First Lady confronts ‘elephant in the room’

FIRST Lady Monica Geingos said she decided to confront ‘the elephant in the room’ by talking about President Hage Geingob’s proposal.

Responding to questions during a Nelson Mandela Washington Fellowship Southern Africa Regional Conference panel discussion in Johannesburg recently, Geingos spoke about the 35-year age difference between her and the husband.

“Let me confront the elephant in the room – there is a 35-year difference between my husband and I,” she told the audience, adding: “I thought about all the things other women are going through and what they are tolerating and all I have to tolerate is the age difference – what a pleasure!”

Geingos recalled how nasty she was whenever President Geingob approached her with a proposal and how she devised a plan to ward him off by referring to him as ‘tate’ as well as poke fun at his big ‘belly’.

“I’m going to tell a personal story because my husband, before he was President, tried to get this relationship started for a long time and I castigated him, I called him old,” she said.

She further said: “I was just nasty. And then I pulled the classic move we all pull when you’re not interested in an older man … you start calling him uncle or tate. My husband looked at me patiently and he said ‘one day you and I will get married’ and he couldn’t care less about my insults or the age problem because that is all I could see.”

But she said there came a point when they started to talk, engage and relate and that is when it dawned on her that “this man is my soul mate and the only thing keeping me from my soul mate is this issue about his age”.

Geingos spoke about their working visit to Angola when she asked her husband whether the woman – Ana Paula – accompanying the Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos was his wife or his daughter.

“I whispered ‘is that his wife or his daughter’? My husband said ‘hey you hypocrite, people ask the same about us’,” she said much to the laughter in the room.

Although Geingos advised career women to focus on their chosen fields, she also said they should seek out the right life partner.

“You have to focus on your career, but your career does not keep you warm at night. You want someone to talk to at night,” she said.

She said people should not mind too much what others say about their decisions in life.

“Be focused in life and get what you feel you deserve. You deserve to have a fulfilling career and if you cannot match that with a man who deserves you, then you shouldn’t try to, it will come.”

When asked how other African First Ladies can use their influence to effect change in their communities, Geingos said a first lady is not elected and she often does not a have budget.

“All she has is her voice and all she can do is lend her voice and compliment what a government is doing,” she said, adding that her role is to compliment some of her husband’s initiatives and policies. “I allow him to run the government because that is what he was elected to do. I was not elected to do that.”

She also said it is never a good idea to be in the same line of business as her husband. “He does his thing and I do mine.”

Geingos said first ladies need to define what their role is and what shapes their existence.

“Being a first lady is temporary, but being a professional is permanent. Nobody can take that away from you,” she said.

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