7/28/2019 What the Dime is in a name - Mwadimeh Wa'kesho

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I was born at Wundanyi, a small agricultural town in Kenya’s coastal Taita Hil ls. My mother leftan abusive marriage in 1966 with her three children, my elder brother Goddy, my younger sister Vayo and I, then a little boy of three called Don Bosco. I never saw my dad, nay, father again until1991 at my sister’s funeral, when my Mum’s elder brother pulled me aside and whispered therewas someone he wanted me to meet. I honestly cannot remember a thing we spoke about, as inmy mind the words of Kenny Rogers’ song; Stranger must have overshadowed the mournfuldirges coming from outside Uncle Venant’s house where my father was waiting for me.

I started nursery school at the nearby Bahati Community Centre, which was ran by thePresbyterian Church of East Africa, although at home I was reminded that we were Catholic. Infact, my name Don Bosco , I was told was given to me in honour of a saint. I also heard Mumnamed me after a musician by that name (and I remember her humming melodiously some oldiesfrom Don Bosco Mwendwa's era as I grew up)

My name remained a non-issue, however, until I joined standard one at Morrison Primary Schoolacross the road in 1969 and my class teacher, also from Taita Hills, vehemently refused to acceptmy name was "Don" and rewrote my name as "John" instead of Don, and for the many years, Inow answered to the name John Bosco.

 Another peculiar childhood memory that has refused to go revolves around sex. It was mysecond year at Morrison. I had caught a big moth, the ones with eye designs on their wings andwas curiously studying its posterior with a classmate when I thought my new female classteacher had overheard my comment that the moth was producing sperms. I remember my horror that she was reporting me when I saw her talking with the headmaster, the feared Mr. Mbatia,who had dropped by the classroom. Days later, Mr. Mbatia had not thundered the question“Why?” and soon I realised my class teacher had not overheard me.

Everybody in Bahati estate spoke Kikuyu and it was not long before we were speaking thelanguage at home, despite the fact that we were Taita and should have been speaking our mother tongue, Dawida.

Most of our neighbours were equally poor with semi-educated parents. Mum dropped out of school at standard two due to lack of fees and a jealous step mother. She told us her sufferingunder the step mother again and again but said very little about dad, except that he had moved toTanzania where he had remarried. Despite the poverty though, mum was committed to us andalways extolled us to work hard in school.

Mum worked as a bar maid in town and would swop for cash the drinks bought by revellers toaugment her meagre wages. She would also bring us roast meat and sometimes chicken boughtfor her by some randy customer, which she would warm for us and watch us adoringly as wegobbled the delicacies down.

I remember having my first library card signed and stamped at school before taking it to theEastlands Library ran by the City Council of Nairobi in 1970 and sitting in the children’s sectionreading hard cover books with large type and pictures of children with equally big heads andeyes. From there on, I was hooked to reading. The library was near Our Lady of VisitationCatholic Church along Jogoo Road, a kilometre or so from home. That year I was baptised andthe name John was now ‘official’ after paying ten shill ings. I even had a stint as an altar boy andeven sneaked into the church hall where there was a boogie attended by bigger boys and girls.That day I danced my first ‘blues’ with a girl I remember we called ka-beauty (small beauty). Ieven remember the song, Let it Be by the Beatles!

Once bitten by the word-bug, I now walked to the library every other evening from school to soakup the stories and wonders from other worlds. Years later I was now allowed in the older children’s section of the library. Morrison primary too had a library where I read DavidCopperfield, and Grace Ogot and other writers to supplement my craving for written material. As if the heavens had conspired, each classroom had a library, teacher’s cupboard and the Bahati

7/28/2019 What the Dime is in a name - Mwadimeh Wa'kesho

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Community Centre had a library too, where I gladly ‘chewed book’, as we say in Kenya.

Outside the classroom, I was a regular boy who kept pigeons, raised rabbits, and a dog, Jack,bought by a neighbour but was virtually mine, and tried keeping a cat which mum expresslyconsigned to past tense. Years later, she admitted doing the cat in because she did not see whyshe should struggle to feed the three of us, and a flipping cat!

