I am in a small rectangular kitchen on Broad Street, Stirlingshire, washing dishes at the sink. On Destiny Matters, Pastor Charles Kasibante is interviewing one of my favourite worship ministers, Pastor Isaac Sserukenya. The conversation wafts between English and Luganda. The two languages sway together, sometimes falling over each other. But each time the Luganda phrases surface, my heart dances and lifts in recognition, thrilled by what I understand, but even more by what I do not, glorying in the discovery of new word treasures.
The rhythm of the words transports me back to 2022, to my first international work trip.
I was a Momentum Literature Delegate under a British Council programme to attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) in Scotland. The programme is held annually in partnership with Creative Scotland and EIBF to promote cultural exchange and foster collaboration. While at Entebbe airport, I received a notification about a flight disruption, moving my layover to seven hours in Amsterdam. To pass time, I wandered the airport’s wide corridors, marvelling at signage, brand names, and stumbling into McDonald’s to assuage my hunger pangs. I later retreated to YouTube, where I found music in Runyoro, my mother tongue. This led me down a discovery path of Runyoro music that felt like a homecoming, familiar and grounding. The hum and chatter of the airport quickly dissipated as I clung to the voices from home.
*
As I get older, I find myself leaning more into Runyoro, a language that shaped my childhood but now feels like hollowed ground. I desire to understand all its nuances, and savour it with reckless abandon. I intently listen to my grandmother, Adyeeri, praying with the curiosity of an outsider, to whom each syllable holds value, hoping to glean new words from the matriarch.
One particular incident is imprinted in my memory. My siblings, mother, other relatives and I were huddled together in one of the bedrooms in my mother’s house. Laughter-filled conversation permeated the air, swirling around us. As a family, we had come out of a dark season, and we were grateful to be together, able to reminisce about how far God had brought us. Adyeeri asked us to bow our heads in prayer. Her voice reverberated around us with deep emotion, tickling our ears and filling our hearts with joy. There were words I did not understand. “Yesu enganjani yange, webale.” We bellowed out a loud amen like a choir after the priest gave the benediction.
I rushed to ask her for the meaning of “enganjani.” She laughed a deep laugh, head thrown back, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Kimanyisa, my beloved.” English did not do the word justice. It stripped it of its intimacy. Since that day, I have adopted the word in my prayer time for its ability to communicate my heart to God in the language of my Adyeeri.
I now own a Bible in Runyoro. It was my small act of commitment, a gesture toward something I feared losing. I grew up in Hoima District, where Runyoro wove itself into the air like birdsong. It was the language of greetings, of market women, of lullabies sung to restless children. It was the language of schools, public and private transport. It was the way of life. I grew up with a firm grasp of it until my family relocated to Kampala, and the rhythm changed, disrupting the flow of a language that tethered us to our ancestors. In Kampala, English took precedence and Luganda demanded space.
In boarding school, which I attended from primary one all the way to senior six, language became a contest, and English always won. We spoke it to please our teachers, to prove our intelligence, to survive. Runyoro retreated into the margins, a secret I shared only with my family. I learned Luganda along the way, but it never held the same intimacy. In Kampala, language was currency. But back home, it was kinship.
While at boarding school, the sea of languages jostled against each other like tides during a rough storm, each demanding to make a mark. English dominated with its firmly planted colonial history. Pupils were required to communicate only in English, with punishments reserved for those who did not. The humiliation of wearing a bone, or sackcloth to show your failure to speak English, was reason enough for me to fold my tongue and only speak English. While I grasped two more languages – English and Luganda – my mother tongue fell by the wayside, reserved only for family members, in the safety of home. Luganda was the norm as I schooled in the Buganda region, miles away from Bunyoro. It was the price of a good education.
Years later, even if I speak the language quite proficiently, I am still halted by unknown words and meanings. English quickly bubbles to the top to fill the gaps. A frustrating thing. My mother, Amooti Wange, is my teacher. I quickly send her WhatsApp audios with questions about the meanings of words. She will correct me or fill in my silences during phone conversations. I have also become that relative in the WhatsApp family group who would dramatically throw in a “How do I say this word in Runyoro?” line amidst a string of conversations, getting the family debating on what the root meaning is, while garnering perplexity and amusement at my continual desire to learn the language. Other times, an aunt will mention me and generously offer a new word, “kanu kajakunyumira.” And indeed the new word would greatly please me, giving me newfound happiness.
