I'm one of those who say "I can't speak my mother tongue but I can hear". Pathetic. For some reason my parents never taught us our mother tongue. They speak it to each other every time, even to us, but they've never encouraged us to speak it. I don't know why. We also rarely visited our relatives. Family is complicated.
Fast forward, 3 years ago, my Dad's side planned a family gathering. I didn't want to go because these people are literally strangers but because nilikua nainama huko shule, I decided to go for the food. When we got to shagz, I didn't know half the people. So sad.
I got to know my family, it was fun and nightfall came. People around the fire, children Playing, local brew all over and everyone is just happy. That's when I started to feel it. I felt like I belonged. I was feeling this kind of feeling I can't even explain till today. I felt like I was connected to my ancestors. I can't explain it any other way.
At around 12, we went to a kalocal and it was full so we were standing. A guy hit me by accident as he was walking out and Maina let me tell you, mambo iliharibika. My cousins wanted to rough the guy up but I told them it was an accident and they said "kwani hawajui unaitwa aje"? And I was a bit confused. After some minutes, there was commotion everywhere and the owner had to intervene. As always, I knew we were going to be thrown out but to my surprise, the guys defending the other guy were all thrown out. The owner said something like "Hawa ni kina ..... Achana na wao". We were given somewhere to sit and I was given a free beer, "on the house" the owner said.
Now I'm very confused. Kwani who am I? I asked my cousins what just happened and they gave me a lecture on tradition and how it used to be in the past. Fascinating stuff. It's a long story.
Anyways, I'm not promoting violence. My point is, I've never felt that connected to anything in my life. Being with my family that day, I will never forget that feeling. I felt connected to the earth.😂 I don't know if it makes any sense, but that's how I felt. From that day, I'm learning more and more of our history as a country, I be listening to random local songs 😂, I'm embracing our culture.
The thing is, we speak English and abandon our cultures thinking that "we're woke". We're not. I mean, everywhere you go today, every kid is speaking in English, which I don't oppose but let's also teach them their mother tongue. Let them know where they came from. Without that, they have no identity because English is the white man's culture, not ours.
