Speak Swahili, Dammit!: A Tragic, Funny African Childhood James Penhaligon
The inspiring true story of a young boy’s chaotic life in a remote, wild, corner of East Africa. James’s childhood is spent on an isolated gold-mine near Lake Victoria, Tanganyika, with just his sister and mother; his father tragically dying through injuries sustained from World War II. His upbringing is mainly left to a tribal ayah called Amina and an elderly Swahili man, and he learns to speak Swahili before English. In this unusual setting he soon discovers some stark facts about life through tragedy and danger, but it is the local watu, imbued with kindness and irrepressible humour, that save him from despair, and with whom he learns to fish with home-made lines, eat insects and famously abuse the European hierarchy in real Swahili! Known as ‘Jimu’ to his friends, he marks out his o...
