I really miss photo albums. You rarely took pictures so you always made it count. Made an appointment with the camera guy or invited him over when you met him at church on Sunday. You tell him to come over and take pictures of you and the family and friends. He arrives just after you've had lunch. Then you take your pictures. In the house. The compound. The compound is really beautiful. A long stretchy green before a beautiful house. You smile in the photos as much as you can. You have to actually pose in these.
"No one wants to waste film taking twice just because you couldn't pose Jessica"
He takes your best pictures. You tell him the number of copies you want for each. Then he "washes" the pictures and brings them a week later. He takes quite an amount of these pictures around the neighborhood for like 5days. The place that develops them is in the city or next town so he goes there only once a week with 5days worth of pictures to develop at once. This saves him from numerous costly trips to the city. Going once a week is worth it because you take lots of pictures to develop. Youre sure of profit when you get that 500= per copy. Breaking even is assured. But it will be two weeks now because they want a big family portrait. You dont get how a big picture makes it longer but you agree. You pay him 500= per copy. But 300= if it's a huge load of party pictures. You share copies. So it cost 2000= to share one photo with 4 others. The original share button was telling the cameraman how many copies you wanted so he creates a whole ass copy for only the ones that want copies.
"Moses is feeling... happy - with 4 others" -> Sheryl, Bianca, Marcus, Paul.
Then you shove your pictures into albums and go through them on a Sunday afternoon after church and lunch. Your albums are what welcomes visitors. They go through them as you fetch them a beverage. Usually passion fruit juice. They ask you about someone they just saw in the pictures as you walk back in with beverage in hand. You answer them. They probably want help identifying the young man in shorts with a powdery face or...
"Yeah that’s your uncle Gerald. My mum, your grandmother had sent him for millet flour and somehow he'd managed to fall in the big basket of flour hence powdery face. Quite the funny story.”
...or they're asking where someone went because they realized they're scarce now. The photos in the album brought memories of those people. One's probably dead. Recently buried I suppose. Cause of death; diabetes and hypertension. One had a nasty accident and is admitted. One got married in a far off land. One left to work in the city.
"We’ll see them at church on Christmas"
No one misses to go back home for Christmas. A time for more pictures after church. You'll get them in the New Year.
Stack that small album till you need a bigger one. The most significant and outstanding album has to your wedding album. The wedding photos need to be after the kuhingira pictures. Same album. The story should be told by the pictures when put together. Many great memories caught in those pages. I just wish we could print every instagram worthy photo and put it in an album. Just for the culture.
