A review by jackelz
A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
Kirabo lives with her grandparents because her mother abandoned her as a baby and her father works in the city. As a 12-year-old girl, she begins to question who her mother is. 
 
We see Kirabo with her friend, their eventual falling out, her first love, her life in Catholic boarding school, and her discovery of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society. 
 
This book encompasses fundamental issues affecting women in Ugandan society, including skin bleaching, trafficking, polygamy, colonialism, and Ugandan folklore and superstitions around women. I loved learning about Ugandan culture and history, and the beautiful storytelling. 
 
“My grandmothers called it kweluma. That is when oppressed people turn on each other or on themselves and bite. It is as a form of relief. If you cannot bite your oppressor, you bite yourself.” 
 
mwenkanonkano: a Luganda word that loosely translates as feminism, but this concept is older, local, not something imported from the west 
 
“Any mwenkanonkano is radical. Talk about equality and men fall in epileptic fits.” 
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