Sometimes our mothertongues influencing our pronunciations can be suicidal.
I remember this time, at the height of Mkepeketoni massacres in Mombasa county in Kenya on our way to Lamu.
Due to insecurity we decided to cram few Quran verses and give ourselves Islamic names, just in case.
One of our friends from the mountains however had the hardest time as we tried to look for an Islamic kinda name for him.
We tell him he will be called Hussein, let him practise his name he says "My name now is Huchein"
We change to Abdulatif, he says " Now I'm Abdiratif "
We brainstorm, and baptize him Swaleh, he then proudly says, "So you say i will be called Chwaree. "
We even chose the simplest name, Ali, and we clearly tell him that this is his last chance, if he fails he remains at Mtwapa eating trappers. He closes his eyes, clenches his fist, swallows some saliva, and using the joy of the Lord in his strength he loudly proclaims
" Ehe, my dear fellow Muslims, your friend here ARI "
Seriously Kamau, you tell a radicalized Al-shabaab your are Ari, or Huchein, he will stick a grenade in your posterior and kick you at the buttocks which will end in shreds.
All in all, we should be proud of our mothertongues.
