I was born in the village-there I said it. I went to baby class in one of the local nursery schools (kindergarten for some of you).They taught in my native dholuo and instead of milk or juice during break time, they gave us porridge. I can’t for the life of me understand why the porridge had to be damn hot. The other kids were able to drink it but it burned my lips to the point where I stopped drinking it altogether. I was hungry all the time but at least it made me a few friends who offered to drink it for me.
I think that experience scarred me for life; I can’t drink any thing hot. I used to be embarrassed before but with time I came to accept it. When I go into a restaurant these days and I buy a hot drink, I play with my phone or eat something else while I wait for it to cool. When I visit people’s houses they are always like “mbona haukunywi chai yako” and I smile and distract them with lots of stories and it almost never fails to get them off my back. At work I used to go into the kitchen and look for something to poesha the chai until the Kitchen lady found me and told me to and I quote “grow up” and I stopped. So I devised a new method to cool my tea-yes I added cold water from the water dispenser to make it warm. I know its disgusting but the body wants what it wants when it wants .I normally watch in awe as some people get the chai from the jiko to their lips. wish I could do that too.
My dad got a job in the city hence we had to move. Then he made the “mistake” of enrolling me in one of the good nursery schools there. Thats when I countered the first culture shock. These kids spoke fluent English and Kiswahili. Some of them had been born outside the country and had impeccable English and I was blown away. I mean they spoke like some of the people I saw on telly .The only language I could speak was dholuo, hence the language barrier. I could not talk to the other kids and yes the teacher too. When the teacher asked me what my name was I had no idea what she was going on about.
why are all kindergarten teachers female?
Some teachers confused this with nonchalance and reported me to my mama. She decided to stick my name on my sweater next to my handkerchief to save the teacher from asking or even calling her to school again.
This meant that I lived a double life. In school I was quiet but at home I was a parrot and couldn’t stop speaking, it was like I was compensating for the silence at school. Whenever my father wanted me to keep quiet, hed tell me to say what I wanted to say in English
I know cruel ,right?
but at least he didn’t tear my ass up with the switch like some of the kids in our neighborhood.
So you could say that this was when I became obsessed with English. I wanted to know it, I wanted to be fluent like the kids at school, and so I came up with a plan on how I was going to learn English.
I read books,watched cartoons, hang around the cool kids and listened to their conversations. Bet they thought I was weird.
I later learnt that our house help did not know how to read or write so I took it upon myself to teach her. She was so embarrassed to be taught by a child such that I whenever I gave her homework she copied from the textbooks and this pissed me off and I gave up on her(come on,I was a child).So I continued having the torture sessions where I had to translate for her what was being said on telly on those soaps-remember THE RICH ALSO CRY,NO ONE BUT YOU,THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL(oh the things I did for love)
Through out school I performed well in English and when it came time for choosing a course to take in college it was easy because I knew I wanted to do. yes English and literature. No matter what happens English remains and will always be my favorite subject.
Wish my father could see me now, not only do I k now English but I also teach it.
Feels so good!
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