I pick it for you from down

Uganda has over forty indigenous languages, but, largely for internal political reasons, none of them is an official national language. Instead the colonial language, English, and an East African lingua franca, Kiswahili, are officially used and there is a Ugandan Sign Language. English in Uganda, though is not always instantly recognised by those from the home country. This is because it is influenced by the forms of Ugandan languages.

The first aspect of this that I got hold of, helped by having learned a smattering of some other languages including Arabic and Kiswahili, is the phrasing of questions. In UK English we might ask “Did you go to school today?” This usually prompts a blank look, until you remember to just make a statement with a questioning intonation – “You went to school today?”. When we go for a little walk, countless young men on motorcycles pull up alongside and say “We go?”. They are boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) riders and I do not recommend accepting, especially in Kampala traffic as the mortality rate is high. Incidentally “boda-boda” is thought to come from the origin of the motorcycle taxi in the border town of Busia, as the riders would call “Border, border” to indicate the likely destination to potential passengers.

“You pray where?” means where do you go to church?

A “short call” is the briefer sort of visit to the lavatory.

If something amiss happens, or you say you don’t feel well, your companion will say “sorry, sorry”, to express regret at your situation, not as we would, to take responsibility for it. In a similar way, you may be congratulated with “well done” on any minor achievement.

Preparing a project with people involves mobilising and sensitising them, roughly equivalent to publicity/recruitment and education.

Pronunciation often varies markedly, and suggests that words have been learned from written rather than spoken sources. “Clothes” is often pronounced “clo-thEs”. Depending on the speaker’s origin, Ls and Rs can be similar or even interchanged and K can sound like CH. And adjacent consonants often find themselves separated by a 'helping vowel'. There's more information on the Wikipedia page on Ugandan English.

Family relations are different, society is patrilineal and there are different degrees of affinity between cousins whose parents are brothers and those whose parents are sisters, so “nephew” or “niece” is not an adequate description. So Caroline was more precisely identified as Barbara's sister's daughter. However, adults may be called “Uncle, Auntie” by any child or young person, and we are now sometimes called Mama or Papa by less elderly adults.

“Eating money” usually means corruption, embezzlement. 

“OK please” shows agreement. “Please” is not used as we do, when requesting something, Ugandan English is more direct here “You give me money”!

It’s not surprising we sometimes struggle to be understood.

Can you work out what the blog title means? “Pick” usually means something like “Get”.