All You Need is Love… And Glitter, Charm and a Few Lugandan Phrases

My camera has made me more popular than anticipated. I don’t know it well enough as I’d like but I feel unprepared without it. My favorite place to photograph is in Jinja in the African Market and the taxi stage. There’s always so much to see, you never get tired of just looking around, especially through a viewfinder. The locals see me strolling about with my very professional-looking camera around my neck and soon I’ve got a mob, especially this last week. On a previous visit, I took many pictures of locals in their workplace there at the taxi stage. Dad had a few shots of these photos printed out for me to give out. This was both a blessing and a curse. I was blessed to see the looks on their faces when they recognized themselves as the picture was passed around and smiled at. It was a curse in the fact that now every walking adult within 10 feet is crowding me wanting their photo taken.

Pictures are huge here. There is no digital copy, no online album, if you can’t hold the photo paper in your hand, it doesn’t exist. I have been shown a multitude of photo albums and they will keep every photo they own. If it’s not in focus or someone blinked, it doesn’t matter. Those photos are their history and honestly, the only way they can keep track of what they actually look like.

Mom wanted me to video Liesel greeting people in Lugandan but I haven’t quite figured out recording yet. I still brought her around though as I was taking pictures of random people because they asked me to. Then a craze got started as a dried noodles vendor wanted a picture with my youngest sister. The ever-shining star she is barely flinched, she simply smiled at the camera like a professional. She definitely became a professional by the time the taxi was ready to leave. There was a small crowd gathered around Leisha’s snack stall, all wanting a photo with the little mzungu. People would either have her in their lap or hold her up or stand next to her like a character in a Disney park. On one occasion, she sat with three men on a bench. “Button!” I joked from behind my camera, “You should at least tell him your name before you sit on a strange man’s lap!” Cool as a cucumber, she turns and says, “Bampita Liesel.” Meaning, “I’m called Liesel.” Hearing their language come out of a six year old always makes them laugh, which makes for a great photo.

Many kids would be overwhelmed by a large crowd of strangers all wanting to shake her hand, pick her up and hear her use her Lugandan.  We can’t wait until she is nearly fluent.  We might have to hire an entourage by that point because all of Jinja will be talking about it.  She already makes an impression with her colorful outfits, sparkling bows and very long hair… but then she begins the traditional Luganda greetings and WOW.  I wish you could see their faces. They will ask her the same questions over and over and over just to hear her speak.  She is unfazed by this attention, just repeats herself countless times.  When it was time to go, she climbed up upon her front seat in the taxi bus like it was a throne, and exclaimed, “Tu genda waka!” (We are going home!) to the driver of the bus… who obliged her of course.  She rode all the way home waving to strangers who chuckled back and waved.

 Ugandans love to ask Liesel what she wants to be when she grows up because she always answers, “The First Lady” and that gets a roar of appreciation from the crowd.   After seeing her in action today, I will be proud to have these photos of her practicing her campaigning skills. Who is to say that after all this practice that she stops at just being the First Lady? We know she will do something amazing for the Lord someday and if that is the First Lady or even the President, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.  

The Mini Midwife writes:

Today’s African Moment: The Cow tries to come inside the house.

The cow was free AGAIN!!! I was inside when I heard Liesel yell, “COW!” I look outside and WOW there is a cow on our porch! Our friend Marian was here and she shuts our door just as it peers inside. She struggles to shut our door to lock it, but finally she wins over the cow and shuts our door. We wait a little while Marian was laughing and Xander is looking underneath the door. But finally it goes away. We later decide it was lonely…. It’s always fun to party with the Clarks.

Apple Cider Smells like Skittles

In exchange for the fantastic fish heads, we offered to invite Marian’s family of five for a good, American dish- Tacos! They arrived later than expected, but were very gracious and “looked smart”, as they say here when you look nice. They sat down and we set out place settings and taco toppings. This was our first mistake. Technically, our first mistake was not offering a washing basin to clean their hands, but we explained that we had a sink for exactly that purpose. But we shouldn’t have put out the toppings because they didn’t understand the concept and just ate the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and our precious guacamole as appetizers! It wasn’t really a problem because we had more but it was difficult to explain how they would use the vegetables and cheese to fill their tortillas. Guests make their own food? Americans are odd.

We also gave them the “honored piece of beef”.  No, not the head of the cow!  We gave them the bone that was sitting in our new crockpot all morning.  The fat that clings to the bone is a Ugandan’s paradise, they practically licked it clean.  The only difference between the fish head gift and the cow bone gift is that we really didn’t want the cow bone.  Ugandans salivate at fish heads and were probably a bit jealous that we got to eat the “best part” of the fish… we really could have not cared any less what happened to the cow bone.  In fact, we would have thrown it away if we hadn’t known that they would be really offended that we didn’t offer them the best part.  So really, it was a win/win in this case.

For dessert, we bought a special treat from the Vocational Training School that the YWAM base hosts.  This school teaches girls how to do things like tailoring and cooking to help them to get better jobs.  We purchased from them a chocolate cake!  Ugandans love sweet foods, sometimes we joke that the real reason Marian visits us so often is because we have a continuous supply of Nutella on our shelves. We also brought out all the fixings, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a packet of apple cider.  There was almost an order of how things were tasted.  We would make up the drink and it was passed around so everyone could have a sip, starting with Isha, the mother. None of them really liked coffee. We learned that the Lugandan word for coffee, “Kawa” is the same word for bitter. Then we showed them how the Americans make our coffee, lots of milk, sugar and chocolate! That got much better reception. American tea was next; we gave them Ugandan tea with lunch so now they got to try the flavors beyond ginger. Raspberry and chamomile were the two they chose and though Isha was extremely confused with tea bags, she seemed to enjoy raspberry best. “Apple Cider smells like squittles,” Marian says before she tastes the autumn drink. We had shared some Skittles with her from our care package but she can’t pronounce it quite right.

We learned our Lugandan nicknames when dishes were finished. Zoe is “Omukulu” (pronounced Oh-moo-koo-loo) or “Bhabha” meaning eldest. Dora is “Omusawo” (Oh-moo-saa-woh) meaning nurse. Xander is “Omusomesa” (Oh-moo-soh-meh-saa) meaning professor. Jax is “Enviiri Emwufu” (this one is harder to pronounce, En-vee-ree E-mew-foo) meaning red head. Liesel is “Epesa” (pronounced exactly like you think) meaning button, or our favorite, “Kima Kima” (Kee-ma Kee-ma) meaning monkey! In exchange, we taught them some classic boredom games like staring contests, arm wrestling, thumb war, etc. They are very strong! Then they had to leave so we got to practice our Lugandan goodbyes. We gave them some “Squittles” as a parting gift.

All in all, it was a good visit. We learned a lot about Ugandan culture in the few hours we spent together. We prayed for the relationship and the mother is Muslim. Jesus has plans for our families and it will probably involve a few more meals together. Maybe next time we’ll have pancakes…