#singingpraises

Lordy Lord!!
Guess who I bumped into on Sunday? Yes, you guessed right. Ma Lihanna. In the flesh. With blood red lipstick slashed across her mouth.
I had been driving home from church, feeling very holy and singing the chorus of “It is Well With My Soul” very loudly, when I spotted a familiar figure. Carrying a green kaveera full of Sunday lunch shopping. She was turning into the road from the butcher’s. Goat's meat. There was no way I could not stop. I mean, I was in Good Christian mood. Halleluyah!!
She jumped in and I asked her how the kids were. I had not seen her in a long time but I said had occasionally seen the kids playing in their compound. They play alone, not with other children and they strike me as very lonely. Anyway, who’s to say.
In the few minutes we were together, the conversation started with children, jumped to business, revolved to the weather and finally veered to the topic I had been dreading. The maid.
“Eh! I tell you, God is good!” She started. “This one who I got is very nice. She looks after the children well. And she even washes my clothes.”
I fixed my eyes on the road. I didn't want to be shaking my head in whichever direction. In agreement. Or disagreement. No.
“Kale, she’s a staunch Catholic. Namugulira ka radio because she told me listens to Radio Maria and Christian music. Do you know she wakes up early and says the Ssappuli?”
I decided I couldn't keep quiet any longer. “Eh?” I turned my head slightly towards her. There is a way that "eh?" makes people's tongues (especially lugambolists) looser.
“Munnange, nga I have suffered with bu-gals." She lowered her tone and yet it was just the two of us. "Oba who grows them? And then they come to Kampala and feel very nice on you! Stupid!” That last word was delivered with a lot of venom and I pitied the “Amasanyalazze gaweddewo” girl for whom it was meant. She was the one who had worked before this “Kabulengane Reloaded” was recruited.
Thank God we had turned into our dusty road and I dropped her off to go and fry her goat’s meat. She left my dear UAH smelling like a vat of perfume. Like she had dipped herself in it, and not wiped it off. Kasita it was not a cheap mix between an insecticide and Indian incense but a sweet fragrance of flowers and honey.