Is this Matha Nay-Cha?

   
        It actually began two Sunday's back when Z had a lovely, magical post that led me to have a magical date with the Little One. She had triumphed over her new Lego-like building set to create these gorgeous little boxes we turned into secret gift boxes, a nice little arts and crafts project, no? 


           We decided to exchange our gifts at bedtime and dashed off to the pier for one of the best sunsets in paradise I've had yet. Vannesa played in a supervised play ground with the most attentive clowns I had ever seen on the job and a scattering of children in all the shades of the rainbow conversing through merriment in lieu of language.  I didn't mind that, as I am an anomaly of sorts, I sat singularly excluded among the couples and sisterhoods of nursing mothers with infants, a stones throw away from singletons enjoying stimulating cocktails and romantic tête-à-têtes. No, I didn't mind at all, because Z's post hand left a feeling of fantastical possibility in me and I smirked as if I knew something no one around me knew, as if all of them were living ordinary lives and I was dancing with fairies they couldn't see (maybe it was the lamppost or her partnership with the Sage). 
           The sun drooped down lower and lower, it's light having a romantic tête-à-tête with the Ocean and the dhows, and sailboats, and fishermen canoes scattered in the water like the multi-colored children, floating with merriment.   I thought of Z's friend Kenny and wondered if he might soon have a chance to meet my grandparents since passed and if they would have a laugh at the oddity of how he has come to be connected to my spirit (because in that moment it strangely felt he was.....connected) and I sent a prayer that they may comfort him for they know the pain of transitioning without your dear Beloved by your side.  Then the sun set and I made a secret wish....

           It was not until the next night, at bedtime, when I was stressed and tired and desperate to put Ms. V to bed (now I know the cause of my stress-it was after all a Monday!!!) that she found one last way to stay up just a little longer, having made a repeat performance of our gift boxes; though this time I did not participate, she still wanted to give me what she had made. I barked something about "for God's sake we'll do it tomorrow!" and immediately felt like SUCH a tool and called her back. 
           She knelt at my feet while I sat on the edge of my bed (kneeling is a sign of respect for elders in my culture but I have never expected it of the Little One, and she has never attempted it before. This seemed a subconscious act) there in the box was a small square children's drawing, with the word MOTHER scrawled across the top.  And I did that thing where you say you're going to cry just to show how touched you are, but don't really mean to: "Awwwww, this is going to make me cryyyyy" and promptly started bawling uncontrollably with heaving and hawing. I could see her big eyes staring up at me with a blank look of....shock? Pleasure? Fear??? I don't know, but I do know that only with the thought that this could very well be utterly traumatizing to her, was I able to pull my sobbing self together.  

MOTHER 

           Since then, the notes have continued (so I guess it wasn't traumatizing after all) as have the unexpected, and frank discussions on which version of the word to use for me.  Since she already had a Mummy, I have proposed Mama (which is what I'd always wanted to be called anyhow).  I never mentioned it here, but the words "I love you" have also, up to this momentous occasion, been used rarely and with great trepidation and only by myself; they often elicited that same blank stare, and I couldn't figure out if it was triggering a past memory, pressuring her to respond with something she didn't feel herself, or scaring her because she didn't believe it was true.  It has quietly weighed on my heart, not being able to freely express this phrase, but I've felt determined to be patient and gentle about it, to not over think it.  Well among the notes, this phrase has taken on official proclamation status and is now being tossed with such frequency (and SUCH sincerity) between us that I wonder how she has held back using it for so long (She is a sentimental wonder that One, and I feel like an awkward doff to her explicit and often public outpouring of affection). All this while, she remained mostly silent, still, and loaded with unspoken thoughts and feelings; it seems, my Little One is fluent in the language of Love.

           If the same can be said for E-N-G-L-I-S-H, that remains to be seen......

Swallowing a Chicken and Choking on a few Bones: The highs and Lows of this Weekend (1)

         Dr. Gloria is the outpatient physician who I saw when I was diagnosed with Malaria a few weeks back.  There is nothing special about her, really, except she does her job, professionally, thoroughly, and kindly; this makes her EXQUISITELY distinct from any Ugandan doctor, working in Uganda, ever. Yes, yes, this is the part where I say, "well not ever..."- Hmph. We Lovvvve Dr. Gloria. So despite the unusually long wait in a fairly empty clinic, our threesome trip to the doctor's was pretty okay.   I was checked for Malaria...again, still going through fluctuating levels of weakness and total blah-ness: "Oh! But why are you back again? Are you not getting along with Dar?", "Oh no, no Dr. Gloria, I love Dar I just..." (did you hear that Ug doctors, she remembered who I was and showed concern for my well-being despite knowing I was NOT in the exclusive categories of having TB/having HIV/ being an infant with Malaria/ or any of these in tragic combination-just because I am not dying doesn't mean I don't count. Hmph!!) Dr. Gloria ordered some more in depth blood work and urine sample for a certain kind of bacteria as well as Malaria. 


