By Kayode Ajala
Does the question sound stupid? Then except you think I am equally stupid, you must believe that there is a reason why I asked. But before I delve into my reason for asking, first of all, let us even confront the question of the sex of your housemaid. Yes indeed, what sex is she and how do you know? Somebody in her early twenties, walks into your house looking poor, with a Ghana-must-go bag, braided hair, tee-shirt, Ankara skirt and a thinly suppressed body odour. Her front is bulging with two over sized breasts and you keep your eyes in check so your wife does not catch you peering at her slightly protruding backside! So what does that prove? She goes through a short interview, your wife explains what she has to do in the house, they agree on what she will be paid every month, your wife takes a perfunctory inventory of the contents of her Ghana Must Go, and kapische, she goes into the house and becomes your house maid.
If you are thinking I must have gone through this process perhaps a hundred times, you are right. If you are thinking that I liked it, you are dead wrong! There is something about having these people live in your house that makes you feel no matter what you do for them, you did not do enough, and no matter what they do, you must forgive, or else you are wicked, even your own conscience will never let you rest. Yet in this country today, how can you live without them when you have to work and your wife has to work as well? Even in America and London and Germany and Japan, there are babysitters and domestic staff and nannies. The world just can’t do without them the way things are.
If you are among those who think of them in terms of sex, you are on your own. I have several testimonies of maids who charmed their sex organs to trap their madams’ husbands, right there in my estate. I do not blame them because there is a justified angle to their act. It is only when the man seduces them and puts them in the family way, that is when they are caught by the trap. Right now, there are two permanently broken homes in my estate, because the man of the house went to do ‘touch and go’ with the house maid, not knowing that the house maid came with some magic araldite that gums whatever touches them, making the touching party to abandon their wives, rent a new house for them and move in with them! I know some people who subject their new house maids to “spiritual deliverance” before allowing them to stay. This is subject for another day’s discussion. I will tell you how a house maid got pregnant for assistant pastor after seven days marathon “prayer” to deliver her of marine spirits and how the parents rejected the girl because, she was not pregnant when she was sent to live with the “oga and madam”, that case is still at the court. The big question is who is responsible, the new employers who sent her for deliverance or the pastor’s assistant who decided to carry out sexual deliverance on her rather than spiritual deliverance?
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Anyway back to the issue at hand. Does a feminine appearance prove that your house maid is a woman (or should I say a female?). Think carefully before you answer! I was at a fashion show recently and just because of my relationship with the organizers, I was given a backstage pass. When I had cause to go there, where the models were changing and discuss an issue with the show producer, I got a rude shock, some of the beautiful “female” models that I saw on the runway were actually gay transvestites and they definitely looked more beautiful than their female counterparts! Please don’t ask me how they got their round breasts and protuberant rumps! You might as well ask how they got those elegant feminine gaits and ultra beautiful faces. Wonders will never cease to happen in Naija! And while we are at it, this gay problem is becoming another phenomenon in this country! Where are these people suddenly emanating from? What went wrong in our social system that triggered off the emergence of lesbians and homosexuals among us? The things that previously we read about in magazines and newspapers, happening in the white man’s country and we say God forbid! They are now here with us. How did that happen? Then there is this other issue of hermaphrodites! A man in a church that I used to attend got married. And a day later he sued for divorce! The management of the church hid and hushed the issue and quietly the couple left the church and all was at peace. When I moved houses and changed church, I met one of the pastors from the old church at a function and asked him what became of those couple. It was then that he revealed to me a secret that he would never have told me if I were still a member of the church: the young man, who was not allowed to have sex before marriage, went home on their wedding night, only to discover that his wife, had both male and female organs! Let’s move on.
This is a serious issue because right here in my estate, this young couple got this beautiful house maid. The man works in a bank and his wife is in the IT department of an investments and asset management company. They leave home 5am every morning and come back 9pm at night. They drop the kids off at school on their way out, but the house maid picks them up afterwards. Everything was going on fine until madam suddenly discovered that her price jewels were missing. Oga had been missing his dollars over a long time but suspected his wife and had been quiet, thinking of a harmless way to broach the topic. But when madam noticed that her diamond engagement ring, worth over a million naira was gone, she raised alarm. The police got involved, the prime suspect was the housemaid. Her Ghana must go was brought out and subjected to a search, it was in the process that most of the apparels in the bag were discovered to be male apparels. The first suspicion of the police was that she admits her boyfriend into the house when everyone had gone out. But when subjected to ‘intense interrogation’ it was revealed that this housemaid was actually a houseman! He was not female at all, he was male! His hair was wig, his brassieres were padded and his rumps were supported, thanks to artificial bottom padding; this hapless couple has been living with a potential armed robber and kidnapper under their roof all the while, thinking he was female!
So now, for a preventive measure, what are prospective couples looking for a housemaid to do? Will the madam ask the lady to undress first to see if she was really a female, will that not be tantamount to sexual embarrassment? (I am sure lawyers will have something like that) .Will the humiliation be justifiable? What of male house helps, will oga also ask them to undress for “Gender Certification Examination” (GCE)?
This issue must be confronted, it is a Nigerian issue and must be solved by we Nigerians. If we now live in a country where you cannot look at an individual and say whether he is male or female, it is a problem we created and we alone must solve it. I think this matter should be taken to the federal legislature. There must be laws authorizing employers to carry out GCEs on their prospective employees. If you think I have gone totally bonkers, write me and tell me, and don’t forget to explain why you think so.
