The woman I am proud to call my Grandmother was a tall light kinned beautiful and very reserved woman. She was also very emotional and wore her heart on her sleeve. She was also so demure that if she was angry or very happy she tended to cover her face shyly with her ever white pristine handkerchief.
She had the most dainty hands, and later on in life I had the honor of massaging them whenever she had to endure a drip for her treatment for ulcers, something that ailed her all her life.
She had three passions in life, God, her family and her community. She was widowed young and left with five children by a man who had loved sheltered her all her life. She managed to raise her five children and had almost 15 Grandchildren and three great grandchildren by the time she passed (That's Ethan Wall on her Lap).
Her strict discipline and tough parenting helped all her children get a good education which was quite the fit for a woman of her times, who was never really educated.
Growing up, all her grand children had a taste of her love and discipline. She named almost all of us. My name Nabaasa was from her. She named me Niwe Abaasa meaning "It's God who is able" but it was shortened to Nabaasa. She invested time in each and everyone of us.
She spent time in our homes and we spent time in hers. She mentored her children in parenting as well. Cleanliness and godliness were her mantra. She was also very hardworking. I learnt to weed the garden and some other chores from her. And most that I know about our culture I learnt from my time with Kaaka. I remember my visits to her home. I was a sickly child with allergies to hard water and yet she always found a way of treating the water to protect me.
I was also very naughty. I had a very poor appetite and I remember one night in the living room they gave us millet and meat. Her dog was lying in the corner. I hated millet so I kept wrapping meat pieces in millet and throwing it to the dog sneakily in a dark corner since we used lamp light then. That night I was praised for finishing my food....but that dog betrayed me. He ate all the meat and left the millet which was discovered the next morning. That spanking was righteous I tell you. But despite my shenanigans she got me to eat somehow.
She taught me about Christ. From the time I was three she always talked to me as if we were peers. She spoke to me of Christ but the true Gospel was the one she lived. Her home always had people coming for counsel, prayer and she would always see them off with gifts of food or some gift someone had given her. Every night she would have us sing and pray. She was up at the break of dawn praying and then going to her garden. She taught me the Zabuuli or our local hymnal and taught me her favorite hymns. She is the reason I can speak my mother tongue. When I was nine she had me visit her for a month and forbade me to speak English or Luganda for that whole month. I had to learn Runyankole. Up to th hat moment I could only understand it not speak it. But by the end of that visit I was almost fluent. I was so proud to weave her a bag for her Bible when I was ten. And I was even more proud to have her at my Graduation, and to bring her my children. The sadest but still a proud moment was that when she rested, I had the honor of preparing the Order of Service in English and Runyankole. Using the Zabuuli she gave my parents. These skills were all thanks to her diligence in making sure we knew where we came from and were proud of it.
Kaaka was generous to a fault. She would literally give the clothes off her back. She gave me my first watch when I was eight, a very expensive leather watch someone had brought her from abroad. She taught me to always have a clean handkerchief on hand and got me addicted to earbuds.
I do not drink alchohol to this day because when I was three she made me promise never to do so. She said I was a special child from God. I believed her. I was very sickly as a child and I remember finding a letter from her to my mother saying that she believed I was a gift from God and that Mom shouldn't despair if I was too ill. She waa always a pillar to everyone and I remember when she passed all her children who even had grandchildren were so stricken... No one could imagine life without her. She was a force to reckon with.
I am proud to be told that I look like Kaaka. I do not have her light skin and regal build but I have her strong teeth and eyes and her smile. I also inherited her love for people and especially children.
Her home was always open and her heart always learning. She was very resilient and raised strong hardworking resilient children and grandchildren.
She is still alive in so many of us and today I celebrate her love for God, her resilience, and her passion for family.
Some of Her Wisdom
1. Pray and read your Bible Daily
2. Always tell the truth
3. Appreciate honesty, it means well
4. Always have a clean handkerchief
5. Work with your hands, it is blessed.
6. Love practically
7. Do not pursue material things
8. Spare the rod and spoil the child
9. Walk with Jesus Daily
10. Love your family, family comes first. 
I love you Kaaka.
Ninsiima Ruhang'Owakumpeire
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