Kiswahili has never been a darling of mine, that much i know..i dont know whether to blame geographical orientation as people from our community usually battle with the language or blame my upbringing. i started my nursery and class 1 in shags where we could communicate almost everything in the local dialect, i was then brought to Nairobi in class 2. That is when shit became real. i remember at one time my two elder brothers and i were late for school,the teacher on duty had sieved the pupils who were late ready to receive two strokes of the cane, she asked me mbona umechelewa? kwani mnaishi wapi? i didnt know the name of our estate, nor did i know enough kiswahili to construct a sentence with, so i pointed where i thot home was and said hukoooooo. huko ni wapi, binguni? she asked feeling all scared i pointed at my two elder brothers n said an kod gi to mean i am with them. i doubt if she understood what i said but she looked at my brothers n saw some resemblance and asked them, mnaishi wapi? i was expecting them being 2 classes my senior, to apply some of the little swahili they might have picked up in class 3 n 4. they also pointed to the sky saying hukoooo..ehh!! if only they were allowed to draw a map. Then there was this time my two cousins came from mombasa to nairobi for my aunts wedding., the youngest one whom by then must have been in nursery shredded us with kiswahili sanifu. i was then in class 5. i remember him asking me Mara yako ya mwisho kuenda bara ilikuwa lini? , i thot bara was short for barabara, so i answered mimi navukanga obaro kila siku, kwani huko mombasa hakuna ndara?? then he said si bara bara, kwani haujui bara? feeling i was cornered by a kid i insisted najua, ona huyu..mimi najua bara and crawled up the house looked at my kamusi and i swear it didnt help me much. My challenge with this language took its toll when i was in secondary. there was a new set book called kitumbua kimeingia mchanga. The teacher right away threw us into jeopardy telling us to write some insha on that topic. i looked around trying to get wind of what kitumbua really was coz mchanga and kimeingia i knew. I heard someone say something like kitungu and thats how i wrote 3 fulls-cap pages of how different soil types affect the growth of onions. i got 3/40.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 18:11:34 +0000
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