By the Idler-in-Chief
You already know that Nyagenke Weekender’s “Korondo-19 Baby Boom” headline has confirmed what midwives and grandmothers have known since 2021.
You don’t need a calculator to establish that Korondovirus did not reduce Nyagenke but multiplied it.
Also Read
When they said “stay at home,” Nyagenke obeyed fully and the results are here to confirm.
Let me not just spill the beans but pour them.
Men who previously came home only to inspect supper and charge phones suddenly became full-time indoor husbands.
By 7 p.m., Nyagenke compounds were full, gates were locked, and, soon, the journey to fill Nyagenke with more mouths started.
You see, lockdown sounded temporary at first as my kinsmen bought unga, masks, and hope.
By month three, the unga was finished, the masks were hanging in the living room, but couples were still indoors— like contestants in a marriage reality show.
Then came the famous instruction: observe social distance.
Nyagenke held a brief consultation and rejected it.
“How do you keep two metres apart from someone who snores on your pillow and knows your M-Pesa PIN?” asked one Nyagenkean, now father of twins.
“Even the mosquito net cannot support such diplomacy.”
Some families tried compliance and successfully failed.
Photocopies of Adam slept on the edge of the bed like visiting MPs, while those of Eves placed pillows in the middle as if marking county borders.
One man reportedly drew a chalk line across the mattress and declared it a demilitarized zone.
By midnight, negotiations had collapsed.
Contact tracing was worse as health officers arrived asking innocent but dangerous questions like, “Who were you with last Thursday?”
In Nyagenke, that is not a medical question and we don’t answer it.
Respected men developed sudden coughs of selective memory as women tightened lesos and stared at the horizon.
Chiefs decided some investigations were above their pay grade and looked the other road.
One assistant chief reported, “We asked one woman for her close contacts. She mentioned her husband and her husband alone.
The result was population explosion, whatever that means.
Registered births crossed 1.2 million in both 2021 and 2022, the highest in a decade.
In Nyagenke, this is being described as the most successful government programme since free primary education, which now receives peanuts in the form of capitation.
Midwives now demand hazard allowance and emotional compensation, while maternity wards operate like Huduma Centres with queue numbers and no seats.
Schools are also suffering and Grade One classes resemble campaign rallies.
Teachers call attendance and discover four Brians, five Shanices, and twins named Covid and Curfew because parents wanted history remembered.
The Registrar of Births here in Nyagenke reportedly ran out of normal names and is now processing applications for Sanitizer Moraa, Lockdown Kegwaro, and Zoom Manengo.
Meanwhile, village elders are now proposing a Nyagenke policy: any future pandemic must come with free airtime, compulsory farm work, and CBE homework complex enough to keep adults distracted.
The people of Nyagenke have also demanded the slogan “Stay Home, Stay Safe” be permanently banned, calling it “a fertility campaign disguised as public health policy.”
On the other side, population experts are now warning that if another lockdown happens, Nyagenke may require its own county by 2027.
The elders agree—but only if Parliament first approves a maternity wing, three nursery schools, and stronger family planning posters written in a language nobody can creatively misunderstand.
Ni hayo to kwa sasa!
- babahezel@gmail.com
