ASSESSMENT APPOINTMENT
Honestly, I was shocked that Joseph gave in to my demands and that gave me courage to finally tell my parents about my marriage proposal. I was closer to my mum, so, she was the first person I told. My parents already knew who Joseph was because I always talked about him and Mr Paul had told them what a great job his company had done on the contract. As such, they already saw Joseph as a hardworking and ambitious young man who would achieve success at a young age.
As I guessed, my mum began to ask me questions about Joseph, apart from the obvious information that they had about him. Many of the questions that she asked were in the list of questions that I had already asked Joseph. So, I was highly prepared.
“Where does he live?” she asked.
“He stays in a rented one-room self-contained apartment right now but he will relocate when his building project is done,” I replied.
“He is relocating to his village, right? You told me that the company will be located in his village. I hope that you won’t live in his family house. You don’t want your home to be run by someone else.”
“No, he will build a house for us at the same time before we get married. Mummy, I don’t want to wait for long before getting married to him and I don’t want his company’s building project to suffer. So, I want to pitch in the building of our house but I don’t have enough money. Please, could you send some money?” I pleaded.
“No problem. In fact, you are already thinking as a wife. A wife should always help her husband to build his future. I and your father will send you some money or if you prefer the money to be sent directly to him, you can give me his account number,” she replied.
Meanwhile, some of Joseph’s partners pestered him on his decision to build our residential house before we got married.
“Did you not say that I should do anything that it takes to keep Virtue?” Joseph asked them.
“We need her to make our business to move forward but if she decide to crumble the business with her unrealistic demands, then, by all means, let her go,” Princewill said.
“I still stand by what I said. Do everything to keep your relationship with Virtue, for your love for her and for this business. See eh, if you lose her, we will not only lose an asset but we will lose you also to despair. So, don’t even think about it,” Matthew said.
“What are you saying? How much does Joseph have right now to build a house? It took twenty years for my father to build his house. And we have a building project at hand. This means that we will kiss goodbye to Joseph’s contributions to this project,” Ikenna, the crop scientist said.
At that moment, Joseph received a bank alert from my father and a text message saying, “My daughter has told us of your interest in her. Meet me as soon as possible to discuss more. In the meantime, accept this money from us for the home you are building for you and my daughter.”
As Joseph was still reading that text, he received another text message from Mr Paul which read, “I have a new contract for your company. Call me as soon as possible for more information.”
Afterwards, Joseph read the messages aloud in the hearing of his partners and added, “You were saying?”
“Wow. We really cannot lose Virtue,” Michael, the vet doctor said.
With the money my father sent to him, Joseph immediately got a land and started building on it. Then, he divided the money he saved up for building the company’s permanent site. He used one third of that money for our house and the rest for the company. And he had some more money from the new contract that Mr Paul gave to him to add to the building projects. That contract opened him up to more contracts and the projects never suffered financially.
A month after both building projects began, Joseph came to me and said, “I need to go to the village to check out how the constructions are going and I can’t go without my bride-to-be as everyone is eager to meet you.”
That was how I went to the village for the first time. When we travelled to his village, I was astonished. It was either Joseph did not fully explain things to me or my mind could not comprehend how backward a village could be in the 21st century! We went to the building sites before going to his family house. When we got to his house, I could not sit down. The house had a bad smell. The only cushioned chair there was an armchair which was probably purchased many years before my Sweetheart was born. It had so many tears and it looked like it survived years of urination. The other chairs were wooden. The woods looked rotten and were home to several insects. The very sight of the house made me so uncomfortable.
“My dear, please, sit down. You are in your parents’ house,” Joseph’s mother said to me.
“Oh. I am very sorry ma. I prefer to stand,” I replied.
“But we are your family. Are we not?” his mother argued.
“Please, do not bother trying to convince her. She won’t sit,” Joseph said.
“No problem. Rose, bring the food. What is taking your time?” she said.
Immediately, Rose, Joseph’s sister came out with the food. She tied a wrapper round her waist and had an unkempt hair in which I spotted some lice. Her hands were stained with soot. The plate did not look very clean and the sight of the food made me to feel like throwing up.
“Oh. Please, do not bother yourself. I am not hungry,” I said.
“You do not want to sit down or eat at our house! Joseph, what kind of girl did you bring? How can you marry such an arrogant lady?” his mother said with anger.
