Saturday, July 30, 2011

...billboard mystery...

So, we have been spending the week in Kampala, Uganda's capital city.

For those of you that have never been to Uganda, you need to understand that sometimes signs and advertisements are....well...interesting.  Spelling is left up to interpretation.  Languages are inconsistent.  Meanings are not always clear.

I mean, today I had to ask our friend Roland why a sign said "Avoid Fake Weddings."  It's not what you probably think.

Throughout the city there are various round-a-bouts, something foreign to most Americans.  All around these traffic-jam-inducers are giant billboards.  I have seen these same signs all week, but for some reason one really got my attention today.  I was looking at the image of a little boy, maybe about 2 years old, with giant headphones on his ears, and looking up.  Next to it, in ginormous Comic Sans letters, it says, How is talking to your listening child?

What????

I brought it to the attention of the three others in the car.  We spent several minutes trying to come up with an explanation.  I ultimately decided it must just be a typo.  (Or do you call it a paint-o when it's on a billboard?)  Not long after we agreed with this as the only logical conclusion, we saw another billboard that was identical to the confusing one....or was it identical?  This one said Who is talking to your listening child?



Aaaaaaahh!  That makes so much more sense!  You know, beware of the influences you allow on your children.  So, Hayley was convinced that I must have just read the first one wrong.  Of course that is very possible considering I had been dozing a bit before this encounter.

On the way home I took special note of the word in question on the first billboard....

It definitely says "How is talking to your listening child?"

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