*
At the airport, I discovered bands from Hoima that had music in a language I love and grasp easily. Joy bubbled in my heart. I had their music on replay until it was time to board the plane to Edinburgh. During that week, I would get back to my hotel, call my siblings and demand they speak to me in Runyoro only, as opposed to a cocktail of languages (English, Luganda, Runyoro) that we usually lean into. I was exhausted from all the English around me.
After a year in the UK, I deeply miss the musicality and fluidity of language. Calls with my family have become my refuge from this cold land layered with too much English. I have taken more measures to assuage the homesickness born out of missing my mother tongue and the familiarity of home.
I began by curating Spotify playlists of Luganda and Runyoro songs across genres: lavingos, local vibes, chasing sunsets and sunrises. Heavy in my lists is Kohen Jaycee, who weaves Runyoro into most of his songs. My favourite being ‘Ndozere’, about a man who meets a woman and it’s love at first sight. He really sees her and wants to know everything about her.
I shuffle between playlists depending on my mood. I discover a contemporary artist, Blessed Nelly, whose music is prevalent in Runyoro! His songs are added to the Runyoro Vibes playlist. With each listen, laughter mirthes over like coffee toppings. These playlists have and still are a lifeline, acting as a cosy cushion on a hard day, a steady companion when loneliness enters the door to my heart
On other days, I turn to books by Ugandan authors. These I purposefully brought with me from Uganda: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Manchester Happened, Kintu and The First Woman. The stories in Manchester Happened carry more weight now, after meeting and interacting with more Africans and experiencing some of the incidents Makumbi writes about. I feel a renewed sense of love and allegiance to her for aptly capturing our stories. But also, as a Makumbi fan, I reread her work each year to stan her brilliance.
Goretti Kyomuhendo’s newest novel, Promises, is the latest addition to my bookshelf. Now Kyomuhendo’s work has a special place in my heart for centring stories from Hoima and Masindi, districts predominantly occupied by people of Bunyoro kingdom. My people. Promises takes me home, to a place I recognise like a second skin. Reading names off the pages, whose meaning I decipher immediately, understanding the nuances of culture embedded therein, has been a healing balm for my aching heart.
YouTube content like Destiny Matters has surprisingly imparted to me a sense of belonging. A remembrance even of where I come from and the people I belong to. I belong to Uganda, a country I love and hate in equal measure. But it is still my country, and in a foreign land, its love is heightened.
Away from home, I find myself reaching for language through music, books, social media content, and calls with my family. Things that are familiar to me. Things that remind me of home. That is when I am reminded of the power of familiarity. The power of language.
*
While watching Destiny Matters, more Ugandan-themed thumbnails are curated. Never in my life have I been grateful to YouTube for thinking for me. Once I am through rinsing the dishes and stacking them on the white rack to the left of the sink, I dry my hands, pick up my phone, and scroll through the list. I skip to ‘Kankwagale, Let me Love You’ by Brian Lubega, off his new album, Yesu Awulira. A love song to God, about how all one’s left to do is love God for all that He has done and keeps on doing. Written in Luganda, it denotes intimacy and hits all my heart chords, requiring me to join in worship. I spend the afternoon replaying the album to nourish my soul and mellow out homesickness.
I am transported back to my last concert in August 2024. Maverick City Music was coming to Uganda under the Kingdom World Tour. Kirk Franklin, a goated artist whose songs and persona gave me permission to be an eccentric Christian, was touring with Naomi Raine, Chandler Moore, Todd Galberth, and Tim Godfrey.
I had not been to a concert with my girl friends in ages. This was a comeback to the social scene, no matter what curveballs adulting was throwing at us. Tickets were booked in advance. Our excitement was palpable as we discussed what songs must be on the list, as each artist had a remarkable array of music. Kirk Franklin, for one, had albums that a whole day’s concert wouldn’t exhaust. But we were hopeful that crowd-pleasers would be top of the list.
