Anyango's early literacy narrative

I always wanted to listen to mama. I listened to mama more than I actually talked to her or told her anything. She talked to me a lot, and I listened a lot. Mama never missed a word for any situation. Having never learned how to read or write, she spoke, and her word was knowledge to me. She had explanations for everything. Every night mama dreamed, and she knew what all her dreams meant. The scary part was that most of the time her interpretations were true because her dreams could come true. She always said dreams meant the opposite, and that when you are happy at a gathering eating meat, somebody had passed away. I still cannot forget   the day she told us grandpa had passed away when she had predicted it that morning through her happy dream the previous night. From then on, I fought not to believe mama’s dreams. 

Mama was not only a dreamer of dreams. She lived in the real world, and she had told me about working hard and the importance of school. I had christened mama’s talk “The Wise Wisdom Talk.” She would take the podium and deliver this talk any time she wanted, with me as the lonesome audience. She never seemed to mind that I would drift away in deep thought and let her deliver the speech without interrupting. I realized she preferred the soliloquy, and I let her be. She was my teacher, and her words mattered, consciously or subconsciously.

“My child, I want you to work hard in school,” she would begin, “In this world of today, you must get a very good education. Don’t be like me.” She would pause and give me a look that let me know she was looking into her past, and taking a bold peek into my future. Then she would continue, “I did not have the opportunity, but you do. Work hard. But remember one thing. You must be wise. Books will give you knowledge, but you must seek wisdom; wisdom to deal with the world, and yourself; wisdom to know that books may add you wisdom, but they are not everything. That is why people go to school for many years but they still don’t know what they are doing. They forget that there is another kind of wisdom. I missed on the one from books, but I still seek the other one. As for you my child, I wish you both.”

Mama had told me this as many times as she needed to, in different words, but always with the same message. She said every word with the confidence and conviction that it would be the most valuable lesson she would ever teach me.

Papa’s way was different. He had gone to school and read books. He not only bragged about his knowledge of Queen’s English, but he was highly respected at his work place for the English he spoke and wrote. As I sat with Papa in the living room, the sky blue walls were calming to my young mind, preparing me for the day’s lesson. The lower part of the wall, a deep blue color, gave a clever contrast with the rest of the wall. Papa had taught me colors in English when I was only three. He had said this was royal blue, the Queen’s color. Any time I asked him how he knew that that was the Queen’s color, he would say, “I know everything Queen, starting from Queen’s English. I hope to visit Queen’s England someday…” Papa. He was fascinated by an unknown world to him, a country far off that he had known through a language he loved.

“In this world of today...”he would start his speeches about the importance of English that I so much dreaded for being long and monotonous, “you can’t win the battle without good English. Eeeh! You cannot. But if you know English, they all respect you; they do. You get a good job, and you get respect.” My little mind would wander away from papa’s speeches as soon as these speeches began, and I knew that in order to be papa’s friend, I had to learn English every day, and be able to speak and write it like him. He would start by telling me about his essay on “Tea” that won the Cambridge Essay contest, and his prize being a dictionary that came from Cambridge, UK.

“No one else owns a dictionary like this one in this country, mama!” He would proudly tell me. “No one!”

So I would learn the songs he taught me with gusto, and I would not let my four-year old tiny self intimidate me; neither would I forget a line in the songs he taught me, for this was my special bond with papa. He would look up words from the song in his dictionary and explain them to me.

“These are all written in Queen’s English,” he would say, smiling broadly, as if to assure me of his unwavering commitment to drill Queen’s English in me.

“Yes, Papa,” I had to be engaged in Papa’s conversation about Queen’s English if I was to survive the day, any day around him. “And I know what “thy” means; it means “your!” The only way to get papa’s daily approval was repeating his previous lessons to him. 

“Ha-ha-ha!” His laughter displayed a higher pitch than his normal speaking voice, which made it even funnier. “That’s my mama,” he would proudly say. I was named after papa’s mother. Papa was an only child, and his mother had been so dear to him. Grandma died the same year I was born, and papa was proud that her mama would live on through me. He even refused to add his surname to my name, saying that it was out of respect for his mama. He said it was even better that I was born in the morning, just like grandma’s name, Anyango, meant ‘morning sunshine.’  

“You have my brains!” Papa would say, picking me up and lifting me high, high up. Placing my forehead onto his, he would add with swelling pride, “you will speak excellent English very soon. The nincompoops will be left dilly-dallying while my mama gets to shock all of them with her clever speeches. Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“Papa, let’s sing ‘Just as I am’”. That was my favorite hymn of all time. I would sit on papa’s laps and sing with him while he held the book open for me to “read” and sing with him.

Just as I am without one plea

But that thy blood was shed for me

And that thou biddst me come to thee

Oh Lamb of God I come

I come…

Papa would laugh, nod approval, and then teach me the vocabulary word for the day in a sentence.

“The skeptics will not believe you just sang Queen’s English like that, and the way you are still very small, mama!” I had learned to recognize today’s word was ‘skeptic’. He must have realized I was only four because he did not tell me to guess the meaning of the word. 

“Skeptic: someone who always doubts. Mama, you are not one because you already believe you can do this!”