Meaningless Political Language

Before Hussein closed the duka in the evening, one day in June, circa 1957, he called out to Fatma and asked her if she could make pilau. Fatma’s rice dish was aromatic due to cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, herbs, and other spices and was always irresistible. Especially the ukoko or the crispy top layer of pilau. This top layer forms with hot red charcoal spread on to the aluminum cover of the pot for a few minutes after the pilau is cooked. The heat from the top of the pot slightly browns, crisps, and burns the rice at the top. Pilau is loaded with calories and carbs causing one to feel drowsy after the meal. The whole family could not but associate that outstanding pilau fragrance with Fatma’s special ingredient of love and passion.

That evening, like every other evening, Hussein sat on a godo or a stool made by wagogo tribe from a tree trunk. This was his socialization time as passersby stopped and chatted with him about everything. They could talk for hours articulating their experiences in stories form. The oral tradition, having been passed on through many generations, augmented the spoken vernacular.

Mathonya, a mgogo tribesman, was hired by Hussein as a helper. He also spoke Swahili. He had a superb memory that kept many kigogo stories passed down through generations. Shiraz and Mohamed were very fond of his stories about sungura or a rabbit. The stories revolved around the rabbit and how it tricked the lion into not eating it. In one of the stories, when the lion almost caught it, the rabbit pretended to be holding the huge rock from falling. The rabbit asked the lion to help him hold the rock lest it kills them both while the rabbit would fetch help. The rabbit never came back. In the second story, the lion caught the rabbit. But the rabbit pleaded that there was a bigger lion waiting to eat it. The rabbit led the lion to the clear water pond and asked the lion to meet the other lion, except that the other lion was its own reflection. In rage, the lion jumped in the pond. The rabbit escaped again.

The stories were not only creative, but they also assigned higher value to intelligence. Neither size nor predatory nature of species are a match for quick thinking and solutions – the main ingredient in the adaptation and survival of the human species. It is probable that Mohamed picked up the story telling trait from Mathonya.

That evening, a local Swahili speaking passerby flung insults at Hussein. Implicitly, the outbursts mirrored racially polarized language. He was venting out anger that was probably instigated by newly emerging political language of seeking freedom and independence from foreign rule. Hussein was not a foreigner, but political language can change a person’s perceptions. Firoz witnessed the commotion and punched him before he could physically attack Hussein. The British court dismissed the case based on self defence.

Swahili had evolved into a written vernacular with grammar and extensive vocabulary. It was becoming prominent in Tanganyikans’ attempt at self determination. Independence from the British was a prerequisite for the black Africans from not being exploited and discriminated. In 1954, Julius Nyerere, a local teacher, educated in England, started an independence movement by organizing people through the formation of TANU or Tanganyika African National Union chapters in every locality in the country. He used slogans, such as, uhuru ni umoja or independence and unity, Tanganyika for Tanganyikan Africans, etc.. He emphasized peaceful means to achieve self rule. However, his emphasis on freedom movement for black Africans excluded all others.

For the first time, there was a burgeoning sense of self dignity in the air amongst native Africans, the lowest tier in the colonial social structure. Human dignity, freedom, and equality are ideals of all the people. But in politics, the aspiration for independence translates into many imaginable expectations. The black Africans began talking about marrying the Asian girls. Such language was aimed at instilling not only fear but at humiliating and alienating the Asians.

Although Hussein’s epistemic limitations could not fathom percolating political freedom movements, he openly supported it. He already had many African friends involved in the freedom movement. Imam Sultan Mohamed Shah had advised the Ismailis to integrate blacks in their businesses and to adopt orphaned Africans children and help better their lives. One day, he said, they will be leaders who will respect you for your kindness and compassion.

Many Ismailis, and the Asians in general, avoided any attempts at integrating them due to a generation of racism acceptance as normal. Moreover, the local Africans provided a cheap labour force and domestic servitude to the Asians and Europeans for decades. This crystallized not only their sense of superiority over the blacks, but also there was no hesitation in the exploitation of the latter both in labour and in procuring their agricultural products at the former’s discretion prices. Profit and wealth became obsessive. Again, the Aga Khan issued a directive that the Ismailis should live a simple life of austerity. Get rid of the second car if you have two, he said. Walk more because it is good for your health, he added.