My friends and I made it to Makerere Grounds at Makerere University, set on a hill, teeming with student vibes. The air on the grounds was electrifying. Concerts had that about them: charged atmospheres like it sucked from the crowd’s anticipation. Ugandan gospel artists warmed the stage ahead of the international acts we had come to commune with. Brian Lubega was among the guest artists from Uganda, a staple in the Christian community for soothing and reflective music. I was singing along to his set because I know his songs by heart. What a joy to be unrestrained in a sing-along amidst people from different tribes, but unified in their love for music in a language they had gleaned. Lubega sang his collaboration song ‘Teli Akusinga’ with Sam Kimera. A song reverberating God’s greatness and esteeming him as the greatest. Both men are incredible lyricists, and this song showed off their vocal prowess.
We left the grounds giddy with joy, chatting nonstop about the experience. This was the perfect send-off. I was relocating to the UK for my master’s studies. This was me collecting confetti to sprinkle on those dreary, grey days.
*
I had not been to a concert yet, in the way concerts are known in the UK. But Priscilla, a Ugandan sister-friend whom I met through a WhatsApp group of Ugandans in Scotland, invited me to a worship evening at her church, Stirling Baptist. Keen for fellowship, I humoured her.
I took the double-decker Bus 54 at 4.00pm in the dark of winter. I was in the city centre within 30 minutes, and spewed onto the walkway opposite Stirling Baptist church. I walked to German Doner Kebab, a restaurant with food that had spices and was worth my coins in this foreign country with unflattering food. I waited for Priscilla, who later arrived, and we walked back to Stirling Baptist. The worship set was obviously filled with English songs, which I knew and deeply loved, but I yearned for a diverse list. Churches in Uganda served a language buffet in any worship or praise session. I missed that. I told Priscilla this much at the end of the one-hour session, which left me half empty.
Amidst this language chaos, Priscilla became my lifeline to home. Whenever we met, we immediately fell back into familiar territory like we had signed an invisible contract, no English here. We moved between Luganda, Runyoro, and Runyankole, as she is from Ankole. Music to my ears, nourishing my soul and body. With her, there were no explanations.
I am reminded of our first meeting. The WhatsApp group had called for a get-together as new students had joined universities across Scotland that year. I was keen to explore Glasgow and meet and greet with fellow Ugandans, unbound from the English language and its restraints.
I met Priscilla at the Stirling train station, where she bought us tickets to Glasgow Queen Street Station. We huddled into the navy-blue and white-themed train, sat opposite each other, close to the window. My eyes wanted to feast on the landscape. Scotland is famous for its beautiful evergreen landscapes. Priscilla filled the 40-minute journey with stories about her UK experiences, her unrestrained laughter, as if we were on a bus or at a restaurant in Uganda. It felt good being in her presence. I didn’t need to worry about getting off at the wrong stop. I was with a kafulu. She had made this journey before.
We disembarked at Queen Station, scanned tickets and exited with a throng of people into George Square, my eyes bouncing from one corner to the other, overstimulated.
“Hanu ka harungi,” I mentioned excitedly to Priscilla.
There were rows of black steel benches, pigeons everywhere, and statues and monuments of famous Scottish historical figures. We sat on the benches, with me soaking in my new reality. The sun was smiling, but the cold breeze dominated the day. Regardless, we were clothed with warmth and anticipation of a fun-filled, intoxicating day.
Keen to capture my first time in Glasgow, Priscilla curated every photo moment while we waited for the others to arrive. One by one, they trickled in. Luganda was the language of the day, spoken eloquently and in broken tones. Off we went to Glasgow University, a magnificent campus with Harry Potter history, the famous Hunterian Art Gallery and distinct architectural beauty. The day was filled with sightseeing and later one of the best dinners I’ve had in the UK, at a Middle Eastern restaurant.
On the way back to Stirling, we reminisced about the day’s events and the joy of community. My heart and mouth were full of good things. This overflow would last me a few weeks before the yearning set in again.
*Photo by Matthew Kalapuch on Unsplash