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145 9 A Rich Harvest of Peters by Paul W hat’s in a name? Very little. Especially Western names like Peter and Paul, Mary and Martha, which have no literal meaning but are simply convenient sounds used for purposes of personal identification. Almost any word or combination of words can serve as a name in the Western world. Some Western names can make you want to laugh. Some examples: Toogood, Badenough, Winterbottom, Head, Foot, Little, Littlehusband, Goodinbed, White, Black, Yellow, Green, Hammer, Bird, Angel, Satan, etc. African names usually have both literal meaning and significance but such meaning and significance are usually linked to an aspect of the autobiography of the name-giver rather than that of the name-bearer. A name is like a garment which anybody can put on, and you need to be very careful in drawing substantive inferences from the way a person is dressed, although the saying that “the apparel proclaims the wo(man)” is not without some foundation in truth. Nevertheless, even though there may be nothing in a name, there is something quite uncannily remarkable about the psychology and behaviour, even about the physiology of certain name-bearers. For instance, I cannot remember ever coming across a “Gladys” who was not simply a complete package of beauty and vivaciousness. (Please, if you happen to bear “Gladys” don’t rush over immediately after reading this, because you could jolly well turn out to be among the exceptions that prove the rule). There is a certain part of this country where no one would give his child the name “Hubert” (pronounced “Wuuber”). The very first person who bore that name there was a notorious thief and to refer to anybody as “a Wuuber” there is to call him a thief. I have scarcely ever come across a “Martha” who was not the female equivalent of what among men is called a Casanova. Please, if you happen to be called Martha don’t immediately rush for your pounding pestle and come after me. You may jolly well be one of the rare exceptions that prove the rule. 146 Road Companion to Democracy and Meritocracy In lower primary school I used to be the errand boy of a certain Martha who hailed from one of the fraternal tributary neighbouring kingdoms and was in my village to attend the only Girls Primary School in the region. Martha used to send me with letters to several teachers and senior boys in the Boys School and always with firm instructions to hide it very well and not to let any other person see it. One day, a certain Christopher, a senior boy in my school, who hailed from the same place as Martha, called me and warned me that, since I had accepted to be Martha’s “mail runner” to her numerous suitors, I should know that when they will “give her belle” I would be held responsible. I was very scared about this idea of being held responsible for her “belle” and had to completely change the trajectory of my normal way to school to avoid Martha and her love letters. Another Martha of my own village, who was equally a female Casanova, used to write love letters to a boy only a few steps ahead of my age-grade, who used to show them to several other boys. Once Martha wrote; “My dear boy fren, I will come on Sunday and we do.” This letter caused a lot of amusement among the boys because the “we do” was an inappropriate literal translation of the local dialect. Martha got the feed-back and, would you believe it?, was only worried that they were laughing at her for not knowing lam barah (the English language). So she went through her “‘Michael West” Dictionary from cover to cover but could not find any suitable English word for “doing.” Then she went to ask a senior colleague of hers, an agaracha and notorious female Casanova of her ilk, who, quite significantly, was also a Martha, what they call “doing” in English. No one knows what Martha (trois) told Martha (deux). But in her next love letter Martha wrote: “My dear boy fren, I will come again next Sunday and we fox again.” If I were asked to suggest the male counterpart of the female name Martha, I would unhesitatingly suggest “Paul,” not necessarily because we say Peter and Paul the way we say Mary and Martha. However, I do know one...

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