Field Marshal
Elder Lister
Back in the day, our parents were forced by the Church to give us wazungu names eti they are Christian. Kama ulikuwa unaitwa Njoroge Wa Mitura like my fellow roadkill Ndeiyan wewe haungekula sakaramenti. You were destined for hell. So you became Francis Livingstone Njoroge.
Kidogo kidogo tukachanuka tukajua tulicheswo. Tukaanza kujiita Ngugi wa Thing'o, Micere Mugo, Jaramogi Odinga, Raila Odinga, Gitau Warigi and Kamau Ngotho.
Only in a few turncoat communities (ahem!) - the watermelonish Wakanesas and the dark-blue Kavirondos who are neither here nor there, like the hairless @Introvert - did the decolonisation of the mind go wrong. Which is why you still have Donald Albert Silverstone Onyango, and bizarrely, Mary Albertson, a bow-legged dry-as-rocks katimba from kule Mwingi Interior.
What worries me today, however, is the re-emergence of the use of European names among a certain demographic, mostly the young but also among the so-called celebs. It is extremely irritating to a pure-blood like me, a matigari ma njirungi ('survivor of the machinegun bullets') cut at dawn at the river and weaned on honey Murat, to be told by a youngin that his name is Charles Bronson Robertson. The ferk? Your parents named you, and you accepted, after a movie actor? For real? What ferked-up ferkery is that? Is that what Kimathi and Mekatilili died for you dimwit?
Worse, you now have broad-nosed negroes in down-town Nairobi going by just two English names. Eti Tamasha Donna. Albert Harvey. Leo nimepata a chain email from a Harold Wilson, who apparently works for Jubilee Insurance.
Mimi sijui why we are evolving backwards. Lakini ukweli ni kuwa Mwafrika nikama hajipendi..................................
Kidogo kidogo tukachanuka tukajua tulicheswo. Tukaanza kujiita Ngugi wa Thing'o, Micere Mugo, Jaramogi Odinga, Raila Odinga, Gitau Warigi and Kamau Ngotho.
Only in a few turncoat communities (ahem!) - the watermelonish Wakanesas and the dark-blue Kavirondos who are neither here nor there, like the hairless @Introvert - did the decolonisation of the mind go wrong. Which is why you still have Donald Albert Silverstone Onyango, and bizarrely, Mary Albertson, a bow-legged dry-as-rocks katimba from kule Mwingi Interior.
What worries me today, however, is the re-emergence of the use of European names among a certain demographic, mostly the young but also among the so-called celebs. It is extremely irritating to a pure-blood like me, a matigari ma njirungi ('survivor of the machinegun bullets') cut at dawn at the river and weaned on honey Murat, to be told by a youngin that his name is Charles Bronson Robertson. The ferk? Your parents named you, and you accepted, after a movie actor? For real? What ferked-up ferkery is that? Is that what Kimathi and Mekatilili died for you dimwit?
Worse, you now have broad-nosed negroes in down-town Nairobi going by just two English names. Eti Tamasha Donna. Albert Harvey. Leo nimepata a chain email from a Harold Wilson, who apparently works for Jubilee Insurance.
Mimi sijui why we are evolving backwards. Lakini ukweli ni kuwa Mwafrika nikama hajipendi..................................
