Language

After I graduated from college I wanted to kick myself for never taking a foreign language. I was always so jealous of those who could speak in a second language. I am proud to say that I can speak decently well in a language spoken no where else in the world. So what if I never use it again after my two years; I can say speak in two languages!

The learning of Luganda has been and still remains to be an interesting journey. People in Uganda are shocked that a Muzungu would know how to speak Luganda and they are very complimentary no matter how much I actually butcher their language. It got me thinking about how many times I have met a foreigner in America who is able to speak english. Never once did I get excited or thank them excessively for taking the time and trouble to learn our extremely difficult language. Most Americans have that attitude that if you are in our country you better know our language and do not appreciate the amount of effort one puts into actually learning the language. It is not rare that I say something strange without knowing it until I see the extremely confused look on their face. For example, the word for woman is very similar to the word for volunteer and when I am bargaining I often times tell them that I am just a woman so I do not have any money instead of saying that I am just a volunteer. There have been times that I have told people I will be living here for 200 years as opposed to two. Before I moved into my house the school deputy was telling me that they had sprayed for bats, but I was thinking he was saying spiders and I went on for a good while about how I fear spiders. Apparently they kept telling me that bats eat spiders and I was saying good, but I had no idea what was being said until Amber made fun of me for awhile the following day. Go figure I have bats, they thought I wanted them to take care of the spiders. I have a friend who was learning another Bantu language who had a habit of telling people that he liked to eat them for dinner. Thankfully Ugandans are very sympathetic listeners and rarely do they laugh at us. However, I am not sure that I am such a sympathetic listener. Today an Ugandan tried telling me that he wanted a muzungu girlfriend in English, but instead told me he wanted a boyfriend. When he realized what he said he laughed a little and I laughed for a good three minutes.

I am constantly trying to impress Ugandans with my language skills and sometimes they try to impress me with their English skills. This always ends up being a very strange conversation where they speak only in English and I only in Luganda. I usually don’t realize what has happened until we walk away and I realize how odd that was. In my attempt to learn to read and write in Luganda I am actually losing some of my English. For example, when I see a “ki” in an English word I want to pronounce it as “chi” as you would in Luganda. I can’t tell you the last time I have used the words “okay” and “no.” It’s always “kale” and “nedda.” Every time I write I start to write the word “kubanga” instead of “because.” While most Ugandans know English fairly well, it is British English and they say things odd in general. For example, instead of saying “I will pick you up at five” they would say, “I will pick you at five.” When I speak with Ugandans in English I find that I get this goofy accent, that we volunteers refer to as speaking Uganglish, and I leave off words we, as Americans, never would. When I come back to the states after two years most of you will think I am the strangest person in the world. I will be inserting Luganda words for English ones all of the time. I will be saying weird things like, “even me” and “thank you for the work” when you’re doing nothing at all. I will be greeting everyone I see and not just a friendly “hello” it will be followed with series of questions such as, but not limited to: How are you sir? Thank you for the bit of work you do. How is the family at home? How is life? All of these questions followed by a series of mmmm and ahhhs. In most situations this is a typical greeting. I’m sure you can imagine how long it takes me to walk a kilometer down the road when I pass about ten people. When I’m trying to impress taxis drivers with my Luganda, usually to get a better price, I end up using all of my Luganda by asking stupid questions like, “What do you like to do in your free time? Are you married? Do you have children? What do you most like to eat? Where do you live? I of course give my whole spiel about how I am from America, I am a volunteer with the American Peace Corps and I live at the primary school. I studied Luganda in Wakiso, but I only know a little. I will live in Masaka for two years, but I have a mom and dad in America. They have two cows and a dog. I also have two sisters. I know how to drive a car, but I fear driving in Uganda because many drivers drive crazy. I was a teacher in America and I like to teach geography. I usually throw in a few other random things that I know how to say, like that they drive well even though I am usually scared for my life or that I like to eat chapati. I’m sure they go home to their families and talk about what a weirdo I am, but I am usually proud of my lack of important Luganda phrases.

A new group of volunteers arrive in Uganda every six months. When one group is swearing in, another group is returning back to the states. I have been talking with volunteers that are on their way back to the states and it is quite comical to hear them talk about their fears of returning home. One girl said that she fears that people will just think she is plain retarded. It’s not saying that Ugandans and their mannerisms that we have picked up on are retarded, but when you put them in the American setting I can see how one would feel that way. This same volunteer asked me my name the other day and I said A-U-T-U-M-N being sure to enunciate every single syllable. When I finished I realized, wait this is not a difficult name for her. We laughed for a bit because she understands why I did it, but when I return to the states people would probably be offended and think I thought they were slow. When you go to a restaurant here in Uganda you may be handed a menu, but there is no point in looking at it because it is unlikely that they will have 90% of the items on the menu. Instead you ask, “What do you have?” Another volunteer was talking about going to an Applebees and after looking at a menu asking, “But what do you REALLY have?” Due to the lack of electricity it is at times difficult to find cold drinks. When ordering a drink it would not be rude to ask to feel them all to find one that is actually cold and then it is also appropriate to ask any drink to be returned if it was not opened while you were looking. As an American, what would you think if you saw someone requesting to feel all the bottles at the bar before buying and then refusing to drink it because it was not opened in their site. I will probably be very touchy when I get back. It is not odd to touch someone on the arm or the back while speaking with them, even if you just met. If I were to get on a bus that contained only one other passenger, I would probably sit right next to him and talk the entire time. Women and children kneel as a sign of respect. Upon first coming here I figured I would do it, but then I could never figure out when and who to kneel and it also seemed a bit tedious to always be kneeling, so I have chosen to refrain. Yesterday, I had a 80 year old woman kneeling for me on the side of a dirt road and I felt like a complete jerk. An 80 year old women kneeling down to me; I should have been kneeling down for her. Maybe I’ll start kneeling and bring that back to the states with me as well.

