Surnames

Every country has its set of common names. If you take a Kenyan telephone directory (do they still exist), there’s bound to be hundreds of Kamaus, Njoroges, Otienos, Mutuas etc. Some of them have
the same first names too. Kamau Peter, or Otieno Peter could appear like almost a hundred times and you may not identify them. You are likely to find the same thing with the Papathopoulos of Greece, Martins, Campbells, Smiths and Jones of UK, USA and maybe Australia, but these ones are easier to locate with post codes.

But talking of Kenya, the Kamaus and Njoroges have this naming ritual pattern where children are named after their grandparents, aunties and uncles, making them one of the few people who change surnames. A husband will have a different surname with his wife and children. If say, my name is Wambui, and I married Kamau Njoroge, my name will be Wambui Kamau. My children will not be Njoroges, but Kamaus. My first born son will be Njoroge Kamau, and his wife and children will bear the surname Njoroge. This will carry on for every one of the children, meaning that if my father’s name is Mwangi Kihara, my second son will be Mwangi Kamau, but his wife and children will bear Mwangi as their surname. My third son will be named after my husband’s eldest brother, or if my husband is the eldest, the immediate junior brother (or who should have been named). If his name is Maina, his wife and children’s surname will be Maina. You've guessed right, my fourth son will be Kihara Kamau.

The girls will bear set middle names. If my husband's mother's name is Wangui, my first daughter will be Wangui Kamau, and her second daughter will be.........yes, Wambui.

We, the Kikuyus do not fish for names, names find us or found us. We already know what our children's names long before they are born. I knew my second born girl's/boy’s names when I was a little girl.

Gikuyus do not retain surnames, and it saddens me that when Gikuyu women get married to their fellow Gikuyu men in the western world, the authorities kinda force them to adopt their father-in-law’s surnames to prove they are married to their husbands. Their first born sons end up losing their surnames, and some loose identities.

Get the drift?

When the other woman becomes the other woman

Most of my life I have always hated Camilla. Yes the 'future queen'.

I always looked at her as the other woman, the woman who wrecked Diana's marriage, the mistress. She had nothing Diana had, beauty, charisma, the list is long. But didn't she meet Charles before Diana? Didn't Charles say he was in love with her long before and after Diana? Hadn't she at some point also looked at Diana as the other woman?

Imagine for one second that Charles and Camilla had gotten a child before he met Diana. Imagine also that Camilla and Diana were good friends, close friends and that Camilla introduced Diana to Charles as a friend, and that Diana, being the woman she was, used her feminine charms to get Charles, then slept with him coz she felt that Camilla didn't deserve him. Imagine too, Camilla kicked Charles out and that Charles went to live with Diana, not married, but cohabited for almost 10 years. Then Charles decided that Diana was not the woman, that Camilla was, just like he decided in real life when he accepted publicly that Camilla was the love of his life and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And imagine that Camilla accepted Charles back into her life, just like she did only that it took Charles more than 7 years to win Camilla back, and imagine that Charles and Camilla got married in the end, just like they did, except in this case, there was no Parker Bowles, and lastly, imagine that Diana lived to see Charles and Camilla's wedding.

I so much feel like Camilla right now, and although I was so bitter with the Diana who did all the above and my Charles for lowering his standards coz my Diana was not pretty and had no charisma, right now she also thinks of me as the other woman.

Recover all

I finally found my Mr Maua.

On 21st April, the man I fell in love with 18 yrs ago, the father of my child and the one I dreamt that would let me complete him finally got into my life, fully.

To the Man upstairs, I just wanna thank You for Your completion. 2011 was the year of pursuing and 2012 became the year of recovering all, 1 Sam 30:18.

I THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR FAITHFULNESS.