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My name is Ayisha Yahya. I come from Zanzibar. I am a native Swahili speaker. This lullaby, ‘Kuwa’ is about a parent trying to put her heart in to telling her little baby to grow up.
When you sneeze in Kiswahili we say kuwa which is an equivalent of Gezundtheit in German, but means ‘health, grow up’, because when you sneeze they believe you expand your lungs and that will promote growth. So they say kuwa. This is a lullaby about kuwa.
It says: ‘Grow up my child, grow up. Grow up so that I can give you advice so that I can give you a herd of cattle and goats, so that you can get milk. Grow my child, grow. Grow so that you can be big. Grow up fast like a banana tree because
a coconut palm takes too long. Grow my child grow.’
It goes from generation to generation but I brought my child up here in Britain so there’s hardly time for that. My child is a very talkative girl but I remember when she was very sleepy she would cry with that tune so I knew ‘ah she wants a lullaby now’. It’s very strange but I think it’s a soothing sound.
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