When the Saints go marching in Kenya, doing the wave and 21st century Luo culture (Magina Village)

Our return to the school was warmly greeted, and as we entered the playing area we were accompanied by a number of children. We tried to get them to sing the songs from earlier, but they were too shy. To break the ice we started singing a song we thought they’d know — happy birthday — and a few of the children responded tentatively.  Encouraged, we tried Row x 3 Your Boat, and that’s when the dam broke. So we started doing rounds. It worked! When we stopped I got very ambitious — a three-part round with different voicings, the one and only “One Bottle of Pop…” etc. Ali, Sherry, Merilee and I each conducted a different section and the shining throng sang merrily.  Once again we tried to get them to sing Luo songs, but their appetite for our Canadian musical revue was insatiable. Searching our collective singing mind we retrieved Old MacDonald, complete with authentic animal noises.  They particularly enjoyed my chicken impression, complete with signature wing flap.

Nanopod and Ali took to the field to play net ball, so the rest of us (and many, many children) stood along the lines. Seeing this, Emilio said jokingly, “we should do the wave.” “Great idea!” I agreed enthusiastically, and much to his horror engaged him and Sherry into helping me teach the Kenyan kids the sporting fan’s rite of passage. Picture 100 school children in a line with two mzungu in 32C+ cloudless sunshine. Now add to that me running sprints back and forth along the line, arms flapping up and down in demonstration, cheering my head off, hunched over with my backpack looking like an over-excited, spastic, crazed camel. The kids loved it, but after about thirty sprints Emilio and Sherry became alarmed by my complexion and suggested I slow down.

Finally I got the kids to sing the song I’d heard earlier in Luo. The lyrics, “suna kayo ngeya, suna gi maugo“, sung as a call and response, mean a mosquito bites my back, a mosquito and tsetse fly. At the time I didn’t have the benefit of the translation, let alone a written transcription, so my attempts at Luo (that, and my singing) were greeted with uproarious hilarity. But eventually I could fake it passably, and like the Pied Piper led a gaggle of gigglers around the pitch singing my Luo heart out. Their appetite was insatiable. Recalling the ghosts of New Orleans past I belted out When the Saints Go Marching In, and it was one of the most beautiful renditions I’ve ever heard, my singing aside, of course.  They kept repeating the “Oh When the Saints” part of the song and I went through it, which worked magically. I took the saints right up to Merilee where I pleaded for her help — I was out of songs. Lovely Merilee broke into I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, which we ended with an Eddie Van Halen-worthy electric air banjo finale.

Unsurprisingly, seeing us mzungu (well, this mzungu at least) shed all vestiges of self respect, the kids began to lose their inhibitions. First I felt some of the bolder children gently tugging my ponytail (crunch crunch), and then they began to touch my skin.  Soon everyone wanted to shake my hand. I started jokingly pretending to grab their heads; before you knew it the children were screaming with glee as I chased them with my claws. Ali, meanwhile, was explaining to her net ballers the utterly foreign concept of “sunburn.” Why are you a different colour than the others? my celtic friend was asked by children and adults alike. When it was time to go we left the field singing the mosquito song.

That night we enjoyed an authentic African dinner of nyama choma (bbq’d meat), brown ugali, kale, shredded tea bag, and for the vegetarians, a whole chicken, avec beak and legs. I was naively hoping we’d have a demonstration of Luo traditional costume, song and dance, and we did… sort of.  Oti put in a DVD so I got to watch it on television. We had a more interactive opportunity to learn about Luo culture with Big Daddy, and luckily Lilah had lots of questions because the rest of us were expending our energy just to stay awake.