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| Thursday, 15 May 2008 |
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Home  Musings More Musings (2004) Shikamoo |
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Johari, our Swahili teacher enters the house to a chorus of ‘Shikamoo’
from the kids. She utters the guttural ‘Marahaba’ as required in
response. Shikamoo literally means ‘I kiss your feet’ and it is the
preferred Swahili greeting if you wish to be polite and honor those
significantly above your age. [More on Shikamoo in a moment, but I’m
afraid we must deal with the American elections first…It was Julius
Nyerere, the George Washington of Tanzania, who joined the nation in a
single national identity, unified the people and persuaded them to
speak in a common tongue, who once said, “Electing an American
President is far too important to the world to be left to the Americans
alone.” ]
On Wednesday, my cell phone rang in the middle of the time I generally
reserved for tennis lessons, which I had postponed to watch the
election webcast streamed in live. “Who’s winning?” Majuto, my tennis
trainer, wanted to know.
“My guy lost,” I heard myself acknowledge, the
first time I had spoken those awful words.
“Pole sana ,” he muttered
before hanging up the phone, “then the whole world has lost as well.”
Pole sana is an expression of deep sympathy, sorrow, and regret. It has
become the standard phrase used after mentioning the word ‘Bush’. Here,
now, today, ‘George Bush’ is followed by ‘pole sana’ as routinely as a
sneeze evokes ‘God bless’. And with pole sana we too, here, offer our
condolence and regret.
 Announcer: “In just two days of US elections, John Kerry has publicly conceded defeat and congratulated his opponent.” Viewer: “Ha! Americans have a lot to learn from Africa !”
Which brings us back to shikamoo – ‘I kiss your feet’. Okay, I admit it
is way over the top, but it tells us something very important about the
local culture. First, the Tanzanians take real pride in Kiswahili, the
mother tongue brought to them as a common language by the father of the
nation, a language which unites. The ‘pure Swahili’ differs from the
adulterated in several simple ways, notably in the level of politesse
(what some other East Africans mistake for obsequiousness). Where
Kenyans and Ugandans will make requests using the verbs ‘kutaka’ (to
want) or ‘kupenda’ (to like), these words are too harsh for the more
refined Tanzanian ear. Here the preferred mode of request is ‘kumba’
(to beg) when for example ordering food. “I beg you for chicken and a
bowl of rice,” is a highly polite and commonly used phrase, and not a
‘beg’ at all (and certainly not begging in the sense of, say, ‘I would
gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today’ or ‘please, sir, may I
have some mooore?’)
So, I ask you, when your standard request is already put in the form of
plea, where do you go to give tribute to those seen as deserving of
real praise? There isn’t that much room to go up on the Kiswahili
begging tree…so, obviously, you go down…on your knees. (Important note:
I get the feeling that the speakers here use the term with about as
little concern for the actual meaning of the words as we might show
when using the term ‘brown nose’…which I believe refers to a condition
arising from the kissing of…oh, boy, I don’t think I really want to go
there, but I think you get my drift.)
To the Tanzanians, then, Shikamoo
is a term of polite respect, a homage paid to elders, free from the
literal meanings of the words. I have come to think of it as a lovely
word, suitable for a closing as much as used to greet…and thus I wish
to pass along a greeting from Tanzania, the Birthplace of Man, by
saying, “Pole sana and Shikamoo, y’all!” |
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Heard This? |
La kuvunda(kuvunja) halina rubani.
=
A vessel running agroud has no captain. |
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