These independence movements in most colonies were ironically led by those educated and groomed by the British in English universities. Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Jomo Kenyata, and Nyerere, etc., led freedom movements using the Western categories of nationalism with devastating results. The British Nation, or the French Nation, were ethnically based. Africans are made up of many ethnic groups.

Here, the nation implied Africa for black Africans. Black Africans did not make sense. It glossed over the reality of tribal existential differences. Arab countries for Arabs. Some Arab countries were in Africa. The unbridgeable difference in defining an Arab, still haunts the Arab world. India came to be perceived as a Hindu nation, and Pakistan was carved out of India as a Muslim nation. India and Pakistan have not stopped being enemies. In India, the religious riots between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs are an oozing legacy from the western idea of nationalism adopted by the leaders of the freedom movements.

Analogically, religion and ethnicity are like water. They take the shape of the container they fill. Religion and ethnicity cannot exist in vacuum. But when pressurized under the political container, they can unleash the fury of a storm. In Iran, religion was disseminated through madrassas which became potent against the iron rule of the Shah in 1979. Rwandan genocide of ethnic Tutsis by Hutus took place in 1994. Myanmar military and Buddhist monks have recently persecuted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims.

For Hussein, as much as for the wagogo and masai tribes, politics did not occupy significant space in their lives. They were seeing more local markets, such as soko jinga or dumb market, springing up everywhere to facilitate the sale of agricultural product directly to the customers, thus bypassing the intermediary. While the wagogo and masai tribes continued to wear their tribal khangas and shukas, the local Africans donned Kaunda suits and khanga shirts to make a political statement of change.

Hussein believed that change was inevitable. The essence of existence lay in changing with the times. This attitudinal leaning was most likely the result of a central Ismaili belief system symbolized by the lineage concept of the imamate. While physically the Imams were changing with time to guide them accordingly, the nur, or light that passed on from one Imam to the next, remained constant, permanent, and eternal.

For many rich Ismailis, the looming self assertion movement was causing stress and fear. In one case, a group of young boys got drunk, and the ensuing ruckus ended up in a murder of one young Ismaili boy. In another case, one enraged brother knifed and killed another. Drinking and drugs apparently distracted the young rich kids’ minds from the impending fear. Des fear then causes addictions.

Hussein, like most Asians, hoped that as Tanganyika was heading for independence in 1961, it would not end up like the neighbor country of Belgium Congo. Earlier, in 1960, Belgium Congo’s independence was marred by violence and civil war. The brutality with which Belgium ruled Congo manifested cruelty at its worst. King Leopold II was obsessed with amassing wealth by turning Congo into a slave or prison state in 1885, where the natives were forced to fetch rubber from the jungles to quench Europe’s growing thirst to manufacture tires for the emerging auto industry. Over a million people were tortured or killed under the pretext of civilizing the natives.

A similar fate was thrust upon the natives of Asia and America. The colonialists attempt to force the natives to abandon their own languages and cultures which were seen as barbaric or savage. The underlying motive behind the colonial perception was economics of fur trade and mining in exchange for guns and booze.

This exploitation of natives resulted in a global loss of major epistemic tools and insights into the preservation of nature, which could have most likely been a major source of existential essentials.

The Congolese natives lashed a fury of revenge on the Belgian subjects on the eve of independence. The convoy of escapees passed through Dodoma. The Indians and Europeans in Tanganyika wondered if a similar fate was awaiting them.

Furthermore, there was another development in Congo. The Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR overflowed to many parts of the world, including Congo. Both superpowers competed to exert influence on the Congo’s newly achieved independence by supporting rival groups, resulting in a long-lasting violent civil war and many lost lives. Both powers had recently supported rival groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, etc., resulting in millions of refugees and deaths.

Humans have been very adaptive and creative, as shown by advances in sciences and technologies, but they are also greedy, cruel, and destructive in nature. This bipolar nature of humans is baffling and most likely cannot be contained.

