Skip to main content

Speaking Swahili

I did promise to reveal the meaning to "Akili ni nywele, kila mtu ana zake", but forgot. As figured out by Priyanka Khot in the comments, it indeed talks about hair and intelligence.

Literally, the quote is "intelligence is like hair, everyone has their own type".

I choose to interpret it as, "just as there are lots of types of haircuts, there are lots of types of intelligence". Thus, if someone thinks that they are better than others simply because they think that their particular set of opportunities, beliefs or knowledge is the be-all and end-all, get over yourself, there are all sorts of 'smarts'.

I think that there is something in that for all of us.
Labels:

Comments

EG CameraGirl said…
I totally agree with you, Kris. There ARE all kinds of smarts. And all kinds of stupid, too, unfortunately.
7 August 2008 at 16:15
Priyanka Khot said…
Thanks Kris!

# for inspiring me to actually search and explore another language.

# for not being bugged by my regular reminders. :-)
7 August 2008 at 16:34
Marie Reed said…
I think that I have a mohawk personality:)
7 August 2008 at 17:30
Maria Verivaki said…
loved this quote, will use it somewhere!
7 August 2008 at 19:42
Jules said…
your eg tour guide made me laugh - too true!!

I'm certainly not mechanically smart or musically smart even though my whole family is and my mother sent me off to music lessons for years and years and years....sigh!!!!

Great to catch up with your posts - how are you coping with life after birth????
7 August 2008 at 22:08
Layrayski said…
I agree heartily.
7 August 2008 at 22:49
Pat said…
It's beautiful what you wrote, Kris, and how true.
8 August 2008 at 02:06
Tash said…
very insightful

I love the photos of your boys & your stories. Thank you for sharing (such a cliche phrase but I really mean it)
8 August 2008 at 05:11
arachesostufo said…
ciao, belle foto, complimenti da Venezia
8 August 2008 at 09:22
• Eliane • said…
So very true. It would be wonderful if the most treasured was the intelligence of the heart, no?
8 August 2008 at 14:18
Kris McCracken said…
EGTG, too right.

Piyanka, I enjoy browsing around languages too, and the reminders helped!

Marie, at the moment, I am a bit of a bird's nest!
9 August 2008 at 08:36
Kris McCracken said…
Kiwi, feel free (it's what I do!)

Jules, life after birth is just fine, if only we can switch Ezra to not think that between 2 am and 7 am is 'peak hour wake time'!

Layrayski, Bibi and Tash, I appreciate the comments and kind words.
9 August 2008 at 08:38
Kris McCracken said…
Arachesostufo, grazi!

Elaine, I am forever torn between head and heart, often a 50/50 split!
9 August 2008 at 08:40
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...
5 comments
Read more

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...
38 comments
Read more

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.
36 comments
Read more