What’s in a Name?

I read Magunga’s post Let Me Introduce Myself and I thought that’s a pretty rad idea, writing a post around your names. Figured I should give it a go. Here goes.

A lot of you that have followed my blog The Hungry Traveller over the last few years know me as JnttNemo. This also applies to those that follow me on twitter. JnttNemo is short for Jeanette Wairimu.

My ID reads Jeanette Wairimu Njenga but like some class of spy, different people know me by different names. Today I will try and consolidate (is that the right word to use?) all of them.

I was born on July 1st 1989 on a cold day at Aga Khan. You would think what with my being born in July I would be a fan of cold weather. Allergies, a history of asthma and the inability to be fat took care of that. I love the sun, I love being warm and I love places I don’t have to wear a sweater. I digress though.

My parents had agreed and intended to only call me Wairimu Njenga. After my paternal grandmother and father respectively. First name for whut! for who! This elaborate plan was stopped in it’s tracks when whoever is in charge of registering names wouldn’t allow my father to execute said plan. The new father was told he HAD to put in a first name. The first name that came to mind belonged to a woman who had supported and encouraged them and went by the name Jeannette. My father dropped one ‘n’, filled in Jeanette.

However when I was taken home my first name was left at the hospital and forgotten the way you leave umbrellas on buses because it is not raining and you don’t need it anymore. So I came home Wairimu Njenga and remained so for another ten years. In school teachers would ask for my first name and I would hang my head like a dog that’s eaten some homework and say “I don’t have one”. Teachers would insist and I would go home and ask for the umpteenth time about a first name and would be told “you don’t have one”.

Can you imagine growing up not knowing you have a first name? When ALL your friends and relatives have them and some even have two? And this is not 2015 Nairobi where people think it is cool to just go by one name. This was Nanyuki in the 90s and British vibes still hung in the air like that scent of fish you fried last week that won’t leave the kitchen even after you’ve baptized said kitchen with all the lemons and their mothers. And it is not like I needed one more thing to make me stand out and not fit in growing up.

Because of an eating disorder I was always skinny. Because of genetics I was taller than most of my classmates. Because of even funnier genetics my hair refused to grow and I sported a boy cut most of those years. And finally because I had started school earlier I was always the youngest in my class. Throw in the lack of a first name and you had a kid that stuck out like a sore thumb. (This phrase amuses me because thumbs stick out whether they are sore or not. Why not just say “stick out like a thumb”?)

Fast forward to class 4. We are going for some class trip. The kids must be registered with their official birth names. The parents must give a copy of the birth certificates to the kids to pass on to their teachers. So I ask for mine. My mother rummages through that drawer that all parents have and contained all important documents. You know the drawer I am talking about. It is the drawer you yourself could not be rummaging through or you’ll receive a beating. You see (for those whose parents didn’t have such drawers) this drawer contained birth certificates, title deeds, car log books and the map to the Garden of Eden for all I care. I don’t know because I couldn’t rummage through it. Of course now I have a folder for the same purpose but I can neither confirm nor deny that the said map was handed down to me. Back to the main story though.

My mother hands me my certificate. I read the names on it and hand it back to her. “This is not mine” I say to her. She looks at the certificate again and hands it back to me assuring me it is. “But it says JEANETTE” I say to her. And like it is the most obvious thing in the world she says “Yes, that is your first name”.

My reaction? —-> O______________________o

I cannot describe properly the feeling at that point. It was a mixture of surprise, shock, excitement and confusion. What I can tell you is that I carried that certificate to my school like I was a Nobel Laureate and this was the proof of it. My life changed. Well not really but in some ways it did. I got a new struggle.

Remember this is 90s Nanyuki. I went from being the girl with no first name to the girl with a first name no one gets right.

Jenet. No. Jynette. (pronounced “Gin-Net”) No. Janet. No. Janette. No. And of course there has always been that person who thinks they’re so smart and funny calling me Gillette. You can’t even begin to imagine how many times I have heard that joke. The teachers to make their lives simple and save face with their students baptized me Janet after only one school term. ‘Janet’ became like a cold you can’t seem to shake off even with all the lemons, gingers, honeys and all their grandmothers. Eventually I gave in. And anyway back then Janet Jackson was still relatively popular. I got brainwashed into even introducing myself as Janet Wairimu. Once again the name “Jeanette” was forgotten.

Unfortunately I still carried my name like a consolation prize. Certificate of participation.

And my relatives and family still just called me Wairimu. None of this new name business.

Fast forward to nearly eight years later. I am not in class 4 anymore but in Form 4. We are registering for our national exams and yes, as you guessed, we must use the names appearing in our birth certificate. So I filled in the correct Jeanette Wairimu Njenga and promptly got summoned to the Headteacher’s office to explain my misconduct. You would think I had put something as ridiculous as AirWrecka or Paciphique from the way my teachers handled the whole thing. The birth certificate was produced and I was acquitted. Kenyan High Schools were really some class of jail system where you just happened to get an education while serving your sentence.

My classmates thought I was putting on airs by labeling myself Jeanette when I was really Janet to them. My birth certificate didn’t convince them. Not for the first time in my life I was teased for my name. My real names. You would think they would have teased me for having used Janet instead of my real name. You’d be wrong. This time it pissed me off, however. I insisted to everyone who would listen that my name was Jeanette and YOU BETTER NOT FORGET IT OR MISPRONOUNCE IT.

I was admitted to college as Jeanette Wairimu Njenga and so I have remained for the last couple of years. If you’ve ever wondered why a girl like me can have an identity crisis remember I was born Jeanette Wairimu, raised Wairimu Njenga, brainwashed into Janet Wairimu and now assert myself as Jeanette Wairimu Njenga.

Let me throw one more spanner in the works. My extended family has traces of Maasai blood. So my immediate family all have Maasai names. I am Enjipai. This means happiness and truthfully I have always been an outwardly happy baby.

So I am really Jeanette Wairimu Enjipai Njenga. Enjipai does not however appear on any of my documents including my birth certificate so it is even harder to sell. You just take my word for it.

It is 2015 as I write this and I now have a business of my own: Teleki Outdoors. a business that offers team building, safaris, mountain climbing, and home stays. And a few people have started to call me something else: Ms Teleki. To be honest I don’t mind this particular nickname. I am very proud of Teleki Outdoors and what it is becoming. And it is actually why I wrote this post.

So let me introduce myself.

My name is Jeanette Wairimu Enjipai Njenga. One of two founding partners and Lead Facilitators of Teleki Outdoors.

Call me Ms Teleki if you like but make sure you like our page on Facebook –> Teleki Outdoors and subscribe to this blog because this is only the first of many exciting stories I will be telling here and you really don’t want to miss out. Leave your comments on this post on the comments section below.

You can also follow us on twitter @TelekiOutdoors and visit our website at telekioutdoors.co.ke.

You may also email me on jeanette@telekioutdoors.co.ke for any inquiries or quotations for any of our services.

Part 2 of this post was published on the 7th March 2016. You can read it here: #OperationFirstLady: What’s In a Name Part II