Ugandan vocalist Naava Grey has opened up about a series of extraordinary childhood experiences involving her grandfather, whom she said the family believed possessed unusual supernatural abilities.
The singer recalled stories of her grandfather seemingly appearing in places before the rest of the family, communicating with snakes and even commanding trees to bend so he could reach their fruit.
One of the memories that stayed with Naava involved a family trip to Mbale. She said her grandfather would sometimes remain behind while drinking tea, only to tell the family that he would somehow arrive in Mbale before them.
According to Naava, the family would leave him behind, travel to Mbale and eventually find him already there — still sitting and drinking tea as though he had never left.
“He would tell us that he would reach Mbale before us, and we would leave him behind taking tea. When you reached there, you would find him taking tea in the same spot again.”
Naava also recalled a more frightening story involving snakes at the family home.
She claimed that whenever someone was bitten by a snake, her grandfather would summon the snakes in the surrounding area and ask which one had bitten the person.
According to the singer, the snake responsible would separate itself from the others before being killed, while the remaining snakes would return to the bush.
“If a snake happened to bite someone at home, he would call all of them and they would gather.”
Naava said the unusual incidents did not stop there. She also claimed her grandfather could make trees bend when he wanted to pick fruit.
“If he wanted a fruit from a tree, he would just tell the tree to bow a bit, and he would pick the fruit.”
The stories offer a glimpse into the unusual experiences Naava says she encountered growing up, although they remain personal recollections rather than independently established evidence of supernatural abilities.
For Naava, however, the memories remain vivid — particularly the moments when her grandfather appeared to do things that left the family struggling to explain what they had witnessed.