Ta’hoora m’Bisha
(pronounced: ta ho rah be-sha)
my mother tongue – Kikuyu
Ta’hoora means Beat. Yes, to beat.
To beat the living daylights out of something. When I say speak this word with one hand on my voluminous hip while the other hand makes a circle in the air infront of your face - it’s a taunt – you think you can beat me?? Ha! Sailor whistle – Bring it ooooN!
The word m’Bisha is a direct mangling of the English word – picture. FYI, Kikuyu’s don’t have the letter P, so all p’s are tormented and pushed inside out to sound like the letter ‘b’. Try as they might, the colonialists just couldn’t get my grandparents to groan out the sound ‘ch-urr’ because their noses weren't skinny and narrow enough plus surprisingly enough they didn't have cotton stuffed up them…. Lollest, throw in the fact that we’re always smiling so our voicebox emits a slightly higher pitch - thusly the latter part of the word pic-ture was further distorted into the word ‘sha’. – all in all the word, picture became ‘Bisha’. Oh, don’t forget to press your lips together before you say B. m’Bisha.
why you laughing like that??? this is history or whatever the study of social cultures is called..... (inbox me on FB if you know the name of that course!)
moving on....
…. when you follow the word ta hoorah with m’bisha, it literally means one of three things....
Imagine that! (no camera)
or
Beat that photograph – addressed to someone holding a camera…
Oops.
My bad.
It means TAKE that photograph: Take that shot!
Lol.
Pronounced slightly differently, Ta-hoora m’Bisha also means
“Please take a photograph of me” when I am holding a camera.
Quaint!
(self-portrait)
Close-cut
© Ta'hoora m'Bisha
Nymo - Nyakio Munyinyi Okallo
Nymo - Nyakio Munyinyi Okallo
