Sandak Kichungi – Unifying Kenyan Women

As any writer can attest, writing about women is a risky undertaking. Inasmuch as all my writings are based on personal observations, women are a different ball game altogether. This is because when it comes to women, what you see is not necessarily what you get. Speaking strictly from a man’s point of view, I would say women are complicated. They are so complicated that even they do not seem to completely understand themselves.

I have heard, and also observed, that women are fiercely competitive. However, I am reliably informed, their competition is not always about us men. It is true that women compete with each other but it is not for the purpose of netting any men in particular. Rather, their competition is aimed at outdoing each other as an end in itself. This hypothesis was put in perspective by a colleague’s wife. On being asked why she puts so much effort into looking good and yet she had already ‘netted’ him, she replied, “I am not doing this for you. I do it to prove to other women that I am doing well.”

If you visit a pub or village restaurant, you will find men of all statuses interacting freely. Any two men who interact regularly soon become soulmates. They can spend hours discussing nothing in particular. They can also keep each other’s deep dark secrets. They can do all this without even knowing each other’s second name. Women on the other hand, conduct the kind of vetting that is akin to a senior management job interview. By the time they shake hands the first time, they know enough about each other to put one in jail. However, when all is said and done, women rarely make friends with people who are not in their social class.

There has never been a way in which women can have anything in common across the social classes until now! There is a particular shoe that entered the market a few years ago and it has taken the fashionosphere by storm. It is a plastic shoe of the Sandak brand made by bata and any woman worth her salt (or lack thereof) has a pair. The shoe is locally referred to as Sandak Kichungi which simply means the Sandak sieve. It is so called due to its meshed plastic upper that looks remarkably like a sieve.

The interesting thing about Sandak Kichungi is that it an all-plastic shoe moulded as one piece. It reminds

me of the time I was in primary school. Previously I used to wear rubber shoes because my mother would never agree for me to walk barefoot like other kids. Later in the mid 80s, the Bata shoe company introduced a whole range of plastic shoes. Every style from pumps to brogues was represented. My choice, of course, was sneakers. Each new pair would last me from a few months to one year before it cracked right through.

Sandak shoes in those days were worn by the poor and so were only found in the rural areas of the kind I grew up in. I don't know when the shift happened until now when pairs of the humble kichungi sandaks are to be found in homes of the most affluent members of our society. The kichungi, fashioned from the ballet shoe concept, has transcended all social classes. It has in a very true sense brought the women of this country together. I think it is what would have been needed to complete the look of the now defunct national dress.

For the first time in history, women seem to be ahead of men in unity. I hear some men saying that football brings them together. This is however not entirely true since it only applies to those who support the same team.

As a sign of affection, every man should buy his woman a pair of kichungis. He however needs to keep her happy or else she might decide to use the shoes for their other purpose - as a sieve. If that happens, he shouldn't be surprised if the soup served to him has the peculiar smell of dirty feet.