NAKATO IN KYOTO

Nakato was the only Ugandan girl in her university in kyoto. Her name was too hard for them, so they called her Naka-chan. In Uganda, she was loud. In japan, she became quiet. Not because she had nothing to say but because by the time she translated her thought from Luganda to English to Japanese, the conversation had already moved on. She missed noise. Boda noda. people shouting "Mama! Mama." In Kyoto, even the train was silent. People stared at the floor. She got a part time job at a konbini. The managers, Sato-san, was a 67-year-old woman with hands like her grandmother in Masaka. One day, Sato-san said, " Naka-chan, why are you always smilng when you are sad?" Nakato broke. "I'm not sad. I'm just...homesick. I miss my mother' matooke. I miss being understood without explaining." Sato-san didn't say anything. She went to the back and came back with an apron. "Tomorrow, come early." The next day, Nakato came early. On the small stove in the back of the konbini, Sato-san had planted matooke. No, not matooke green bananas from the Filipino shop. she had tried to steam them like Nakato described. It was not matooke. It was mushy, too salty. But Nakato ate it and cried and laughed at the same time. "Masaka style?" Sato-san asked nervously. "Perfect kyoto-masaka style," Nakato said. From that day, the old ladies who came to the konbini started coming not for cigarettes, but for Naka-chan. One brought her a scarf. Another taught her how to write her name in kanji Middle Door. Because she was the middle door between two countries. In spring, during hanami, Nakato wore her gomesi under her winter coat to see the cherry blossoms. The petals fell like snow. she took a video. she sent it to her mother in w******p: "Mama, look, even trees in Japan know how to shed, like us." Her mother replied: "My daughter, you went to look for knowledge, but you found you were already enough." Nakato stood under the cherry trees, a Ugandan girl in a gomesi in Japan, no longer quiet. She was just waiting for her season to bloom.