And Home Was Kariakoo (45 page)
Read And Home Was Kariakoo Online
Authors: M.G. Vassanji
I
T
’
S A BRIGHT
S
UNDAY MORNING IN
D
AR
, and I’m sitting in the front row of a gathering inside a quietly festive Diamond Jubilee Hall, in Upanga, ten minutes’ walk away from my former home, wondering how I allowed myself to slip into my predicament. Actually I’m panicking. A few days before, I was approached by some people to speak words of wisdom to a graduating class of young students; I could be as brief as I wanted; I might speak of careers in science and the arts. They, everyone, would be delighted and honoured. There are ways of approach that appeal to your vulnerability, and I knew I could not refuse without sounding brash and arrogant. These people were from my tribe, so to speak: I came out of them, we had lived and prayed together, we went to the same schools. The ties were emotional. The fact that intellectually I had gone my own way was irrelevant.
Now here I am, and to my utter bewilderment I find out that the graduating kids are from an early-childhood learning program. I’ve been tricked, it appears. In the hall, buzzing with excitement, there are a few dozen four-year-olds, their proud mothers and fathers with them, smiling nervously, along with leaders of the community. What do I say to these little ones? What do I know to say to them?
Words of wisdom? Careers? Science and arts? Earlier this morning I prepared some lines to say to teenagers; now as the proceedings begin, and the leaders get up on the stage to speak, followed by a teacher, my predicament only deepens.
The graduating class arrives one by one on the stage, each child dressed in a well-wrought costume that signifies a message, followed by a beaming young mother, her comforting hand touching the child’s shoulder. This is no ordinary graduation. The majority of the kids are Asian, but there are some who are African and mixed-race, and all belong to the community—how times have changed. As the teacher calls out a name, a child comes forward from the wings, with the mother standing behind, and recites in a unique manner, sometimes prompted by the mother, the name of a career to match the costume he or she is wearing: I am an astonaut; I am a scientist; I am a poet.
It’s not for me to tell them anything, it’s they who are telling me, they of the new Tanzania, the future, with their own dreams to follow. And am I the same person, who sits here now wrenched, having been where I’ve been to and done what I have done, who at their exact age played in the mud of Uhuru and Sikukuu streets?
They’ll go where they want to, and become many things, and perhaps some of them will even return. Which is what, I think, I said to them.
Asian
“South Asian”; since people originally arrived in East Africa before the subcontinent was partitioned, and most early Asians arrived from Gujarat and Kutch, I have also used the more evocative term
Indian
in this book, when it applies.
ahsante
thank you
bajaji
the Indian-made autorickshaw (made by the Bajaj company)
bana
Stanley’s pronunciation of “bwana”
Bhadala
a traditional seafaring community of Kutch and Gujarat
Baluchi
people originally from Baluchistan (now in Pakistan)
biriyani
a spicy, flavoured rice-and-meat dish
duriani
the tropical fruit durian, with a characteristic smell
gaam
town; downtown
jambo
hello
karibu
welcome
Khoja
traditionally a community from Gujarat and Kutch; also, based on religious practice, referred to as “Ismaili,” which term however occludes ethnicity or place of origin. Another branch of the Khojas are the Ithnasheries, who split away in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to join the mainstream Shia faith.
maalim
a Muslim practitioner of traditional medicine, sometimes an exorcist
mandazi
a fried bread
Mhindi
an Asian or Indian (from “Hind”)
mtumwa
a servant or slave
Muganda
a member of the Baganda people of Uganda
Mungu
God
Mwarabu
an Arab
Mwenyezi
Almighty
nani?
who?
omba
from “kuomba,” to beg
starehe
(in context, although probably not used this way anymore) relax; don’t trouble yourself
thuppo!
a form of hide-and-seek
wadi
neighbourhood
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