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Sunday 27 January 2013
Friday 12 November 2010
Thursday 23 September 2010
Speak Swahili, Dammit!
Well then! How do you put pen to paper on such a thing as your life? You don't. You say, I'll do it sometime in the future. Why? Oh, 'cause my kids would like to know about my past. Would they? Doubts assail you. Why on earth should they want to know? My life has not been a signpost to success or achievement. It can't profitably guide them. Maybe they'd be better of striking out into "Terra Ingognito" on their own. Then, I think, how can a generation move beyond the mistakes and sins of their forebears, unless they know of these sins and mistakes? So, I sat down and began to write. Somewhere I got an inspiration - I would call the book by a ridiculous title - "Speak Swahili, Dammit!"
Thursday 2 September 2010
Sunday 29 August 2010
The Idea for "Speak Swahili, Dammit!"
I was 6 months old when my Cornish family arrived, in January 1952, at the tiny goldmine in Geita, the most remote place in northwestern Tanganyika Territory, as it was then known. By the time I could lay down any lasting memories, I was aware of being very unusual. The friends I played with were all black, and the only language I could speak with any comprehensibility or confidence was Swahili. The strange thing was that, apart from my immediate and close friends, there was, in fact, also a white, or Muzungu society on the mine, and every night when my ayah dropped me off, exhausted by running amok in the bush with my Swahili rafikis, or friends, I was suddenly surrounded by my white Muzungu family, who I couldn't understand, and who laughed or scolded every time I spoke in Swahili.
By three I had cemented my unusual position in Geita. Mum and Dad despaired. I was bringing unwanted European approbation to my family. I was very different to other Wazungu children on the mine, and even my two year older sister spoke passable English....
By three I had cemented my unusual position in Geita. Mum and Dad despaired. I was bringing unwanted European approbation to my family. I was very different to other Wazungu children on the mine, and even my two year older sister spoke passable English....
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