I remember being referred to in Kikuyu as “that little brown Taita boy”, a mark I grudgingly carried

because it made me so easy to describe, especially after I had broken a window pane or indulged in any other mischief. I lived in perpetual fear that a knock would be heard at the door and a neighbour or even a girl I had pinched, would step in and point a finger at me. Those werethe days mum used to declare herself “The Major”, and with belt in hand unleash countlessstrokes at her offending child. I guess she took up that title in admiration of President Kenyatta

 Aide de Camp, Maj. Marsden Madoka, who had offered her a job as a cook at the KenyaBreweries Limited. Ironically, she stopped drinking when she started working at the breweries,saying she was doing so to ensure we got a good education each.

Yet I was a bit confused; while I detested my lighter complexion, it seemed to be the envy of many especially my elder brother’s classmate, Muthoni, whose adoration seemed a tad too

intense. “Aren’t you lucky that you’re so brown!”I clearly remember her asking me. But the biggesteffect that my childhood pet peeve was to have on me, arguably, is my preference for darker girlswhen I started dating. While many African women will do anything to lighten their skins, I alwayssaid “the darker the better!”

I remember in 1975, the excitement of when my brother, sister and I accompanied mum’s sister’shusband, Uncle Christopher, for a visit to the place I was born, for the first time since we came tothe city nine years earlier. We were surprised to hear everybody speaking in Taita and wereinwardly ashamed that we had taken to speaking the ‘strange’ Kikuyu at home. Without saying aword to each other the three of us never uttered a single Kikuyu word to each other again andinstead spoke Swahili, since our Taita was so wobbly.

In 1977, I joined form one at Starehe Boys’ Centre, a charitable institution which was known for academic excellence, where I had white teachers for the first time. By then I had added my Taitaname, Mwadime (without an “H”). I remember my maths teacher, Mr. John Kirkwood, a WelshmanI think with a thick beard and an accent that I could not understand. Kirkwood has the unfortunatedistinction of being the man who hammered the final nail in my mathematical coffin.

That same year I, visited Taita Hil ls a second time during December. Every December twelve is anational holiday and I visited Wundanyi town to see the celebrations. A few days later, a letter was delivered to me through the nearby Catholic Church post address. I excitedly opened it,wondering whoever knew I was in ‘shags’, that is up country in Sheng (Sheng is the parlance

that grew out of Nairobi’s Eastlands, a mish mash of Swahili, English and other local languages). Anyhow, I settled somewhere to read ‘my’ letter and lo! It was not meant for me. And it wassteamy! This girl or woman was reliving her romping scene with some John Mwadime onDecember twelve! Embarrassed, I destroyed the letter and vowed to do something about myname to spare me such future identity confusion. When I reported back to school in 1978, mysecond name Mwadime had acquired an “H” at the end.

During my sixteenth year, a short Indian who always wore platform shoes, taught us Biology atschool. I loved Mr. Madrele’s lessons so much that I even dreamed of being a doctor after school.But he also affected me in another way; he could not pronounce my name Mwadime phoneticallyand instead called me “Mwadaim”. Soon my classmates also started calling me that jokingly.

Hey, wait a minute, I thought to myself, that sounds good, and I adopted the nickname “Dime”,pronounced as in the American coin. I had found a shortened version of my name to sign off mycartoons and paintings. I still answer to that name up to this day and even mum took to calling methat. Whenever she calls me the full name “Mwadimeh” these days, I brace for a ‘lecture’.

7/28/2019 What the Dime is in a name - Mwadimeh Wa'kesho

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When I was seventeen, the second generation identity card was introduced in Kenya and theregistration people visited our school. By then I had decided to do away with my middle name“Bosco” and add a surname. But there was no way I was going to use my 'strange' father’s name,and so I took mum’s name “Wakesho” and added an apostrophe between the “A” and “K” to read“Wa’kesho” since it was supposed to be read "wa Wakesho" meaning "son of". Meanwhile, Iadded the “H” to “Mwadime” to read “Mwadimeh”. And then I smiled for the camera.

 Around 1982, I stopped using the name John unless it is strictly official. I actually don’t turn

around when someone calls me that and some of my colleagues of more than twenty years donot even know the name is in my identity card. I will only agree to being called John the day Ibump into a non-African called Mwadimeh. I have attempted to drop the name officially but thatmeans I have to cough up close to KES 40,000 ($500)! Meanwhile, I dread looking down from theethereal and reading that name on my obituary when I am past tense!