Soon after Tanganyika became independent in 1961, an attempted coup by African Rifle Brigades forced Nyerere to seek the help of the British army to quell it. Only a hundred British soldiers tackled the uprising by surrounding the soldiers in to surrendering. The hastily created local armies and civil service administrators lacked experience and skills. Similar coup attempts sprang in Kenya and Uganda. It seems that all the three newly formed governments opted to not abruptly introduce administrative changes. Continuity, after independence, was probably adopted to ease the transition gradually from the British to the Africans who had no governance experience. This process of continuity and change was slow in Tanganyika. The colonials were still heading the army of blacks with the same discriminatory practices after independence. This frustrated the African soldiers who believed in Nyerere’s political rhetoric of improved conditions for the Africans. Change connotes hope in betterment. But hasty changes can also lead to instability. Undoing the consequences of changes is more difficult than at adopting changes.

After the failed coup attempt, Nyerere started contemplating the introduction of a socialist ideology in Tanganyika. The rapid and successful coup in Zanzibar by John Okello, in 1964, against the Omani Arab rule, paved the way for Tanganyika and Zanzibar into becoming one nation of Tanzania. Karume representing Zanzibar became the vice president of Tanzania.

Hussein could not understand why Julius Nyerere initiated socialism in 1967. Even the flour mill that served the locals in the village was nationalized. His socialist government started nationalizing every house, every business, every industry, schools, clinics, etc, which belonged to the Asian minorities.

He also initiated ujamaa or cooperative villages. Hundreds of thousands of villagers were uprooted to be resettled in the ujamaa villages, where central health, education, and economic or agriculture hubs were to be set up to serve all. The socialist ideology was aimed at state involvement in the production of goods and their equal distribution. This idealism did not germinate for many reasons.

Uprooting the tribal enclaves with their own labyrinth of cultural and traditional lifestyles, which existed for thousands of years, was like an earthquake annihilating the whole civilization. Did Nyerere’s education in Britain contribute to his thinking, like the British, that the tribal lifestyles were not civilized and lacked existence essentials.

It seems also that the locals were losing incentives to work hard in the production of goods as the state determined how much they would pay the producers. Moreover, the officers who oversaw obtaining and distributing goods were engaged in corruption to fill their own pockets. The newly emerging authority and power over corruption were unregulated or unchecked. For instance, when trucks were dispatched to pick up grapes from farms to make wine, the officers would inflate the quantities picked up in exchange for kickbacks. The whole cooperative and socialist movement soon collapsed, but not before severe damage was done. Julius Nyerere should have waited for a decade or two after introducing universal education before entrusting officers to carry out any socio-economic reforms.

The most significant reason for the failure of socialist ideology was its dictatorial nature. Without recognizing human freedom, dignity, and choices, a governance system would be most likely devoid of support.

Instead of incorporating the business and industrial class into the building of the nation, Nyerere antagonized them by calling them titiries or blood-sucking ticks. He would also call them mrija or sucking straws. This antagonistic mass mobilization technique and eventual nationalization of businesses and industries alienated an important segment of the population. The exodus of many Indian shopkeepers, industrialists, and professionals eventually led to a significant dent in the country’s economy and Nyerere’s downfall.

Though ideas might not be real, but, like water, they permeate the human mind and became one with it. Socrates called ideas real, and the things we see are just copies of those ideas. How could we see or perceive a thing if we did not have an idea in mind before recognizing it? Unlike ideas which were real and permanent, our bodies were temporal and changing. Socrates was imprisoned for engaging young people to think critically and examine what they took for granted. He was given poison as capital punishment. When the guards offered him help to escape, he refused. He told them that his body was a physical entity that must be forsaken to become one with non-physical ideas or a greater mind.

The ideas propagated by colonialism continued to reverberate in the psyches of the colonized. Two major trends defined the emerging independent nation states. At a political level, colonial ideas, and categories of nation-building, such as democracy, capitalism versus socialism, etc., formed part of independence movements.

At the social level, racism continued to fuel the legacy of dividing and ruling. The leaders of emerging nations used this legacy to mobilize the masses and seek legitimacy. The seeds of racism and economic inequality, which were already planted by colonialism, were used again to mobilize the masses. Underlying the racial current, a tense religious undercurrent between Muslims and Christians was also brewing.

Tanzania’s adoption of socialism and the nationalization of British and Asian managed farms coincided with the introduction of synthetic fibers to replace sisal and jute – a major cash crop for Tanzania and East Pakistan, respectively. This spiralled down their economies.

