They come, settle, try to keep up with his standards, but many cannot. Partly because life is too busy in the United States for anyone to depend on homemade food every day of the week, and partly because Kiage must eat at home. He is able to do it. He doesn’t see why he should relent. Not that he chases them away. They just chicken out.
“They become increasingly uncomfortable, since I insist on cooking for both of us. I don’t mind at all. But many say, it is un-African,” he says. He says many women in America, whereas they are busy and crave independence, they still want a chance to play the role of a traditional house wife. And many are not ready to compete with him in roles that were traditionally considered to belong to women.
Kiage says his culinary skills must have been nurtured when he was young, when he was growing up with his father in Eldoret.
“I lived with my father and I used to do everything on my own. So I learned everything and became quite independent. Living as a bachelor only made me perfect the skills,” he says. He says he is praying and hoping to find a fellow perfectionist to settle down with.
-sde.co.ke