Before coming to Uganda I figured any job interview would be a breeze upon my return to the states. Such questions as “Tell me how you would handle a class of thirty-two children” could easily be answered with “Let me tell you about the time I taught a class of a 132 children.” “Tell me about a time you worked with someone different than yourself,” would sound something like “Well let me tell you about the time I lived in Uganda for two years.” Easy as pie. Now I’m starting to think differently. I’m going to go into an interview speaking Uganglish, being all touchy feely, kneeling for them, and asking completely inappropriate questions about their personal life and telling them that my parents have two cows and a dog. Overall, I cannot wait for you all to see how weird I have become; it is awesome.

Other random stories and thoughts completely unrelated to the above:

The other day I was on the way to my latrine and saw thousands of termites swarming out of their termite hill. A child noticed the termites and I would have thought he just saw Santa Claus. He came running full speed yelling for his friends with pure excitement. I went to the bathroom and when I came out there were ten children catching the termites and eating them. One child had so many stuffed in his mouth they were pouring out and he was laughing hysterically; just as a child in America would stuff his mouth with cake and laugh. I was talking to my mom about things we could do if they came to visit and I was saying how it is possible to not really do anything and yet be constantly entertained when you are experiencing another culture. This was a perfect example of a time was throughly entertained while doing nothing more than walking to and from the latrine.

I got an e-mail last week asking me, “Besides the obvious friends and family, what do you miss the most about home.” I think I said something about Penny’s Noodle Shop’s pad thai and Cubs games. But I think that what I actually miss the most is late sunsets in the summertime. There is nothing better than the day you realize it is nine p.m. and just getting dark. Here is gets dark at seven and it makes it feel more like winter despite the 75 degree weather. It is also a huge bummer when you have no electricity and when darkness brings out the bats.

The other night I stayed the night at Amber’s because I was going to pick up my new purple ten speed bike, an almost replica of the one I had in fifth grade. I have what I refer to as “my” room at Amber’s place and she had sent me a text a week before informing that she had just stepped on a huge rat, but trapped it in my room. A few days later she had opened the windows in the room and looked everywhere for him the following day with no luck of finding him; we obviously assumed he had made his exit through the window. So I was getting ready for bed, removing her backpack and such off the bed, trying not to step in rat poop. This has seemed to become my life, always dodging poop of some sort. At home stay it was that of a child’s, at my home it is of a bat, and now at Amber’s it belongs to a rat. Anyway, I turn around to walk out of the room when I just about stepped on the rat. Luckily, he was dead and I was able to just sweep him on outside; apparently Amber had starved him to death. I felt a little bad about his long death, but at the same time I am over finding rodents or bats dead or alive indoors.

And lastly, my Ugandan friend Carol’s grandma passed away on Monday night and they were having her burial on Tuesday. A man on a bicycle with a megaphone rode around the village announcing her death and the time of the burial. I decided that I should probably look “smart,” as they call it, and wear my floral Goodwill dress that I cut the shoulder pads out of along with my K-mart dress shoes. It was quite the outfit, but just as I thought, I was complimented on how smart I was. Usually the African’s opinion of what is smart is what an American would consider tacky. But whatever, if I can be smart for under ten dollars, I’ll do it. Anyway, We first went to the grandmother’s house and sat with the rest of the village in the front yard while the daughters and sons were inside with the body wailing. About an hour later they came out of the house and the village chairman and some other men wrapped the body in a cloth used for burial and placed the body in the casket. Once they brought the body out of the house they sang a few songs and a man talked a bit about her, or at least that is what I think he was saying. I did hear that she was eighty-nine years old, which is extremely old for a developing country. They then took the body to the burial site in which they lowered the body into the grave while singing another song and people through dirt on the grave. It was odd because despite the fact that Carol was the granddaughter, we sat in the back behind a tree and she did not even seen upset. I’m sure she was, but she talked with me about random things most of the time and during the burial she decided we should start walking home. I think I was more upset than she was because it got me thinking about my own grandfather’s death, but I guess different cultures have a different way of responding to tragedies.

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to take an interest in my life! I hope all is happy and well!

Peace and love,


Nalubega Autumn

p.s. If you have not yet done so, please pick up a David Sedaris book. I just got done reading “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and laughed out loud multiple times.

p.s.s. I promise I will have a new address soon. I need a letter from a woman, who is on holiday, before I am able to open a P.O. Box!