Omega

Let me brag today. After all, it is not every day that I have reason to do so.

My Dolls & Photos
She is one of the few people who have met my dolls, Sarah and Tina. I still have that photo Daddy took of my sis, her, Alpha (her brother) and me holding Tina and my sister’s doll Kate. The photo was taken the day Daddy bought Tina and Kate.

I even have a photo of Alpha and her when she was barely a year old and used to call me Thiamali - a name that her Mom still calls me by sometimes. At the time that this photo was taken, her Mom was a nurse at Kaimosi Friends Hospital in Western Kenya, and my Mom a teacher at Kaimosi Girls High School. However, her stay in Kenya was short-lived as her family returned to Uganda a year later.

I have another photo of my Aunt, her brother, my Sis, and me taken at the Ambassadors of Hope children’s home in Luweero when she was twelve.

Her Early Songs & Humour
We always loved it when she and Alpha visited us. She was only three years old, but I looked up to her in spite of the big age difference between us. We all loved her singing voice, and her nursery rhymes made us happy. I remember us asking her to sing E je lino over and over again, even when we could not speak Luganda. We would often ask her to recite:

Rat-a-tat-tat! Who is that?
Only grandma’s pussy-cat.
What do you want?
A pint of milk.
Where is your money? In my pocket.
Where is your pocket? I forgot it.
Oh, you silly pussy-cat!

I used to love how she sang with the African Children’s Choir. I still remember Betty Jean Robinson's "Jesus is Alive and Well," which she sang at many music concerts in various churches when she was about ten years old. I liked the way she sang ‘he he he he’ after this part:

Jesus is alive and well
Jesus is alive and well
Tell everyone you see, oh, tell them for me
That Jesus is alive and well
He's sitting with the Heavenly Father
Interceding for you and me
Tell everyone you see, oh, tell them for me
That Jesus is alive and well

She is Omega Bugembe Okello…

I remember that whenever she would be asked to introduce herself, she would say, “Nze Omega Bugembe Mukyala Subi...Alexi!" The musical lilt she would use after the pause was hilarious, and to think that she was only three years old! There is a story behind how she got the ‘Mukyala Subi Alexi’ name, but I do not remember it.

She taught my sister how to dance maganda when my sister was in P.6 and she was in P.4.

Nowadays
My Aunt was in Uganda a few months ago, and she told me that Omega is putting up a benefit concert on August 29, 2008, at the Serena Hotel in Kampala to aid the maternity ward of Mulago Hospital. The proceeds from the concert will go directly to purchasing surgical beds for high-risk pregnant women who often need surgery to save mother and baby.

For more information about her read:
http://www.omegaworldmusic.com/
http://kabiza.com/OutofAfrica-Too-Ezine-Omega-May2007.htm
http://www.jamati.com/online/music/omega-bugembe-okello-the-singing-health-advocate
http://www.ugpulse.com/articles/daily/Entertainment.asp?id=662
http://allafrica.com/stories/200707091357.html
http://simplelight.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/new-cd-from-omega-okello