Baby Sophia the Singer

Everyone seems to have fantastic voices, and now I know why. A woman was carrying her baby, a two year old girl with very impressive cornrows in her hair who was showing off her pipes with some high-pitched happy improvised squeals. Her mother then said, “Na na” and the baby responded “na na.” Then the mother said “na na” at a different a pitch (or note? I don’t tell the difference), and the baby responded pretty accurately. The mother continued with her “na na’s” at different notes, with the baby responding and changing her little “na na’s” in response to her mother. At one point the baby got kind of spacey and wasn’t responding so the mother persistently continued, “Sophia, na na, na na!” and Sophia responded diligently with her “na na’s.”

Sophia was wrapped up in a little womb of colorful cloth on the mother’s back, as all babies are carried. Very young children carry their siblings like this, and I saw one girl who was so young that her head was smaller than the baby she was carrying. Everyone carries yellow jugs of water home – they look a bit like the ones you carry oil or gasoline in for your car, if I remember correctly. The little kids have a smaller version of the jug, and the very small kids have these teensy little mini yellow jugs that look the same, only much smaller. It’s almost cute.

Occasionally, I see modern-dressed women in Rubona, wearing tank-tops and jeans, perhaps visiting their family. This is relatively rare, but interesting when I see it – I feel like they probably live very different lives from the other women they are visiting, who wear long pieces of colorful cloth draped in a more traditional style, or at least a longer skirt and t-shirt with sleeves, often carrying babies. I passed one modern women and she said hello and pointed to another woman, dressed traditionally – the woman holding Sophia the Singer – and said, “That woman speaks English!” and the woman responded something back in Kinyarwanda, something along the lines of “no, I really don’t” and they had a small conversation using the words “Mazungu” [loosely translated as “white person” or “foreigner”], “Englisha” and “Kinyarwanda.” It seemed like a real, earnest, thoughtful conversation based on their tones, and not the usual laughing at my ignorant Mazungu ways that I normally get.

Babies are great ways to break the ice – mothers like when you say hello to their babies and often love showing off their babies, which maybe explains Sophia’s impromptu singing lesson. And cuteness is conveniently universal and often more interesting for passerbyers than a white person, so it takes the pressure off.

When I got to my usual buttermilk hotspot, it was closed. A nicely dressed tall old man with glasses (I rarely see glasses, so they stood out) was outside the spot, sort of just hanging out, and I pointed to the door to ask if it was opened, and he shook his head. I went to the other store to get some tomatoes, and asked, as an afterthought, where I could get milk (“Amata”, for milk, seems to always refer to the butter milk). Everyone in the shop indicated, with their fingers, the place I had just come from. I shook my head, indicating that it was closed, and mentioned so in English because, well, why not. An old lady, who understood my “closed,” took my arm and persistently dragged me back to the butter milk shop, also saw the door was locked, and went out to the back of the shop, where I imagine the young lady that runs the shop lives, to call to her. The very heavy, newly filled massive jug of milk was taken out, and the lady kept laughing apologetically, pointing out the bits of thick milk/butter in the milk, which I actually like. As I sat to drink, two boys, seeing it was now opened, used the opportunity to try to fix the television in the corner, which would not be fixed despite efforts fiddling with the cable, antenna, knobs, etc. Little kids peeked in, as they always do, to wave.