“Mum, I promise that she is very nice once you get to know her. Please, she is just not in the mood for anything. I will see her off,” he replied.
At that time, I saw Joseph’s other sister come out. She too did not look too good. As Joseph and I left the house, I could hear as the three women gossiped about me.
“My son can never marry an educated woman. God forbid bad thing. Tufiakwa,” his mother said.
“How did you manage to go to school up to university level with this kind of background? How were they able to fend for you?” I asked.
“I seriously do not know but one thing is sure; parents are incredible.”
When we got to the hotel situated quite a distance from the village, I asked Joseph, “You heard what they said about me, right?”
“Yes but I do not blame them much. How would your parents have felt if I refused to sit down or eat their food when I visited?” he replied.
“It is a lot different. You cannot compare your experiences in my parents’ house with this. I am sorry for everything but I do not know how to cope. If my parents know that your family house looks like this, they may not agree to let me marry you. They believe that I must marry someone I am compatible with, especially in wealth and standard of living.”
“Okay but we are in a great dilemma now. You are too uncomfortable to sit or eat in my house but if you do not do so, my people will not accept you. And your parents asked me to bring my people for a meeting. How can I invite them to your house if they do not accept you? Please, just do this for my sake and for our marriage. It is not like you are going to live in that house. Besides, even though my sister’s food does not look nice, it actually tastes nice.”
“Alright. I will try my best,” I replied.
“Thank you. I love you,” he replied.
Joseph left me at the hotel and returned to his family house. His family had various reasons preventing me from marrying into that family. In fact, they loathed me.
“You told me to bring my fiancée along and you were not even ready to receive her. Do you all realise that this place does not look like the home of humans? What did you expect from her?” he asked.
“I just want to ask. You said that you and your partners are erecting a building for your company, right? What is the other building for?” his father inquired.
“Oh. That is where I will live with my wife,” he replied.
“I don’t understand. I have not yet given you the permission to marry her and you are already building a house for her. Are you under a spell? You have not even thought about building a house for your parents that suffered to put you through school. Now, she is looking down on our house and treating us as if we are below her,” his father said.
“If not Virtue, I won’t get married. Don’t you want grandchildren? And Virtue will not live in this house, so, I have to build for her, for us.”
“She does not look like someone who can carry a child,” his mother said.
The next day, Joseph picked me up to visit again. This time around, the house looked a bit presentable because Joseph and his sisters had thoroughly cleaned it. I still felt uncomfortable but I managed to sit. They asked me several questions and I did my best to answer. Most of my answers were smart and the family members kept repeating, “This is why girls should not be educated.”
Once again, Rose served us some food. I felt like throwing up again at the sight of the food but I managed to put a spoonful of food in my mouth.
“Did you not say that your sister’s food is sweet?” I asked Joseph.
“Is it not sweet?” he asked.
“Oh. I can see that my fiancé’s taste buds are not working. It is not a bad thing. At least, now I know that I do not need to make sure that the food I cook for my husband is sweet,” I said.
“Don’t even try that rubbish,” he cautioned while I smiled. “I only said that so that you would agree to eat it. You have no other option.”
Joseph ate from my plate when his family members were not watching so that they did not know that I hardly touched my food. I too managed to eat few spoons in their presence to make the pretence look real.
After the meal, Joseph’s mother said to me, “Now, it is time for me to test you. You see, the education of a girl starts and ends in the kitchen. It does not matter how much education you have, if you
cannot cook, you are a failure and disgrace to womanhood. So, you will cook our dinner for us under Rose’s supervision.”
I looked at Joseph in surprise and to beg him to get me out of that situation. I was a great cook but there were two issues with that demand that meant that I would definitely fail the test. One, I had never cooked with firewood and I did not know how to do that. Secondly, Rose was to be my supervisor and she could not cook! As such, if I did the right thing, it would be taken as the wrong thing and if I refused her correction, then, I would be known as the lady who did not know how to cook and did not want to learn.
Joseph got the message and said, “Maybe, some other time but right now, we need to get going. It is a long journey back. Anyway, her family wants to meet my family. So, please, prepare to carry wine to them.”
“Why should we do that? I don’t even want her to marry you,” Joseph’s father said.
“Then, I will become a celibate right away,” Joseph said.
“Okay. We will go. I wonder the kind of charm this girl is using on you.”