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And Home Was Kariakoo

Page 34

by M G Vassanji


  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.

  Select Glossary

  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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