Rap is Universal

On Tuesday, July 14, I was at Sir Samuel Baker sitting outside between classes. Three small children (I would guess their ages between 3 and 6 years) were walking by and stopped to stare at me, which pretty much happens everywhere. I said to them, “Kop ango?” which means “How are you?” in Luo. They replied, “Kop peke”, which means, “I am fine.” One of the boys then said something to me in Luo, and I told him that I only knew a little Luo. They stared at me, so I said, “Are you coming home from school?”, and they replied, “yes.” I then said, “Did you learn a lot?”, and again they said “yes.” At this point, I felt that we had exhausted the conversation, and I turned around to leave. As I was doing this, the other little boy said, “Got my mind on my money…” I turned around, looked at him, and replied, “And my money on my mind.” They cracked up as did I. Who knew that rap would turn out to be a universal language?
Yesterday Obi and I went to lunch at Kope Café, which is one of my favorite places to eat here in Gulu. As we were standing outside Hotel Katherina’s and talking before we walked to the restaurant, he noticed all of the children walking by, stopping and staring at me. Several of them came up and stared until I spoke to them. I think at some point, Obi stopped listening to me because out of the blue, he asked, “Does this always happen to you?” I replied of course. I think for Obi, it is not as big a deal because he is Ugandan. It is only when he opens his mouth and a British accent comes out that people stop and stare because they really don’t know what to make of this Acoli man speaking in a different accent. There are definitely days when I get so tired of the staring. It is not malicious; they are just curious. Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me. It is what it is (this is my motto for Africa).