Patriot's Diary # 36: A Country of Linguists

It’s the home stretch as we wrap up the Patriot’s Diary series. It has been a couple of months of trying to figure out what it is that makes being an African patriot; a Kenyan, so personal and worth the fight for its prosperity. I finally figured out 5 more reasons to hit our target 40 reasons why Kenya, the African state on the coast of East Africa is worth my while.

Initially I loved school up until my family moved back to Kenya when I was eight years old. The change of the school system shocked me. It was an absolute shift; like day and night. First of all I was a tall, chubby kid who had a strong British accent and I didn’t speak a word of Swahili. It was rough; in class, the teachers occasionally cracked jokes or said things in Swahili and I had no clue of what they were saying.

Kiswahili lessons were a daily torment, initially I asked my desk mate to help me out with my homework. Then he offered to do it for me in exchange for my lunch; that didn’t last long I got fed up of him eating all my food. I was back to the beginning, I used to cry myself to sleep and most nights my mum and sister would stay up late with me, to help me out with the homework. School was dreadful.

Living away from your home country strips certain things from you. I just hated everything Kenyan because I felt like I was being forced to learn some ‘shady’ unhelpful language. I can remember at the end of my first term in school I got 10% that's waaay below an ‘F’. At some point I just hated this country and begun looking at Kiswahili as an inferior language. Looking back now, I am grateful for one thing though, that I was in a system that forced me to learn my national Language.

Well that was then, this is now. Just a few minutes ago I realized that it all was a blessing in disguise. Because the truth is, it is not every day that you can boast of being trilingual. That’s unless you are Kenyan. The average Kenyan who speaks their mother tongue and has a basic elementary education which taught them English and Kiswahili makes us trilingual. So there you have it being Kenyan equals being trilingual.

And there are Kenyans who also speak other foreign and ethnic languages from across the globe. Literally Kenya is a breeding ground for linguists. And that is another reason to shout from the roof tops about how grandeur being Kenyan is. Ciao! Oriti! Aufwiedersehen! Kwaheri! Good bye!