NAMAGUNGA, THROUGH MY EYES

1.Michael Bolton has a "the best of" CD out and guess what song springs to mind............"can I touch you there".Do you remember how such an innocent song was turned into something it was not when we were in S.5.

2. Rush, rush

3. Let me be yours

5. Sukiyaki

6. Ebony and Ivory

7.Kabani or as Julie used to sing it, seeing we were not supposed to speak vernacular........"even who even who, they don'ti touch him when we are together".. And for those of you who are lost.............the Joanita Kawalya's song.

8. If I fear, I fear, I fear there-a-gurunedi fello there.Where where? Namataba

Maria

Unleash thy selves.

Where is:

1) The thumper? Please take your minds back to S.4

2) The thumped? Who beat who.............over what?

3)Cow?

4)Inspector Goat?

5) Belinda my love

6) Piggy family

7)Sula babe

8)Juni............Cordelia help us out here.

9)Eneriko

10) The kuku man

11) what was the name of the gateman........that slim guy. Judy you went home enough times, what was his name...........okay Muteesi tell us.

12)Sharon? How old do you think Sharon is? Imagine her as a teenager.

13)The black lady who used to sit in the bursar's office. And don'y you dare tell me she was the bursar..........Sr.May was the bursar (rest her soul)

14)The matron............so small and yet she held great power.Think sbout it, if that woman decided to write the wrong number for your waist line after being measured for a skirt. You would have to suck in that stomach for the rest of the year.

15) Gumi

16)Born in Africa

17)Sandra Clark

18)Opa

19)Who remembers Mr.Kamya? He used to teach art.

20)Sr. Francis...................B's own up.

21)The biscuits of all biscuits.............eneriko?

22)Guys what was the name of the lorry driver?This man drove us places and I don't think I ever knew his name.

Maria

Does anyone remember a typical namagunga morning - in the midst of the mad rush to get to whatever class - and you had to walk past red-brick and you would find people with (usually a green)tumpecos brushing their teeth outside!! Either before dorms were closed or after!!

Then the mad rush to please the internal affairs supervisor and you hope you've swept and dug to the best of your ability. Then you "borrow" a hoe from the S1s and somehow it never finds its way back to the poor S1 and yet it would be clearly labelled "Nalumansi IC"

Thereafter assembly - and you find you are wearing studs and can't get through social graces (Assey) so you pin the studs onto your shirt - i am not sure what the difference was really between a shirt and my ears - same thing we were wearing the studs somehow.

Trying to decide what is clearly open shoes and closed shoes - not sure why - but there was always the discussion - if its open at the back is that open - if i am wearing no polish but then maybe some polish and its colorless is that wearing polish

Ironing on SUNDAY and "cara fires" and you have no shirt for Monday!!!!

Life was truly something!!!

Good people - don't lose sight of the memories keep them coming - and dearest Penny, once you give us a date we'll start working around you.

So the other day I was driving around town with this friend of mine.She is oroginally from Nigeria. You didn't need to know all that but here goes...................we see this babe walking along the road and my friend says to me, "my gosh, that girl has such a nyash!". I was like "you have stolen our word. How did you know about a nyash?" And this girl, was like what word................NYASH is actually a Nigerian word. The word Nyash actually did exist. Now for those in the know, you probably knew this. But I didn't..... so imagine the excitemnt of hearing a 28 year old woman call a nyash..a nyash in Bristol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So anyway I then proceeded to ask he if she knew what a "nyash-o-meter".The look on her face..........said it all.

Anyway my question is............who was the nigerian in school?Who imported the word?

How is everyone doing? Are we in starve of kaabo? Either that or we are in term X.

Have a good one ladies.

Maria

This Saturday and i will admit it was the first in a long time i had a typical Namagunga Saturday and I would like to share some thoughts that came to mind with you...

Maria getting up at 12.01am to do laundry on Saturday. There's morning people and then there's Maria Ngatunga. I could barely keep my eyes open by midnight on any given day - Maria would be done, washed and hanged by 3am and once or twice i found her ironing!!! as i was waking up - but then that could have been for mass on Sunday

So.... we fetched water or prayed for rain and drained the tanks in the nearest vicinity - borrowed buckets and basins - why didn't i ever just buy two basins - we always had t o wait for a "lala" to finish washing/share - but sharing got complicated in terms of sharing water!!! hard earned fetched water - it was a complete and selfless act when someone shared water with you - do you remember how many times you asked someone for water and there was a long story about how they just couldn't unless it was just one cup and they measured that one cup of water for you!!!

Once laundry was done - and that was truly one of my more traumatizing experiences as opposed to self reliance - i was happy to dig my way out of any patch allocated to me but laundry was one long experience.

Then there was the mad dash - not to get dorms locked so you could get everything back in. How amazing the difference it made once we left S.1 to be able to "negotiate" what time your dorms got locked with the .... can't remember who locked dorms or what the specific title was!!!

Then there was self - then we'd come and clean up and the worst part was how thirsty or tired we'd be and grab would sometimes on those Saturdays be so scarce we had very little or even nothing to share - but we made do with what we had. Then came the options - to find a spot in the box room and catch up on some match needed gossip and hope your batteries had been in the sun long enough to "recharge" so you could listen to "end of the road" - boyz II Men or whatever gospel tape was going round at the time - or in the alternative find a spot under some tree and try and figure out what Mutibwa was talking about or Mme Chemistry meant with the infamous - titrations and why yours was always the wrong colour - or the long walk to the labs to read - or Ms. Wasswa's chapter's or .... take your pick.

If we were lucky we had some entertainment - Commerce Seminar, YCS something - though YCS I think was on Sunday - some form of practice to think about or see some boys and girls on the compound...something was better than nothing and that took up the better part of the morning!

Then there was lunch and thereafter it was one of two things - if you were in S3 and it was your turn to peal for Sunday - so be it - if not - again, boxroom, sleeping in class - or booking some spot with lala's and hanging out for the afternoon. Ironing came into play at some point or not - canteen - if Doreen was in a good mood - or Sr. Cosmas had teddy's and why did she always have teddy's and expired choclate when i was soooooooooooooo broke!!!!

Thereafter we had dinner and prep and the lovely choir practice - anything to shorten saturday night prep unless you had a bad paper Monday - then you stayed and choir practice was almost non-existent.

I was thinking back to all these things as i cleaned up - did laundry and made dinner - just thinking everything i was doing or trying to do I learned from Namagunga. Even the simple graces - that social graces tried desperately to impart i find played out in my life today - so i thank you all - in your being strict, friendly and whatever manner you got me to be the most disciplined person no matter how much i rebelled - it's paid off - 20 something years later....

Your guess is as good as mine