Meet your Quintessential Polymath & Polyglot

4 minutes

I’ve been a polymath and a ployglot for as long as I can remember. Many things have held my interest, not just for a while but for a considerable amount of time. Today I thought I’d share with you some of the interests I’ve immersed myself in and made a career of at one point or another.

FASHION

My mother taught me everything I know about fashion. She then sent me to college to back it up but every skill I learnt was passed down to me by her. I was sixteen when I made my first outfit for myself, a Bohemian pair of loose-fitting pink silk Bermuda shorts. I next made myself a pair of high-wasted slim-fitting red khaki Capri pants and followed up with similar ones in white, then black –these became an instant hit. I remember my older sister Grace had her friends over and they wanted to know where I got my pants from; I told them I made them myself. One of them, Joan Khuyebi, then asked how much I would charge her to make the same for her, a thought that hadn’t yet crossed my mind so early into it.  Thus began my fashion career in earnest. Soon thereafter my mum ‘retired’ to focus on her teaching job and handed over all her clients to my capable hands, with all of my cumulative one-year experience. It would appear I was good at it; a natural. But I’d argue that it came easy to me and practice eventually made it as ‘perfect’ as it could be.

FINANCE

After high school, my dad sent me to college to study accounting. I was a brilliant math student in primary school, so he figured that working with numbers was my calling. Without giving it much thought, I obliged, kept my head down and graduated, eventually getting a job as an accounting assistant with an architectural firm where I diligently put in the hours, working my way up across continents and companies to eventually head a Finance Department. I carried on with fashion designing in the evenings after work. And thus progressed my two loves, coexisting in the bright of day and the shadows of the night, burning the midnight oil.

FLYING

Flying is now another of my recent loves, a career I stumbled into it somewhat whimsically after years of wondering what else I could become, Fashion and Finance aside. I first debuted in Europe before transferring to the US to be closer to my family after deciding I liked it enough to make a career of it. These are early days and there’s much work to be done in laying down the groundwork of what will become our new life as a family. A relocation is in the cards and we just have to work out the logistics, of which there are many.

LANGUAGES

To be a polyglot, you need to speak several languages, at least three to five. I speak six -three African languages and three Western ones. Swahili is the language most spoken by the majority of African countries. Originating from East Africa, I have a firm command of the language, both spoken and written. With a mother from the Bantu-Luhya tribe and my Bantu-Luhya father who grew up in the Nilotic-Lou tribe, both languages come easily to me. I initially learnt French at the Alliance Française, but it came fully alive in my life in Belgium, which is the same place I learnt Dutch, eventually studying for my accounting degree in the Dutch language. As for English, I cannot remember when I did not speak it as it is the universal language of the world.

CONCLUSION

The search for fulfillment and self-actualization has been worthwhile and all of my interests are somewhat compatible; flying leaves me with quite a bit of free time to indulge in the other two to whichever depths I choose. I’m hoping to add FOOD and FITNESS to my interests, both of which I realise I need to incorporate in my daily lifestyle for a well-rounded life. For now, I am enjoying my new love, flying both cross-country and internationally. Suffice is to say, I’m happy to watch the universe unfold from my vantage point up in the skies with my head in the clouds, dreaming away. The journey continues; stay with me.