           In the meanwhile, Ms. V also had to have blood work as well to begin a chart as she has been suffering from acute stomach pains since long before I knew her (so like longer than 6 months) let's just say since she was young.  I held her in my lap while the lab technician (in the 1 month I've lived here and 3 times I've seen him, he has demanded me to learn Swahili as soon as possible at least 30 times, so I told him to make sure I stop getting sick and I will learn, he agreed) prepared her big needle.  The Little One has no shortage of stories at her Hulk like transformation if faced with an injection; apparently, she bites; she wounds; she maims, and swears there is a whole slew of broken nurses out there who can attest to this fact.  Having just felt the pinch of the large needle he was preparing for her, I was a bit.....nervous.  I held her in my lap, one arm firmly wrapped around her free arm and both legs, while I whispered soothing comments into her ear.  She discussed, with squeakily thin voice, the approaching needle and I swear my heart beat right through her otherwise still, calm, chest. We survived.  


          She was given de-worming medicine and revealed yet another quirk in her personality-the girl LOVES medicine.....almost as much as Chicken! Which, well......It was so bad she almost cried at the idea that her medicine came in a single dose and mine was much more-weirdo! (actually, no, I think I can guess the history of this going back to her mama, but let's keep this light.....enough) It turns out I didn't have Malaria, or the weird bacteria thing.  BUT (ahem Ug "doctors" this part is called doctoring) While I sat in on the Little One's consultation, Dr. G listened while I threw out other suggestions for what was bringing me down, and ordered a hemoglobin test, and Yaayyy, guess who knows her body? Turns out the Malaria had brought me down a few notches and I was anemic, enough to explain the tornadoes of emotions and behavior a few weeks/days/hours ago, thank you very much-well...... mine, not my mother's, and certainly not hers of today; she is just a crazy, narcissistic, neglectful, careless-urghhhh-keeping it light, keeping it light......


          Dr. G did nothing more but give me some vitamins to keep me going till I replenish the ones I used to take in Ug. (If she's very good I'll give the Little One one tomorrow as a treat in lieu of the chocolate I will eat, hehehe, I'm getting good at this).  Well, actually she did a whole lot more as far as reviving-well- establishing my trust in some-well-one practitioner of western medicine.  Even lil Ms. V has a sad tale of being ignored by some stupid dr. over her stomach issues, and she agrees, Dr. G is super. We <3 Dr. G.....


           Speaking of hearts, in case anyone reads this blog they may notice the large, red Owl distracting them from all of my elquoent thoughts, musings, and stories while it hangs from a tree and-what-farts? I found this lovely "gadget" at blogamation and yes, it may very well look like I am a novice blogger who threw some random, ill-placed, ill-sized, gadget on her blog, just because she figured what a gadet was and how to attach it.....well, okay, that is exactly what happened. But lemme tell you this, after getting over the initial distraction, I have fallen in LOVE with My Little Owl, because of course, it's her-the Little One.  With her big wide eyes that see everything and her enormous heart made up of layers of experience and wisdom and innocence and curiosity, My Little Owl sits atop her tree, watching me write her words down. I check with her now and then as I edit what I've written, knowing that maybe just now she would disapprove of the exposure, but hoping that by the time she finally chooses to learn to read and understand what and why I've written, she will trust me enough to approve.  So thank you Blogamation for my Farting Little Owl!


          But hey! I do have one reader, huh? My gratitude to my first follower Ms. Z. After my almost bout of diarrhea (ha!) at seeing I had a follower I was much relieved (haha!) to see it was a familiar.....friend, though new.  Ms. Z, in my head, is played by Helen Mirren, not just because of her profile pic, but because her writing depicts the same flawless Grace that is embodied by the actress.  When I first found her blog I wrote her a long email about how, though it seemed we had absolutely nothing in common circumstantially, her writing hooked me, like when I sit by the Indian Ocean in one spot and literally watch the tide go out and come back in again: so flawless and so graceful. She's cool, but I never sent that message because I'm Ugandan, and Ugandans are good-damn good-at stalking.  I wasn't sure if there was some Blog-Stalk law or something, and trying to play it cool I kept my cheesy analogies to myself, till now.


          Ohhh, I know why I keep making potty comments, the water in my bathroom is out, so the toilet is on my mind-on my lazy ass I gotta go alllllll the way to the next room to poop-mind. 


          I've written and re-written today's post 3 times, when it is usually a free flow.  That's because yesterday was actually a Pretty. Shitty (ahahahaha-that one wasn't even on purpose). Sunday and I've been trying to document why in so many different ways, but each felt wrong and heavy and pointless.  Until I remembered the chicken and doing yoga with Vannesa...