My Dolls & Photos
She is one of the few people who met my dolls Sarah and Tina. I still have that photo Daddy took of Noelle (my sis), her, Alpha (her brother) and I 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 Aunt Trudy, Clovis, Noelle and I 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 Lee William’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:
Right now he's sitting on
right hand of the father
pleading for you, you, and I
Tell for me and everybody you see
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
Aunt Trudy was in Uganda a few months ago and she told me that Omega is putting on a benefit concert on August 29, 2008 at the Serena Hotel in Kampala to aid the maternity ward for Mulago Hospital. The proceeds from the concert will go directly to purchasing surgical beds for high-risk pregnancy women who often need surgery in order 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
