Ualevu?

First, some relevant background:
A few weeks ago, I ran into a woman from the office on the way to work. I know her name, but I only succeed in pronouncing it correctly about 50% of the time and I can't even begin to figure out how to spell it. So for the purposes of this post, initials will have to do. D is kind of like the on-call Prisca for the office. When someone's staying at the guest house in the compound, she does the cooking/cleaning/etc., and the rest of the time she does odd jobs around the office. Odd jobs such as walking with me to the post office two weeks ago (I'd never been and it was surprisingly off the beaten path, so the escort turned out to be necessary) ... although usually I think the odd jobs are less like babysitting and more like filing fuel receipts and whatnot. But I digress. D is quite friendly and also very patient with my Kiswahili, and over the course of our walks to the office and the post office, she let me in on a few insiders-tips about Kibondo. And by that, I mean shortcuts! So now, when I leave for work in the morning, I don't cut through the Nkya's yard, turn right outside their gate, trudge up the hill to the main road, walk a ways down that road past the court and the district offices, turn off at the public works compound, and walk behind it until I come to our office compound. Instead, I walk out the bottom gate of my compound, turn left, saunter down through a small mango grove, up across two minor roads through someone's side yard (narrowly skirting their garbage pit), past the police compound, and down across a field until I come to our office compound. I'm not convinced that it actually saves all that much time, but D says it's a shortcut so I'll believe her. It is slightly more scenic than the old route though and there tend to be fewer adults shouting "giv-a me money!" with lots more small kids who happily shadow me part of the way, so it has become my preferred route to and from work.

A few days after adopting this new route, I was a little surprised when one of the adults I passed greeted me not in Kiswahili, Kiha, or English, but with "Bonjour! Ca va?" That's right ... French! What was even more surprising was that instead of choking on a linguistic brain freeze, I heard myself immediately responding with "Bonjour! Ca va bien." I still remembered some French! Nouvelles très heureuses!

Now, fast forward a few days ... same time(ish), same place(ish), different person (I think): "uko bien?" I must be getting better at handling new greetings, because I didn't even skip a beat and answered "bien!" This time, though, the self-congratulation was mixed with amusement. It would appear that I now need to have greetings in five languages at my disposal: Kiswahili, Kiha, English, French, and Frahili. That would be French-Kiswahili, as in Kiswahili "uko" (you are) and French "bien" (well/good) ... "uko bien" = Frahili.

That brings me up to this morning. Same time(ish), same place(ish), different person (this time I'm sure): "ualevu?" Consider my multi-lingual greeting proficiency bubble popped. Ualevu???? I actually stopped in my tracks as I tried (but failed) to tease some meaning out of that one, and my confusion was apparently quite visibly reflected on my face, because he took pity on me and finished the greeting in English. It wasn't until I was almost at the office that it finally clicked: not "ualevu?" but "où allez-vous?" ... "where are you going?" Right. So much for remembering some French. Apparently I either need to either revert to my original route to work or dust the cobwebs off my French.

And on that note, time to head home for the day. Usiku mwema! Mwidiwe! Bonne nuit! Good night!