Spit Shake

Yesterday, a woman spit on me. It took me by surprise, and was unsure of how to respond. Then I realized she wanted me to spit on her in return. I’ve never suffered from such a dry mouth as I did in that moment.

I was returning from the Olasiti Orphan Center, after getting a treat of seeing young people practice songs in as a chorus. The treat was momentary, as some boys thought it also the perfect place to joke around and chat. After asking them to be quiet without success, I headed back to my home stay, in a bit of a perturbed mood.

Along the way, as is wondrously usual- a regular parade of children walked with me. Along the way, we met in the road a Masai women in traditional clothing. Our eyes met, and we reached out our hands to shake, and that is when she spit. I wish I could have seen my own face, as I was so startled, and had no idea the intention.

The children laughed at me, and the woman continued her grasped, until it dawned on me that she was trying to gesture with her free hand and mouth that I too should return the spit. I puckered and pouted and tried to spit out some liquid of non offensive proportions, yet really all that issue from my mouth was a dry French tout!

The woman kindly acquiesce my hand, smiling knowingly at my blunders, and continue down the road in the opposite direction.

The children left in the road with me quickly started to sing a song to me,

Jambo
Jambo sana
Harbari
Inzuri sana

It is a song of greetings…the first line says, “how are you?’ the second line returns the greeting and responds fine, and the 3rd and 4th do the same, in a more formal manner. Now that I know what the words mean, I am totally impressed at how fast the children were trying to teach me the everyday survival skills.

Too bad there isn’t a line in there about spit!