Personal History

1. Write about your name, where did it come from? what does it mean?

I’ll break it down and explain the three of them separately. My name is Faith Sidi Mwangudza. I have always been fascinated by the numerous times people have had difficulty pronouncing my 3rd name. But I’ll get to that later. Why Faith. I asked my mum. And she gave me the story. She simply had Faith that I would live. My entrance into the world was quite scary. Scary that she thought she might not make it out of the operating table. Scary that she thought she would not have a child to take back home. But the best part is, here I am today narrating this story. Meaning I made it. She made it too. My life has always been centered on Faith, on Faith, with Faith, and through Faith. Sidi is her Mother’s name. So I am named after my mother’s mum. She said. During that time when she was in the hospital delivering me, she said that between her mum and her mum-in-law, whoever arrived there first would then name me after them. Of the two, her mum got there first, and just like that, I was named Sidi. The last name is my dad’s. It’s an African culture to be named after people. And simply as it is, we take up our dad’s name. So there’s my name in its full description. ☺️😅

2. When and where were you born?

I was born in Nairobi, The Aga khan hospital. On a Wednesday. In November 1989 on the 8th day of the month. What I have never asked is what time of the day I was born. Maybe will make this enquiry☺️

3. Write about your mum, what would you want people to know?

First, she’s the most beautiful woman on earth. At 71 years, today, happy to see her glowing and taking good care of herself. Her name is Winnie. That beautiful name, I bet she was named after Winnie Mandela perhaps, or my grandparents just loved the name. My mother loves nice clothes. She loves earrings. Actually, besides selling them, she wears gorgeous ones too all the time. She’s the firstborn in her family. A family of 10 siblings. 7 girls and 3 boys. She loves her siblings even when some don’t believe, she does. She’s a lady of pursuit. She loves people and people love her too. She has so many friends. Through her, I have learned that with time, friends stop being just friends and become family. She enjoys working with people. She teaches, and not just anything but the French language. She loves it and loves to teach it too. She loves singing too but has never joined the choir, she sang previously when she was a young lady but hasn’t taken this pursuit further. She is a great-grandmother  mother of three. She is a grandmother of six. Mother to five children. She loves the church. She loves the mass. She wasn’t a Catholic but an Anglican, marriage introduced her to Catholicism and she has loved being one ever since. She loves helping people, and she loves her friends. She doesn’t like farming 😅, and says it’s a lot of work maybe just subsistence farming. She is my best friend and I love her to eternity.

4. Write about your dad, what would you want people to know about .

His name is Joseph Cornel. I love this name. Actually, he is Big Joe. He is also the first son of his family, and the second born amongst all his siblings. He speaks the best English. In fact, a few of the things he taught me have been; one, always speak in English every time you want to ask for something, and two, the food prayer I pray today for over twenty-something years he taught me and it’s in English. He actually wrote it down for me to practice it. Same prayer that I have passed down to my kids too. He loves to read, something that maybe I should either borrow or try practicing as and when. He loves watching the news and not local news, if it’s not Al-Jazeera, BBC, or CNN, it didn’t happen. It’s not news. He urges me to embrace this as well as there’s an enormous amount of information to learn from the rest of the world. He is a Roman Catholic as well. In between his seminary school study, my mum appeared and that’s how his dream of maybe becoming a priest ended🤣🤣🤣. Gladly otherwise I wouldn’t be here narrating all these. He is a man of honor and I love him very much.

5. Where did you grow up? What do you remember from that place?

So from when I was born, lived in Nairobi for close to 3-4 years there then moved to Mombasa. This is where I grew up till about 14 when we moved to another place. We lived in a place called Migadini. Nothing fancy about the place, but it was our home, I made my childhood memories there, with my childhood friends some of who are now strangers. The Akamba community was quite common but certainly, we benefited from diversity. My greatest memory of this place was when we owned a salon. This was fancy, maybe had we stuck to this business we would be the Ashley’s of today😄. I had friends, from school, church, and the neighborhood. And many years later today, I haven’t been able to make that much of friends. I had my first holy communion in Migadini and the other sacraments. My life in Mombasa was basically about school and church. Something I am grateful for today was being introduced to church at an early age. They say to teach your children the ways of the Lord and they wouldn’t depart from it. The Sunday school, and the catechism classes all formed part of my growing up in Mombasa. Basically it.

