Chapter One The Beginning: My name is Nenio Makhosini Mbazima. The name Nenio is Spanish derived from El Niño which means “the boy”, and refers to Christ the Child, because El Niño usually happens around Christmas. El Niño causes strong winds and my name Nenio was derived from El Niño therefore Nenio means Strong Wind- the title of this book.Makhosini is a Swazi name meaning, ‘The Mountains where Kings are buried’; I was named after my grandfather from my mother’s side- Makhosini Dlamini from Ntfonjeni in Swaziland. (20 pages) Chapter Two My Family: My parents have eight children, seven boys and only one girl. You might be wondering why we are eight. If I tell you that my sister Martha is the second from the last born and then you use your head you’ll understand why my parents have eight children.They had been trying for a girl, every time they decided to have a baby they hoped it would be a girl. As fate would have it, they kept giving birth to boys. When they finally gave birth to a girl they decided for another try at a girl to at least have two girls, but, a big but, their last born child is a boy, and they stopped there, probably they said to themselves, enough was enough. I’m glad they stopped trying for another girl or else we would have formed a soccer club called Mbazima United Football Club (24 pages) Chapter Three The Day my World Became Silent: Returning from a comma, I woke up in hospital and I wondered how I got there. After a few weeks in hospital I told the nurse that my ears were painful and asked for eardrops, she told me that they were no eardrops. The following day I woke up to discover that I could not hear- I was DEAF. That was a devastating blow to my family and I, for, suddenly, my world was silent (11 pages)

Chapter Four Back to School: Being deaf in a normal school was not easy; I struggled especially since I had no Sign Language interpreter. Primary school was worse as kids are very ignorant. I was the subject of ridicule because of the way my voice sounded and the way I failed at times. No wonder I fought a lot and got myself in trouble, very big trouble, “Nenio the Trouble Maker”.(11 pages) Chapter Five Sundays: I used to doze off in church each Sunday, while others were singing and praising the Lord I’ll fall asleep, I hope as you read this you understand why. Imagine being blind and attending a church for deaf people where everything is said in Sign Language- a language you can neither see nor hear, would you enjoy? You would truly fall asleep; the difference is that no one would notice that you had fallen asleep since you are blind. (12 pages) Chapter Six Nenio the Volunteer: I worked as a volunteer for about four years. A few years later after deaf people had gained my trust they elected me to be their sports president a position I held for two years (according to their constitution, an elected member can hold that particular position for two years only) (8 pages) Chapter Seven Nenio, the Entrepreneur: My brother Nelson and I, seeing that there was no cinema in the community took advantage of that by building a shack just by the edge of our home where kids could come to watch movies. The cost of video projector was beyond our pockets, so we used our creativity to project the videos to the wall. I don’t remember where we got the film strips from, we placed the film strips in front of a torch and in turn there was a magnifying glass in front of the film strips and we moved it by hand downward, as it moved, it illuminated on a white sheet of paper glued to a wall. (6 pages)

Chapter Eight The Karate Black Belt: I was between 11 and 12 years old when I joined Kyokushin Kai karate which was founded by Sosai or Master Masatutsi Oyama, and I was the weakest karate student in town if not the whole country or the whole of Africa, as I was still not fully recovered from my illness. I lacked balance but that did not discourage me. I trained as if no one was watching. I was there to train karate and not to allow my weaknesses to let me down. (4 pages) Chapter Nine Fashion Modelling: Prior to becoming a model I was very shy; modeling taught me to be confident. I’m not saying that I’m 100% confident, there are times where I shake for unknown reasons, such as at a job interview, that is not a sign of confidence- I have a long way to go (9 pages) Chapter Ten The Building Plans Designer: Although I missed school when I spent months recuperating at home, I made sure that I put my time to good use, I could have easily become bored or joined the boy next door, who dropped out of school to sniff glue , but I did not, instead, I kept myself busy. I began by drawing askew shaped houses which my family laughed at every time I showed them in the evenings. In my eyes they were beautiful; I could not understand what they were laughing at. To me they were just jealous so I continued drawing. With time my drawings become better and better and today I design building plans for clients. (5 pages)

Chapter Eleven Further Training: I trained television production from a television company for seven months, after that I established my own television and film production company. I called the company DeafPower Productions. My first film as a producer and director of DeafPower is called Key for the Future. I went on to produce two other films before I won a scholarship to go and further my studies at university. (5 pages) Chapter Twelve Work like a Slave, Live like a Slave: My dad, on hearing my working/ training conditions at the film company I was in, he called me to meet him. He told me to return home where I will eat and be merry. I told him that I could not, I just wanted to complete the few remaining months. He tried to make me change my mind and return home for good, but I could not listen. A week later they phoned to tell me that my dad had had a stroke. The stroke happened more than nine years ago but up to this day I still ask myself if whether it was caused by me. I always think that if I listened to dad and returned home he would be well now. (10 pages) Chapter Thirteen Going to University: At the University of the Witwatersrand, that I attended, I had a sign language interpreter in class. There were times my interpreter complained that I fall asleep while he is interpreting, he said he did not like it because that made him feel like a robot. I was not pleased with his complaints, I did feel tired sometimes, just like the rest of the hearing students, and all of them did fall asleep in class now and then. (5 pages)