Just Say No

So, here in Uganda it is very hard to decipher what exactly someone is asking of you. The don’t ask. They tell you something, as a statement and if you say okay, its as good as a promise! I have agreed to a few things that I had no idea I was even being asked. For example:
Shafik brought milk the other day, I told him thanks and he walked off. A minute later he came back to the door and said “I am going home but I will be right back” Well okay. I started back into the living room and I hear Raelee and her two buddies arguing over who is sitting in the front. I went back to the door just in time to see all three climbing onto his motorcycle! “Whoa, wait, what’s happening?” Apparently when he made the statement he was going to be right back and I said okay, I gave permission for Raelee to take a ride! Needless to say she ws not very happy with me when I told her she wasn’t going, but even madder that the boys chose to go without her! She got over it, and Zula was back pretty quick so I suspect his mama said no too!
Once our cook came to us and said she had to pay her kids school fees and we said mmmhmnn. Next day she came back and said “I don’t think you understood me yesterday when I said I have to pay school fees”. With a smile I said “No, I understood.” That pretty much ended that! So we now are very careful when we say okay, so that we don’t get into something we had no idea we agreed too!
We went to visit someone in the hospital and not one word was spoken to us, no one spoke English. But, three weeks later the wife came and said we promised to pay all the bills! We gave a little money but tried to explain that if we promise something, the words would actually come out of our mouth!
We are trying to teach them how to to ask or else we don’t know they  want something! Otherwise, we just say no!