6. What was your favourite activity as a child.

As shared previously. I didn’t have much to do. Other than usual childhood playing. Kati, cha Baba cha mama😄, kibe( hide and seek), playing with dolls, kode( those on the coast know this one), and now add church activities. I literally lived in church, catechism, wanamaria. If it was not doing catechism every weekend, we would be preparing for Sunday mass activities cleaning the church, preparing the priest’s clothes, and preparing for the readings for the mass on Sundays. Basically just normal stuff and add lots of school work.

7. What was your favourite place as a child.

The showground of course. Happened once a year though and one of the favorite things I enjoyed attending the showground was the merry-go-round swings that we would ride and enjoy the day away.  Eating cotton candy was a part of this and watching the half man half fish person would culminate the day😅🤦🏽‍♀️.. Occasionally we would go to the beach for a swim depending on which auntie or family friend would be available to take us there. Once in a while, we would take a trip to Likoni Ferry just crossing the ocean, go to mama ngina drive, eat masala kachiri, and ice cream, and then we would call it a weekend. We would do this again on different weekends depending on the availability of the people to take us to those places.

8. What was highschool like for you?

Mmmhh typical just like any other high schooler. Name of my high school St John’s Girls. Located somewhere in Kilifi County, kaloleni. This wasn’t my choice I just happened to be there by chance (long story). Ideally, I was just glad I had somewhere to get an education. I think I began being serious very early in life. In form 2( year 2) I was already the deputy school captain of my school. This meant that I was already practicing leadership, doing a bit of school admin work and just ensuring that my grades also befit those of a leader to be looked up to. Besides this, I also participated in those high school educational contests. Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics. Name them I didn’t miss participation. Clearly a book warm 😄. In form three after a very heated and much contested elections, I was elected as the school captain. Bigger responsibility, which I gladly took up and at the same time ensured my grades matched my position. I have always loved leading even today leadership comes naturally. I still did the high school usuals maybe with moderation given my title, attended the school funkies, attended entertainment nights, and Found myself once in a punishment 😄. Disclaimer ( it was just once during the entire four years I spent in high school). We made noise when it was necessary, laughed, rallied people to do a little bit of mischief here and there, and I read hard too. High school was beautiful, I made friends even though strangers today, but we really had an awesome time. The teachers were great too. Some are currently late Mr Mwero my maths teacher, who saw and believed the potential in me and encouraged me to do even better. Mr Makuri my Chemistry teacher may you rest peacefully too. You made me love this subject, especially the mole concept I even wondered why everyone thought this was hard. And my headmistress Madam Kavuku, cheers to you for the great discipline you instilled in me🙏🏽😍❤️. See typical high school.

9. What was the hardest part about growing up?

Well, I think part and parcel of everyone’s upbringing is going through “tough” things that ideally shape you into the person you are today. The lack of things made me realize that some things aren’t just as important as they seem, or learning how to live without them, cope, find alternatives, or live in the joy of having what you have. I think for me being the last born, and there being a huge gap between my siblings and me, I think I technically felt like I grew up as an only child. This was because of that huge gap I couldn’t relate to my siblings, and there were things that I would have loved to talk about with them instead of figuring it out for myself. For instance, I would have loved to have spoken to my sister about feelings, emotions, and dating. I didn’t have guidance on this not that I made any bad choices but I wished I had a chance to talk about this. I think to date I would not openly discuss my personal love life with anyone other than myself 😅🥺. It’s not anyone’s fault, it just happened as is. Figuring life for myself I think was hard for me, looking back today, it shaped my independent personality and my ability to cope and adapt quickly. Not sure whether this is good or not but it happened anyways. Also moving to Mombasa made me a malaria culprit. I never could finish a month without going to the hospital and being treated for malaria. The hospital we visited I can’t recall the name I just know we used to call it Kwa Gitumbo, was almost turning into another home for me. Being treated for Malaria or Typhoid as I caught these quite frequently. But thanks to those frequent malaria attacks, I became immune, I can’t recall when I got it last.