Nizar, the eldest son of Hussein, had earlier joined Karimjee Jiwanjee Company to manage the sales of their sisal products locally, such as ropes and bags. His role was to travel to towns in the central region in search of local markets. One of the towns he frequented was called Singida. There he met a beautiful young lady, Gulshan. His visits to Singida became more frequent in the pretext of selling sisal products. It was becoming more difficult to meet in secrecy. Nizar was piety minded and could not lie nor love in secrecy. They got married in 1965. Hussein and Fatma were ecstatic. Their first born tied the knot with love and not in an arranged marriage setting. The modernist trends were apparently eroding the old customs.

Gulshan loved to laugh. She started a dress making and sewing business. When she strolled the town, all eyes turned to get a glimpse of newness and beauty. Their first son, Salim, was born in 1966. As the first grandchild in Hussein’s family, he was the focus of the whole family’s attention. For Hussein and Fatma, history flashed back to their first born, Nizar. They had almost forgotten what it was like. Now they felt it again. Their daughter Salima was born 4 years later. The more profound impact on Hussein and Fatma’s psyche was the infants’ innocence; their total dependence; and almost miraculous like evocation of love oozing out of everyone who interacted with the babies. Hussein wondered why a grown person, once a baby, does not evoke the same affection.

Nizar and Gulshan worked hard and saved enough money to buy a beautiful bungalow which ended up Nationalized. They then decided to migrate to Canada in 1975. From being employers and entrepreneurs in Dodoma, they ended up working in factories and being subservient in Toronto. It was security and freedom for their children in a civil society that weighed heavier on them than their elevated status in unpredictable Tanzania. But this choice did not come without a heavy mental toll.

Nizar was a bit short like his mother. Being the first born and being Fatma’s favourite, he had a lot of confidence. He exercised and jogged, a rare practice in those days. He was forced to quit school, but his passion to read and learn was unstoppable. The difference between school-based study and self study is a rational approach of verifiability of the former. Nizar was nicknamed bhagat (piety minded) for his abilities to recite du’a and ginans and read firmans. He also unhesitatingly punished his younger siblings if they did not do well in school or attend jamatkhana regularly. He also used persuasive techniques on them to seek higher education that he was himself denied.

Interestingly, his religiosity acted like pillars to lean on while adjusting to the secular and developed country. Pierre Trudeau’s multiculturalism allowed the immigrants to be gradually assimilated in a new country and for them to set up their cultural and religious centres. For Nizar, the opening of Ismaili jamatkhanas in rented school halls provided a platform for easing the settlement needs like housing and jobs.

Firoz represented the antithesis of the education system that curbed creativity and feelings – the primordial of music and aesthetics. He excelled in music. He could play any instrument, be it violin, guitar, or saxophone. He loved to experience new cultures and societies through travel. In 1960, just before Tanganyika’s independence, he went to a scout’s jamboree in Pakistan. At the time, Pakistan, under Ayub Khan’s military rule, was more prosperous than India and other neighbouring countries. When he returned from there, he obtained a movie camera and a projector. He used these to entertain for free the throngs of local people who could not contain their awe and bewilderment. He yearned to experience science and technology practically and directly, devoid of theoretical and academic principles of physics and chemistry taught in schools. Again, he went to become a self-taught gemologist. He could grade diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones with ease. He also became a formidable soccer player and an athlete. His varieties of expertise earned him the nickname of Kabaka – at one time, the King of Uganda – both by Indians and Africans. Unlike other Europeans and Indians, he unintentionally tried to break those racial barriers through local sports and social interactions with Africans. He loved what life had to offer. Does formal education fail to instill emotive (emotional) intelligence? Could Firoz have developed so many personality traits in a British education system?

Firoz was instrumental in Hussein’s exposure to science and technology. It added a significant trait to Hussein’s self definition as much as colonialism and the ensuing African independence movement and socialism. In 1971, Firoz was betrothed to Roshan (Roshy) Bhanji. Two boys, Al-Karim and Farhan, were born in the next three years. No sooner Firoz took over the duka, Nyerere imprisoned many business owners, some of whom were local tribe members, such as Kanyamala and Andrea Maskini. They were Hussein’s good friends. Firoz, Alnasir, and some Indians were also jailed despite their acquittal by the court. Many of the prosecuted were tortured. Firoz, being fluent in African psyche, made friends in the prison until Roshy mustered the courage to personally plead with Julius Nyerere to pardon Firoz. She was accompanied by her two little toddlers, Al-Karim, and Farhan.

