Awkward moment as elder presiding over Ann Waiguru's wedding makes reference to Waiganjo's previous marriage

Awkward moment as elder presiding over Waiguru's wedding makes reference to Waiganjo's previous marriage

Tony Mukere

July 15, 2019 2:36 PM

Both Waiganjo and Waiguru had been married before

Awkward moment as elder presiding over Waiguru's wedding makes reference to Waiganjo's previous marriage

Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru on Saturday had a colourful wedding to Nairobi lawyer Kamotho Waiganjo.

The Kikuyu-themed wedding went on well and attracted some of the biggest names in the country’s political and social sectors.

However, like every other event of that magnitude, there was an awkward hitch during the officiation of the marriage between Waiganjo and Waiguru.

A ceremony known as “gutinia kiande” marks the highlight of the Kikuyu cultural wedding – an equivalent of the cake cutting ceremony in European-themed weddings.

It involves the groom cutting a goat arm and separating it with the shoulder meat which he gives to the bride.

As Waiganjo was cutting the meat for his newly wed wife, the Master of Ceremony mentioned that he was cutting it so efficiently because he had done it before.

“This one is cutting it very fast; he knows how to do it but he has cut it before for someone else,” the event’s master of ceremony remarked.

The joke would have passed off but it became awkward as both Waiganjo and Waiguru are divorcees.

The event, nevertheless went on well, the only other controversy being a small matter of Murang’a Woman Representative Sabina Chege’s stick at the wedding.

Amateur and wannabe cultural analysts have taken to social media to criticize Chege, saying she had carried a “muthige” – a traditional stick strictly reserved for male elders.

Given the lack of strong authorities on matters Gikuyu culture, it remains unclear if the stick was a muthige or merely a mutirima or karuthaju – ordinary sticks that women were allowed to use.

Tony Mukere