Dear BMW,
I am a Malawian woman who got educated in the United Kingdom. I work at one of the commercial banks. I married a man from the Eastern Region who had come to the UK to seek work. I chose him because in the UK dating can be daunting.
While in the UK, I tried to educate him, but he was more interested in hustling than learning, so after three years, he still had no education and he came back home empty-handed in that regard.
I only learnt later that he lied to me that he was learned when he was a Standard 8 drop-out, hence; his lack of confidence to attend college.
BMW, my man is a good husband at home but a total embarrassment when I take him out to official engagements. When he opens his mouth, I feel like the earth should open up and swallow me because he speaks broken English like hell. His short stay in the UK gave him false confidence, so he tries to show off at such events.
I hate people who speak broken English. Am I wrong if I expect that my husband should be fluent in English?
Should I always leave him at home or just send him packing?
JM, via WhatsApp, Blantyre City
Dear JM,
Whoever infused on you the idea that English is the measure for a good man really needs some psychoanalysis. It is only foolhardy to think that I can encourage you to divorce your man for the useless reason that he does not speak fluent English.
I was raised knowing that those who speak broken English have an urge with those who speak it perfectly. This is so because if you speak English with an accent, it means you have another language!
It is people like you that we see discouraging their children from speaking their mother tongues. Language is an identity. The talkative monkey cannot become a giraffe by simply imitating its mannerism! The more you run away from your mother language, the more you expose being but a dunderhead.
It bogs me a lot why we put so much emphasis on English as a measure for intelligence. I know a few crooks in town who have robbed many with their ‘westernised’ tongues. In fact, one or two of these have dipped into my pockets with their wagging tongues.
You make me wonder, what took you so long to discover that your man speaks broken English? Why did you find it daunting to date a man from Albania to Zurich who could speak English so well during your stay in the UK? The point is, the English language has nothing to do with a better husband.
It is clear, although you skirt around the issue, that your love for the man trascends his disability to express himself in English. Be true to yourself and enjoy life with this man of your choice. Live up to his do-does confusion and ‘goesn’t she?’ gaffs. Enjoy life as it goes. ‘English is not our mother,’ so they say.
Would you repudiate your man who speaks broken English and is amazing in bed and go for a nitwit who speaks perfect English but broken Chichewa? Think twice!
Za zii!
Big Man Wamkulu