Once Firoz was free, he with his family moved to Kisii, a village in Kenya. There he started prospecting for gold until he was shot down on his way in the jungle to pay his workers. Some passersby spotted Firoz lying unconscious and rushed him to the hospital. He survived. His athletic body probably withstood the impact. He and Roshy believed that God saved him. It was a miracle. After a decade, his family migrated to Canada.

As soon as Mansur inherited the duka, after Firoz headed to Kenya, his insights and creativity found an uninhibited vent. He felt that conventional duka’s days were numbered as local Africans started dukas in large numbers selling Chinese made goods as well as oils, soaps, food items, etc.. He started selling bicycles for two reasons. He predicted that affordable mobility to areas where buses could not go, due to the lack of roads, would dominate the landscape. Secondly, his calculating mind saw the changes more profitable. A sale of a bar of soap would fetch a profit of cents versus a bicycle generating a whopping profit of hundreds of shillings. He also started selling dress shirts as increasing number of Africans started occupying Government offices. In no time he became very wealthy and started lending monies to other Ismailis. Like Hussein, he also could not recover the loans.

His far-sighted thinking led him to ask a girl, Aysha, from the Sandawe tribe, to marry him. Sandawe tribe lived around the village of Mtoro in Kondoa region, about a hundred kilometres from Dodoma. This tribe’s origins are traced to the oldest civilization of Bantus spanning as far as the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Their dialect, with click sound; their fair complexion; and their agility are some major defining characteristics of Sandawe people. Aysha gave birth to six children, namely, Salima, Hussein, Karmali, Rabiah, Farheen, and Fatma, who migrated to Canada after Mansur passed away in 1996.

Salima did her master’s in social work. She married Irfan Walji, a medical doctor, and gave birth to Kian and Alayna. Hussein did his Engineering Degree beside management courses and specializing in Cyber Security. He married Shaheena Hemraj who gave birth to Yarah and Naiyan. Karmali Karmali graduated from Waterloo in Health Sciences and worked for some time and became an entrepreneur.  He has since then not stopped upgrading himself.  He married Ana, his university sweetheart, who teaches at the university.  Rabiah graduated in health sciences and works for the hospital. She also specialized in geriatrics. Farheen always loved to become a chef after graduating in social sciences. Fatma is completing her second master’s program and intends to continue to pursue Ph. D in environment studies.  All the children are gifted with people skills with their guards down. They are amazingly comfortable in their shoes. 

After completing his Cambridge school certificate program, Shiraz headed to Egerton Agricultural College in Njoro, Kenya. He became a District Agriculture Officer in Arusha with a role to implementing improved farming techniques to increase yields in cattle, milk, crops including grains in rural areas near Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro.

The business community of Ismailis responded to Nyerere’s socialism and nationalization of businesses by spearheading interests in agriculture sectors. Those who finished high school were given this opportunity to pursue studies to eventually foster transition from retail businesses to an agriculture-based economy. Adaptability to the changing social, political, and economic environment was a strong community trait inherited from its history and its idiosyncratic inclinations that enables it to thrive in distinct parts of the world.  The emphasis on batin or esoteric aspect of existence equipped the community with tools to cope up with social and political changes in history of the Ismaili community. Their history is characterized by their attempts to avoid political persecutions while regrouping and readjusting to form a formidable neutral non-political entity. This posture significantly contributed to their lower visibility in the changing political radar.

One day Shiraz was assigned to visit a very remote and inaccessible tribal area. He meandered his way through the jungle adjacent to the wildlife sanctuaries of Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro crater in the northern part of Tanzania.

The crater is an extinct volcanic swath of land roamed by millions of wildebeests, gazelles, zebras, lions, etc.. It is as much a geological wonder as it is a unique habitat for the largest body of diverse species of animals in a relatively confined space. That lends vantages to poachers to bring down elephants for tusks and rhinos for their horns and leopards for their skins. It has become increasingly complex to curtail human greed fuelled by not only a gap between rich and poor, but by increasing global appetite for these raw materials.