10. What was the best part about growing up?

The fact that we lived with my best friend Bernice, and we had to eat food from two different houses every day of the week, twelve months of the year. Her mum served us one big plate of food that we would eat the two of us and after we were done, we would take the same plate to my mum to serve us what she had cooked, and we would eat this together again. This was super awesome because we got to benefit from each home’s cooking. If there was meat in one home and vegetables in another home we wouldn’t notice the lack of it because both homes complimented each other. Before this arrangement, I used to be a very picky eater, but the shared food arrangement, made me change for the better and my mum stopped worrying about how thin and unhealthy I looked.

11. When did you first leave home and what was the experience?

I think when I went to campus I never moved back home technically. Besides coming for the long holidays. When we almost cleared campus I told my friend Rachael that instead of carrying our suitcases back to our homes and starting from scratch, why not get a bedsitter that can house us during the job-hunting period? None of our parents were agreeable to this arrangement, but that was too late because we had already moved out. I remember telling my mum that I had moved out of the campus hostels and stayed outside the university grounds and she gave me that look like I hope you are not expecting me to foot the rent bills and since you didn’t consult us, it looks like you have this already figured out. The same narrative my friend Rachael got from her parents 😅😅. Luckily for parents, when you tell them your true intentions for choosing to do the things you did, they cave in abit, out of empathy and along the way they agreed to support us partly. Thankful to the friends who introduced me to online writing, we didn’t lack some money to purchase food and some utilities and shortly after clearing school I got blessed with a job. This was exactly twelve years ago.

11. What was your first job like?

I think I have written about it there’s an article I did about ten years in banking and I wrote about my first job. But essentially I was a Microfinance officer. I got embodied with toughness from that role, the same toughness that I carry along with me all throughout the different roles I have done ever since.

12. What were you mostly proud of as a child?

That I was very disciplined. That I didn’t disappoint my parents. I worked hard in school, growing up in the coast has its own challenges but I am proud I stayed grounded. Completed school without drama😅😍😍💃🏽. My teachers also were kind to me, they loved me too, and they never caned me 😅. Something I am super proud of I didn’t do punishments at all.

13. Write about your early school memories.

Somewhere up there I mentioned how we moved to Mombasa when I was around 3 to 4 years old. I think Mum first settled me in a nearby school before she could find her footing. The school was called ABC School. Hehe. African Brotherhood Church. My uniform was a checked dress with brown and white boxes. I recall one friend her name, Fatuma. Why I remember her was I broke one of her food containers and she threatened me that she would have me beaten by her older brothers. Fast forward, mum finds her footing and moves me to another school, a private school. This was fancy, even the uniform was fancy no checked dress no carrying food containers as we ate from school, and certainly no threatening Fatuma😅. I bet if she meets me today, she might want to revisit that threat. In my new school, we used the school bus well the first years before I started riding the matatu, I made awesome friends some of whom I still have contact with to date. Kina Cynthia Ateka, Musa Mwenje, and Lucy Baltazary, my awesome childhood friends who we are still in touch today.

14. What did you want to be/do when you grew up, and did you become it?

When I was a bit younger, I wanted to be a news anchor. I was fascinated by being in television. I never pursued this further, though I know if I had good guidance on this maybe I would because this dream today is creeping up. From upper primary into high school, I changed to wanting to be a doctor. I worked hard for this but somewhere along the lines it didn’t seem like it was my star😅. So no I ain’t no doctor, not no journalist today 😌.

15. Who inspired you as you matured?

My mum. I lived with her most of my growing up and I think I got to see her in action quite a lot. For starters, while working at the airport, she worked night shifts, and immediately after her shift, she would come home, open her sewing machine, and sew her day away. I never thought of asking why she was not napping or why wasnt she resting, but instead, I ushered in her clients who came to enquire whether mum was back from work so that they could check on how their dresses were coming along. She could have done this to make the extra coin, but at the same time, she was happy about doing something else over and above her daily work schedule. On the side, she also sold beautiful earrings, something that she still does today. She was always doing something extra, and I think that’s a great part of what I picked from watching her. She encouraged me a lot to keep doing better and be the best version of myself.

Pausing here for now…this has dragged on for sometime. Choosing to end here as I work on other things and clear this from the draft. I may add a few more points later, hopefully get the number to 20. But this right here is me unmasked.

#sensesnhumor