Epal Iyohoi

(“Whoops. We screwed up.”)
Lately we’ve had a lot of fun playing with the women, sitting with them on their compounds at night.
They’re actually quite hilarious and find great pleasure in making fun of us—what we say, what we do. And I love the times when we get off a good joke—one that cuts across the cultural barrier and is in clear enough Lopit. You know it’s good because they’ll keep repeating it to one another. We’re sitting in a chaotic cluster and you make some precious comment or screw up the language so badly, someone finds it funny. They go on to repeat it to the next person. (“Ojo Ibeja hijo, hijo…”/”Andi said…”)
Who repeats it to the next person, “Ojo Abuba hijo, ojo Ibeja hijo, hijo…”
Who repeats it to the next person, “Ojo Cecelia hijo, ojo Abuba hijo, ojo Ibeja hijo, hijo…”
And it just keeps on like that.
You know you’ve made a really good one (or said something really stupid) when it circles around for a second time. Or comes back to haunt you the next day, from someone who wasn’t even in the cluster at that time.
On one blessed night, we discovered the Lopit word for when you’re really tired and your head starts to bob up and down, emongita. (I love when complex ideas are caught in one word. I heard there is a word for “I know you know I know you know” in one Kenyan language. That’s so sweet.) Well Kim couldn’t resist and ran with it, telling them the story of how I was emongita-ing in the car on the way back from Torit and she couldn’t even look at me, lest she die of laughter. Well, the ladies thought it was equally funny, and now have taken on Kim’s cry—Emongita Ibeja sahian DANG! (Andi nods off ALL THE TIME.)—and bring it up whenever possible.
(Don’t worry, I have since tokened a phrase they find equally funny: Kim has gas ALL THE TIME. Language learning is so much fun.)
Anyway, all that to say, we have a lot of fun with them. And finally being able to laugh with them has been a huge deal.
So last night we wanted to have Lodina and Abuba and their kids over here for dinner. We’ve had some of our other neighbors before and decided it was time to serve up a special meal for them. Well, they were a little strange about it. They tried to get out of it, wouldn’t answer us directly when we called over the fence. Then they didn’t come and didn’t come until it was really late (they kept saying we’ll come when it’s darker), then left the kids at home because the path was “too dangerous.” (They are our direct neighbors and would have to walk maybe 30 feet.) They were really quite and looked terribly nervous. We hardly laughed! We even made food we knew they would like—none of our European garbage. We just chalked it up to our house being strange.But then we figured it out. They walked outside to leave, my flashlight in hand, and went into a bit of a panic when they heard women on the path. They shut off the torch really fast, then huddled together with their backs to the gate and shushed us. We were like… What the heck are you doing? They sort of giggled and handed back the torch, saying they’d just go slowly, slowly. Abuba’s stifled laughter and joked, “Pray for us.” Finally they had the all-clear and snuck back home.
Lodina came back later to explain it to us. She said everyone would be very, very angry at them if they knew they were eating here. So they tried to keep it a secret—coming in the dark, leaving the kids at home, being relatively quiet. Suddenly it all made sense. And here we were, yelling at them across the village (normal Lopit practice) to “Get on over here and EAT already!” We invited Lodina’s husband in front of other men. We kicked all the kids off the compound because we had special guests coming. And the list goes on.
Whoops.
We feel like heels, but at least we’re learning….