Akothee’s authenticity is an inspiration to women
Esther Akoth, alias Akothee, and her now husband Dennis Schweizer, alias Omosh, in Nairobi on their wedding on April 10, 2023.
In a world full of societally obsessed aunties and a former president who insists that single mothers are a plague, Akothee’s seventh wedding is a breath of fresh air in an increasingly man-centric woman-shaming world.
I know, I know what you’re thinking. Why would someone still be excited about their seventh wedding? Why even make a big deal about it after the fourth one? Was all of it necessary? Who cares if Akothee is getting married?
We care. As netizens who enthusiastically follow her every move, Akothee rewards us by living her life out loud. Certainly some of it must be performance – even if it is a little bit, simply because once you go online and make the move to switch on the camera, the mere awareness of the camera lends itself to an otherness that does not naturally exist. But Akothee has made an effort to truly show herself across all her spheres – the madness and the glories. The triumphs, and the failings. The weddings. The divorces. The authenticity is, quite simply put, inspiring.
Why NOT get excited about your wedding, even if it is your seventh? Does one stop being excited about birthdays? Do you stop being excited about your salary? Why not search within you to find that childlike joy that pushes you to still be able to feel something? Especially when, as Akothee pointed out, unlike other influencers asking for paybill contributions for their in laws, she is footing her own largesse.
Esther Akoth, alias Akothee, and her now husband Dennis Schweizer, alias Omosh.
Why NOT show how in love you are, how happy you are to have found a partner, especially in this day and age that shows depressing and discordant news cycles about young people being murdered every day, in the name of (but absolutely not for) love? Akothee’s clarion call is not just saying she’s happy, but she’s also saying she’s made a choice, just like she has made a choice before to leave unhappy situations, or situations that were not serving her in any way, shape or form. And she is unabashed about it. She talks about her exes, why she married them, and why she left. We lap it all up.
And perhaps that is what is most important for me, as a young woman navigating the streets of Nairobi, trying to maintain a job, a family and ephemeral standards. Marriage isn’t the be all end all goal of your life.
We’ve been inculcated into and spoon-fed a gospel that believes that without a man you are nothing – Akothee shows us that a man is a happy bonus instead of the ultimate prize.
We’ve been reared to never leave anyone, and the silently overt embarrassing stain of divorces past will shroud any conversation in an African home, but Akothee has turned those conversations outward by refusing to don that shroud.
She was not taught! We are guided that "ndoa ni kuvumilia" (marriage is perseverance), that men will be men, that they’re all doing it anyway and you’re no different as long as he isn’t beating you; Akothee has shown that you don’t have to vumilia anything! That you can make everything of yourself and still be fulfilled, and when the time comes, you’ll pay for your wedding and look like a queen all the way down the aisle.
I cannot help but stan.