He was not alone in that journey to a very remote area in the region of Arusha   A tall tribe member with bow and arrow was his guide. His alert eyes and ears focused on any motion that could pose a hidden danger. A strike from a poisonous snake or a cheetah’s leap from the tree would be an end for both. The tribesman’s skills were certainly more essential than an educated agriculturist at that time. The tribesman spoke a few words of Swahili. But he was confident and at ease with what he knew about survival.

On arrival at the destination, a cleared area in the jungle with his guide, he was shocked to see a tribe that had no connect with the outside world. They did not wear any garments nor lived in any dwelling structures protecting them from rain or sun. They were completely oblivious to the changing political scene or advances in health care and formal education. Each man carried a bow and arrow that required intricate skills to use. The tribesmen and women were probably more shocked than Shiraz to see the whitish brown clothed human in their midst.

There was a moment of silence during which both Shiraz and the tribe members attempted at processing the encounter. Those few minutes seemed exceedingly long. Shiraz tried to break the ice by gesturing that he would like to try the bow and arrow that a little boy was carrying. It might have occurred to him that this bow and arrow was probably a toy and would not bring any animal or bird down. He probably thought that the gesture may break the cultural and communication barrier. He may have also thought that he was much stronger than the little fragile boy carrying the weapon.  He could feel the sweat forming on his forehead and the neck. He eased himself and just casually pulled the arrow and the bow string. It did not move even a bit. The boy took it from Shiraz and pointed it towards the sky and unleashed the arrow with incredible power that would certainly bring down any prey far away. He could not see how far it went as it disappeared from his sight

He found out through the interpreter that the tribe called themselves the people of Tindiga. He saw an infant on the tree safely placed and sheltered from the sun and rain. He found out that they would leave the newly born babies on the trees for a few days before the whole tribe shouldered the responsibility of raising the child if he or she survived. The child belonged to the whole tribe and to nature. If the child, a youth, or an adult came in any harm’s way, the whole tribe would step in. The older the tribe member, the more respect was accorded to him or her, and he or her would be a part of the governance council.

Many such tribes, over the years, have succumbed to the encroachment of so-called modernization forces adopted by the governing political and economic forces after independence from colonialism. Should the tribal lifestyles and the oral traditions, which have their own remedies for health and economic and governance issues, be left untouched and undisturbed, or should they be absorbed in the national movements towards so called “better life.’ Who judges that? This is most likely a moral issue and not a political one.

The modernist trends of thought were adopted by most of the newly found nation states. It was mainly characterized by implementing capitalism or socialism; democratic or dictatorial governance; and either continued ties and dependency with departing colonialists or tried to be self reliant and sever ties with the earlier masters. Modernization thus never incorporated the indigenous existential categories and integrated them. The tribes like Tindiga have become extinct. In many cases, the imposed modernization would percolate discontent from within the indigenous population.

Shiraz, who had already acquired the personality trait of being fearless since childhood, decided, in 1972, to migrate to Canada rather than raise his family under socialist and authoritarian non civil agenda of nationalization program. Why would a nation state create conditions conducive for brain drain.

He was able to bring his wife, Gulzar, and his daughter, Zahra to Canada. Gulzar found a job with TD Bank because she had secretarial and administrative experience back in Arusha. Migration had a very visible trend within new families. The women found jobs fairly quickly. The men could not. The women were more skilled than men. Due to the higher rate of employment amongst them, they were adapting to the new country faster then their husbands. They picked up the fashion trends faster. Also, they learnt quite fast what their rights were. They began to question the traditional family structure that gave controlling and decision-making authority to their men. While boys joined their fathers’ trades, the girls were joining colleges to get administrative, nursing, and teaching skills.

When Shiraz started working night shifts at Toronto Transit Commission as a mechanic, he pursued courses in real estate and business administration. He then started buying and selling houses and properties either with a group of investors or alone. His love for improvement and development of new skills blended well with his risky decisions to form a perfect recipe for entrepreneurship in a fertile Canadian soil.

Hussein was very protective of his daughters Parin and Nargis. He did not espouse the idea of them going far away on their own as the boys did. The boys were free to chart their own journeys. Hussein continued to hold on to that inherited tradition of women’s status. They were the izzat or honour of the family. Reluctantly he agreed to Parin going to Nairobi to become a registered nurse after finishing her high school. Once she got that window of first opportunity to go abroad, she proceeded to England to upgrade her skill in midwifery.