Keki ya siku ya kuzaliwa

"So Mama Ngoto, how old will you be on your birthday next week?

"I will be 80," she answered definitively though in halting Swahili. It wasn't her first language but it was the only one we had in common, though neither of us were exactly fluent. We'd found a way to communicate reasonably well though on my weekly visits to her after my clinic rounds in her neighboring village.

I knew she probably couldn't really be that old, but then next week wasn't her real birthday either. It was Martyrs' Day which she'd taken on as her birthday. Most older people in Uganda don't really know their birthday or exactly how old they are. Mama Ngoto would be counted as old in anyone's book though. She was a shriveled little woman with deep black skin and a few thin straggles of gray hair under her head scarf. She had few teeth left and was painfully gnarled and stooped over. Her eyes had the milky opacity of cataracts, but her mind was sharp.

"Tell me about the first thing you can remember, Mama."

She began telling a wistful story from her youth in the colonial days under the British. You wouldn't think that the days of colonial rule would be regarded as something positive, but they were. I guess looking at the country's history since then -- "multi-party rule" as they call it -- you can kind of see why.

"So now you tell me about birthdays in Marekani," she said.

Folks here never tired of hearing about our weird Wazungu customs.

"Well, there is usually a big party. And at the party, there is a cake with candles. One candle for every year of age. The person celebrating their birthday blows out all the candles and makes a wish."

"And that wish comes true?"

"Well, not always...um.....but yes, I guess it usually does." I wasn't sure how to answer, but knowing African customs and the strong belief in fate and the spirits' guidance, I settled on the easier course. "Yes, the birthday wish comes true."

"I would like a birthday cake."

I laughed. "OK. We'll make you a cake then."

I was becoming known in the villages here for doing weird things like this. I was Mzungu (white) and as such, was viewed as having some kind of magic powers and a high degree of suggestibility. I liked Mama Ngoto and how she was willing to entertain me with hours of talk over too sweet tea. It would be fun to make her a birthday cake, I thought.

On the hour-long bike ride back to my own village, I began thinking about the logistics of this. Nothing here was exactly easy, but I relished the challenge.

First, I'd have to make the cake. The ingredients would be relatively easy. Flour, sugar, eggs, and milk were all things I either had or could readily get. Powdered sugar to make the frosting would be a bit trickier, but I could have some sent on the bus from Kampala. Then there was the issue of cake pans. I could get those from Kampala too, but the communications might be more challenging. You never knew when you might end up with something completely unintended, but I'd do my level best as folks here were so fond of saying.

While I was waiting for the materials to arrive, I pondered the baking process. We didn't have a stove at my house in the bush, but I'd gotten pretty good at baking with a charcoal fire and a reflector oven.

A week went past, and the powered sugar and cake pan arrived on the bus without problem. The cake pan ended up being an enormous flat pan, but it would work just fine. Things going this smoothly was probably a sure sign that some unscalable obstacle was about to present itself.

As Mama Ngoto's birthday approached, I did a test run on baking the cake with not so fabulous results. The cake was too thin, burned on the edges, and sort of dry and crispy. The village kids who didn't know any better were happy to eat my mistake, and I vowed to persevere to something better.

The day before the birthday I managed to turn out a cake that actually looked like a cake and frosted it a pretty pink color. I dipped long wooden match sticks in paraffin to create makeshift candles, 80 in all since that was the reported age.

The morning of the birthday celebration, I prepared to set out, but hadn't thought of how I'd transport the cake. Bicycle seemed out of the question.

As I often did, I consulted my friend Karima for advice. First I had to explain the whole birthday cake concept. She gave me her best you-are-a-crazy-Mzungu look.

"So I need to find a way to get the cake to Kimenga, and obviously I can't take it on my bicycle."

"Why not?"

"It's too big. I would drop it. The road is too bad."

"You must do what as we Africans do," she said matter-of-factly.

I knew, of course, that that would be the likely answer, and yet I was hoping for some different solution. Now I was trapped.

So that is how I came to begin a 20 kilometer-long walk with a large pink cake balanced on a carefully rolled kitanga on top of my head.

The village children happily skipped along with me, captivated and amused by the strange white woman with an unusual bundle in tow.

Only when I was safely out of view of Karima, my village, and even the children did I take the cake down from my head and carry it in my hands like any normal person from my world would do. Yet again, I saw how different life here could be.