My Sistas & Brodas

(This goes out to Yara, my one and only sista by blood, who just so happens to be obsessed with names and family trees)

My opposite in every way, luvyaloadz yaryour :)

Imagine this...

Incident 1: You're called into a room to take pictures of a guy and his "sister". But from just one look at the pair, you know instantly that there's either some sorta incestuous thingy going on or they're simply NOT brother and sister! You later learn the latter is true.

Theophilus & Philemon

Incident 2: Philemon wants to introduce you to his brother, who happens to be Theophilus, another one of your lovable students. But you smell something fishy because one told you his father is a farmer and the other told you separately that his father is a driver. So you assume they're trying to pull your leg, but they refer you to their "sister" who can supposedly corroborate their blood tie. She in turn tells you her father is a carpenter, ha! You later learn that they are indeed brothers with a father who has 2 jobs. But their sister's parents are their parents' brothers and sisters, which basically makes her their cousin, not sister.

Incident 3: You hear a man, oh about 28 years old, call out to his "ma", who I would say is about 35 years old. Hm... you wonder, surely she couldn't have been a mother at 7! You later learn she's really his sister.

Akos & Nanaama

Incident 4: You're told that Akos & Nana-Ama's father passed away and that they are now under the patronage of their "uncle" Godwin. Ah, ok, makes sense, right? But wait... You later learn that he is really their dad's cousin, not uncle. And in fact, they were cared for by their "father" before him, AFTER their real father passed away. Huh? Did you get that? Because I sure didn't!You later learn that their second father was actually the uncle.


The point is, it's been truly confusing trying to figure out who one's REAL brothers and sisters are. Which brings to mind a paragraph I came across in the book I'm reading:

"My mother presided over three huts at Qunu which, as I remember, were always filled with babies and children of my relations. In fact, I hardly recall any occasion as a child when I was alone. In African culture, the sons and daughters of one's aunts or uncles are considered brothers and sisters, not cousins. We do not make the same distinctions among relations practiced by whites. We have no half-brothers or half-sisters. My mother's sister is my mother; my uncle's son is my brother; my brother's child is my son, my daughter".

Now that "sista Dima" is one more title I can add to the list of names bestowed upon me, let me put names and faces to my newly adopted brothers and sisters. Here's what I have to date in my continuously growing African family album:

Godwin, aka. Nasrallah in Arabic (and quite the strategist just like him, ha!)

Emanuella/Akos, reminds me of me when I was 8

Nana-Ama, hyperactively full of life (that's her levitating in the background above)

Student Ezekiel by day

DJ Rampage by night

Issaka, the impossibly eternal optimist

Jacob, baby Kevin's daddy ("Bingo" to me though, because he 's stuck on the word!)

Michael, my Ka-ki name-giver

Ka-ti himself

Stronggy, my savvy IT consultant

Stephen, my other half in English class

With Harry who completes the English love triangle (notice my typically African skirt)

Adela, my latest prey

I'm convinced he's a good bad boy

Rasheed, aka. The Manager

Maybel, everyone's sweetheart

Justice, I call the "Corrections" Officer since I always see him correcting papers

Philemon, my hero and black knight in shining armor

Michael, my mototaxi

and (parents please look away) mototeach

Dede, the food provider (notice the tribal facial marks)

Naomi, my market companion

As you may have noticed, most of the names are NOT African. This too Mandela talks about:


"On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name and said that thenceforth that was the name we would answer to in school. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. The education I received was a British education, in which British ideas, British culture and British institutions were automatically assumed to be superior. There was no such thing as African culture.
Africans of my generation - and even today - generally have both a Western and an African name. Whites were either unable or unwilling to pronounce an African name, and considered it uncivilized to have one. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson."