Anthropology of Music Weeks 11 and 12

We ladies, we used to site behind the houses The real truth is that we used to cry from behind there We used to put on only half a gomesi [traditional Ugandan women's dress] We used to drink water in gourds that were already drunk from But these days we eat using forks because we are now civilized We now drink water in cups We also sit on chairs very well We even cross one leg and we are happy I have come to advise you Stop complaining Marriage issues are not easy things to discuss openly The first thing you fight about is washing the trousers Well, stop fighting Things are different nowadays There are those youth and other who keep fooling around with their bodies They do not listen to their friends You, children, you better change your behavior What I am telling you is very important and may help your family What makes me sad is that the youth do not listen to advice When you tell them that AIDS is killing everybody Even me, I am going to die with you, ladies I am advising you because AIDS came to kill everybody I want you to abstain from sex and keep yourself safe AIDS came to kill us I am advising the youth to keep themselves safe Stop shaming us These young boys are so difficult to understand We do not want you to shame us We women learned the endongo some time ago We women now even play the engalabe We put on the leg rattles

My grands [parents and elders], I am happy to see you Death killed all the people My fellow deaf people, let me sing about how death has finished us My grands, death has finished us Whenever I think about death I sit and mourn God is great and has power Death, my friends, came to finish us My fellows, death came to finish us Youth, the virus has reached you And my mothers also where you are seated I am happy to see you My fellows, Happy New Year And I am happy to see that you have made it through your problems And also that the sun is shining And to have made it through that famine When I was listening to the radio I picked up the news Kasujja [the electoral commission] announced it And in the New Vision [English language newspaper] they also wrote about it When you bring the Bukedde [local language newspaper] they also wrote about it That in Mukono District they have this disease My friends, it has come with force Death has come to finish us Even this side of Seeta town has got the disease My friends, it comes with coldness Death comes from Mukono Father, it has entered in us It also entered Bbombo Listen, when it reached there All who were there were killed Diseases reached in large numbers Death led to graves and to the soil Father, even if you are brown, friend, it takes you the same way Even if you are small, friend, it takes you the same way However black you are, friend, it takes you the same way The rich and poor follow the same path However red you are, I tell you this my mothers This soil will never be satisfied It would have been satisfied with Sheika This soil will never be satisfied It would have been satisfied with Muzeyita When I think of the death of youths I sit and pray There are those who are saved and those who are Muslim Even if you are a Muslim you also pray to Allah, to God It takes you out of the world without any opportunity to respond Listen, Silimu [local word for HIV/AIDS] has killed us Look, it has also killed the children Like this Ayidisi [AIDS] - that is Silimu - has also finished people All the brown people, Silimu has finished them It has killed all the ladies Whenever I sit down I mourn Thinking about death and how it will force me to leave this world