How to Communicate well: My Background

Dad and Mom. New Year's bash.

Communication is my strong point. It has always been. I believe I got it from my parents.







My mother’s style is to repeat and hammer the message infinitely. It’s a very effective way because, the next time you think of wronging her and remember her mouth…oh! Yep, you will be rethinking your actions. My father has a very quiet way. He doesn’t say much but when he speaks it’s concise, precise, to the point and profound. Therefore he only says something once.

Take for example an episode that happened when I was sixteen. I was feeling very grown up and thought I could stay away from home for two nights and not call home. I was hanging out at my girlfriends place. No adult presence. Needless to say, we didn’t have any innocent events planned. Boy did we partay! Without any regard for our safety of course; just young and dumb.

When I finally got home, my siblings told me, “Oooooh, Mom’s been waiting for yooooou.”Everyone knows how siblings like to torture each other.

 Allow me to backtrack a little. Prior to getting home I had encountered my Dad at the bus stop in downtown Nairobi by Odeon Cinema. Somehow that day he was using public transport.

A small matatu next to a big matatu

As we rode side by side in the matatu (public service 14 seater van), my Dad turned to me and quietly asked where I had been. I told him I had been at my high school buddy’s place. He asked, “For two days and two nights, without calling home? Your Mom is very upset about this.” He sounded so disappointed. I was silent and fidgety in my seat. He then said something that has always and will always stick with me, “I am so disappointed in you... Of all my children.... I hold you with such high regard.....You’ve let me down.”

L to R: First born, Last born, Me, Sister.

Ouch! I shrunk in my seat. How horrible I felt. We journeyed the rest of the trip in a very pregnant silence. We parted ways when we alighted off the matatu in Kangemi. I went directly home. He said he had to stop for a pint and for some meat for dinner.

Back home, after that warning from my sibs, I went upstairs to await my Mom. The whole time I thought that I would get the tongue lashing of the year. It wasn’t until I heard how loudly the car door slammed and my Mom’s voice asking loudly, “Eha?!”meaning “Where is she?!”, that I began to fear that there would be more than a wag of the finger. When I heard my Mom bounding up the stairs loudly, I dived into my closet for a second pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

;-) Fat Suit. Clever, ey?
It didn't work just  FYI.

Oh, it was baaaad! Some of my friends still howl in laughter at the thought of me being belted at sixteen! Um...Yeah, whatever! Am sure am not the only one. It was a beat down I will not forget soon. My mother has never been the disciplinarian in the family. It was always my father. So I knew I must have hurt her really badly. She yelled through the entire beating. The pain of the lashing, I forgot. The embarrassment, however, has stuck with me ever since. And also the lesson: I did not know until then how highly they thought of me. "You've let me down" had a much bigger impact on me than the belt lashes, for sure. I still get a little teary eyed thinking of how I disappointed my Dad.

That, folks, is the difference between two modes of communication. I believe am somewhere in between these two styles. I lean more towards my Dad's style. I don't like drawn out squabbles and repeating myself.