Smart Grandmother

 

by

Karim Ajania

 

My role model throughout my entire life has been my school teacher grandmother Shirin, who was a very smart woman.

That is why the very first Smart Libraries prototype within the slums of Kibera will be known locally as ‘Shirin’s Library’.

— Karim

 

Forward by Paola Gianturco

Is it possible that the stereotypical “grandmother” never existed?

For many people in the Global North, the word calls up the image of a wrinkled, bespectacled, irrelevant old woman in a rocking chair. Perhaps she is crocheting something useless like an antimacassar; that’s the extent of her productive work.

This has always seemed like a bizarre stereotype to me.

I grew up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the 20th century, and from what I remember, real-life American grandmothers were like Energizer Bunnies.

They canned fruit, farmed vegetable gardens, cooked and baked for large families, cleaned their houses, sewed clothes, washed and ironed laundry by hand, cared for their grandchildren, helped sick relatives, and some worked with their husbands in family-owned businesses.

Karim has written about his pioneering Indian grandmother born in Kenya almost a century ago.

My hunch is grandmothers in the Global South were also like Energizer Bunnies. Yet recently, I was given a souvenir in Argentina: a ceramic grandmother in a rocking chair knitting!

Having interviewed 120 grandmothers on five continents for my book, Grandmother Power, I can report that contemporary grandmothers all over the world are not sitting in their rocking chairs. They are collaborating effectively to create a better future for their grandchildren. Virtually universally, they look at our troubled world, say, “Not good enough for my beloved grandchildren!” and get to work on issues as diverse as energy, the environment, social justice, education and health.

The best description I know of contemporary grandmothers is the one that the Canadian and African grandmothers wrote when they invented the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign for Stephen Lewis Foundation, which benefits 15 million African children orphaned by Aids.

The grandmothers wrote:

“We are strong, we are determined, we are resourceful, we are creative, we are resilient, and we have wisdom with our age and experience.”

Perhaps if we looked back into history, we would find that “old fashioned” grandmothers shared those very characteristics. That would be a wonderful, stereotype-destroying surprise.

Karim has written about his pioneering Indian grandmother who was born in Kenya almost a century ago. Read his inspiring article about her impressive work as an educator and see if you still believe in that rocking chair riding grandmother!

A Pioneering School Teacher

by

Karim Ajania

All of us, if we dig deep enough, can find at least one teacher or one family relative who proved to be a source of inspiration and strength as we charted our own course through our own life.

For me, that person was undoubtedly my grandmother, Shirin Hassanali Gwaderi, whom I called ‘Mummiji’. Shirin Hassanali Gwaderi was a pioneering school teacher, school principal and a founder of a multiracial school.

Mummiji was born almost a century ago as an Indian Muslim woman in Machakos, Kenya. Her parents had emigrated to Kenya in ‘British East Africa’ from Gujarat, India. They then moved from Machakos to the racially segregated capital, Nairobi.

She got married to my grandfather, Hassanali Gwaderi (whom I called ‘Apaji’), in the late 1930’s around the outbreak of the second World War. How does an Indian woman of Mummiji’s generation come to found a multiracial school in Nairobi?

In order to understand the context, it is necessary to perceive the quiet, understated and constant support she received from her husband (and my grandfather), Apaji.

In a generation of Indian men who expected their wives to serve them in a somewhat subservient role of cooking and cleaning and raising children, Apaji was an anomaly. He positively glowed with admiration at his wife’s intelligence, tenacity and enterprise. Rather than hold her back, he encouraged his wife to blossom into her fullest potential.

In practical terms, this meant that Apaji encouraged my grandmother to apply for a grant to go to London, England for a teacher training course and receive teaching credentials with which she returned to colonial Kenya and became an elementary school teacher. In fact, this was the same elementary school I attended in Nairobi when I was a child and Mummiji was one of my teachers!

Mummiji then went on to found her own school of which she was also the principal.

Her practices as an educator were always progressive, inspired and innovative.

When I was about 12 years old, Mummiji apprenticed me at her school in Parklands, Nairobi and I would help her teachers with various tasks such as preparing and clearing up the materials for arts and crafts classes. Art was an important subject in her school curriculum. She loved the creative spirit of children. Something that made a lasting impression for me, is when Mummiji would volunteer me to read stories to her elementary school students.

These stories were carefully selected from a wide and diverse batch of books ranging from Kenneth Graham’s Wind in the Willows to local writers from East Africa. Mummiji embodied values of “multicultural curriculum” well before such concepts even had a name or label.

Mummiji embraced ideas of “multicultural curriculum” well before such educational concepts had a name or label.

With Hassanali Gwaderi, my grandfather, I learned of storytelling traditions.

Hassanali Gwaderi took his family name from the port of Gwader (below, near bottom of the map, on the red dotted Border of Khanale) on the Arabian Sea, from where he had stowed away on a steamship headed for Mombasa on the Kenya coast.