Why do I read?
I started reading at a young age, encouraged by my parents to read not just the alphabet, but to grasp larger words. And so, evening, before dinner time, would find me sitting next to my dad, trying out the newspaper, large in my tiny six year old hands. The fact that I was the youngest in the family meant that I was often kicked out of the kitchen – so as not to bug my sisters, and so that they didn’t have to babysit me. I thank them for that!
I had been brought up in Nairobi till I was about 9, when my parents then relocated up country after retirement, and I was kind of lost.
My friends were gone, and other than my siblings, I didn’t have many other kids to interact with. Given the huge size of the farm too, there wasn’t many places my little chubby legs would walk to. And so I learned to dig into my siblings books. I remember first reading the Enid Blytons, and soon enough, I’d changed my name to Georgina, and wanted to be called George. Of course, my mom would hear none of this, but it didn’t stop me from writing it on my books and term papers. Soon enough, I’d moved on to Hardy Boys. And then, I ran out of kids’ books.
I remember picking up Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, and wondering what that was really about. I took it as an adventure into a village that in my mind wasn’t too far – despite knowing where exactly Nigeria was. I wanted it to relate. But the book was somewhat too complicated for my 10 year old brain then, and I just read it for the sake of keeping busy. Soon enough, it was time for W. H. Lawrence. That too confounded me, but I kept reading and finished what I thought was the largest tome I’d ever laid my hands on. The newspapers helped me hone my English – I would fill out the crossword daily with my dad as we sat waiting for dinner.
When I was bored, I would read my father’s law books and some of his papers, without fully grasping what it was about. But the information would stay in my brain, and the big words wouldn’t be so scary when I learned them in school. My brother set me on a challenge: read the bible from start to finish. And in three months I was finished. I set on to my sister’s biology and nursing books, and discovered the wonders of the human body. In between, I stumbled on Grace Ogot, Barbara Kimenyi and David Malilu (GASP!) and John Kiriamiti.
When I was sent to boarding school, I volunteered to clean the library each day, just so I could have an hour in that sacred space, breathe in the musty smells of books, handle each lovingly as I put them back on their shelves. And when I was done cleaning, I would sit on the one little chair that was set in the corner (it was a tiny library, stacked from top to bottom on all sides). On the weekends, that would be my hiding space. I was somewhat shy, and this was one place I could escape to where I had friends. Sometimes I would sneak out the books during a lesson, so engrossed in the story that I didn’t want to put the book down. I got caught while in class 8, and was made to sit out the rest of my year of music classes. As everyone went on with the lesson, I would only be too happy to sit outside the class as ordered – only that I would bring whatever I had been reading, and finish reading it in peace! Thank God for the easy 8-4-4 system, I did pass my exams, despite the absence in class.
Everything was an adventure to me. I would pick up a book, sit in a corner, and not move until someone came looking for me. My sister would sometimes get frustrated with me, as she would be talking me yet I had gone off on another adventure. Or I’d be up all night, before my college classes, and be dozing off the next day. All because of an adventure that was offered to me, free of charge. Robert Ludlum, Wilbur Smith, Sindey Sheldon, Danielle Smith, Barbara Kingsolver all were favorites, and were as quickly discarded for new favorites as I grew up – Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, and Dan Brown. They and more authors sent me off in journeys to seek
Recently I discovered an appetite for African writers, and writers from the middle east. Not the usual American and British fictional writers. I wanted adventures right in my backyard, or at least, close enough. Naugib Mahfouz, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, Alexander McCall, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ben Okri, and more…. I couldn’t count the books I’ve read.
Each day is an amazing journey. I oscillate between the continents, dashing from country to country, adventure onto the next, journey into the unknown. I hoard all my books – because I’ve lost too many precious copies, and because I want my kids to learn what adventures were available to me.
Each day is a reading revolution. Come, discover the world with me.
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