the first time I felt like un-outsider.

Memior
draft /2005 original date






At end of 1994 in December right after school let out. Things began to come together once again for me. Mom’s death was part of my past and I had moved on. Deo and I began to hangout together almost everyday after school. We never went a day without going to Lubya Hill and looking for trouble all over Kasubi. Deo began to refer to himself as Major General. General Deo and a lot of our playing were centered around playing with wooden guns and cheesing other boys all over the city. That December we draw a plan out of cutting and selling Christmas Trees for money and we also began to plan how we were going to celebrate the upcoming New Year. Under the leadership of General Deo our group was now bigger than when I left. We had more boys in the group and two girls. I don’t remember why but the girls never liked me and I hated both of them. School was out I hated being at home with my cousins because I never felt that I belonged there it was hard for me not to show it and Deo was the only person that I cared about that I wasn’t related to.

One late night I came home from Deo’s house and I could see a car drive away from our house on the long dirt road that lead me home every day. As the car drove away I had no clue who was in the car and to why it was leaving my house. When I got home Uncle John had a weird sense of excitement on his face. “Where have you been all day, he asked me. I looked at him for a sec before I asked him. “Didn’t you know I was playing at Deo’s house all day?” He went on a quick mad rant preaching to me about how a question should never be answered by another question rather I direct answer. So then standing firm and erect with my shoulders up and arms straight down like a soldier and I looked him in the eyes and told him that I was playing at Deo’s house all day. Before I finished answering him I had already worked passed him.

“Your father had been here all evening waiting on you,” he said to me. I turned around and looked him to judge his honesty about what he was saying. Sometimes my uncles thought it would be funny to tell me thing like this. It wasn’t the first uncle John would say such things to me and to my judgment it was just another day of games since my butt had been gone all day. “You just missed him just by seconds, he just drove away.’ When he told me this I began to think about the car that I had seen drive off but I didn’t think of it as if my father was then person in that car. Ever since Dad went to America he had developed a habit of coming home to visit Uganda around holiday times. It been years since my eyes had caught a glance of my father’s face. Last time we both seen each other was at the airport back in 92 right after Jajja’s death. Every now them Dad would write us a letter by time it got to us however, it was opened and read by each hand that touched it before it got us. Dad used to send me post cards of multiple skylines building especially Houston and every so often he would include pictures of him and his friends in the envelope.  

 Uncle John wasn’t messing with me this time but my heart fell to trust that fact Dad had come to visit me. America, where Dad lived was a place so far away beyond the horizon of my imagination that it was impossible for me to believe that a person like my father who lived in a place so far would come to visit me and left without seeing me. Thoughts of my father coming to my rescue after Mom’s Death came to my mind every so often. But these thought were far, perhaps unreachable in all form. Seven month had passed since Mom died now and never have my ears had any news about my father coming to visit me until today. In the few weeks after we buried Mom I would wait to see if Dad would come and get me but even moonlight that feel my father wasn’t in sight so my heart got weary and gave up on the idea that my father even knew I existed.  My family wasn’t the only family that had a relative oversea. Lots of other families did. The norm usually was that people like my father that left Uganda to go better themselves elsewhere in countries that only existed in our geography classes would never come back to help the ones they left home.

Uncle John still went off about my father. He had such great admiration for a person I was taught to hate and stay away from all my life. He wouldn’t stop talking about him for minutes to come. He liked his smell, gold watch, shoes and his bold fed hair cut. I was hungry for food and not in the mood to talk about my father whom I really had no clue of how he looked or smelled. For all I knew my father had no clue of how I looked, we could even have passed each other at the side walk in the market as strangers from different villages. Years back when kids were kidnapped. Some members of my family believe that Dad was behind some of the early kidnapping plots with a goal of taking me away from my mother. For this Mom made it clear to me that I wasn’t allowed to talk to my father if she wasn’t their but now she gone and I can do whatever my heart desired.

At times my mind went and dreamed about a day my father would come to get from Kasubi. I had seen it in all in a perfect picture drawn at the back of my mind. He was going to come with a big suitcase full of close and dress me like an American in white converse shoes, a Rolex gold watch like his. But after wish and dreaming and seeing now answer to my prayers it was true all the things I was told about my father during my childhood. He was not coming back to get me and all I could make out of Uncle John’s words wasn’t anything new to my ears. He was messing with me as he had done yesterday, and the day before that. My father was dead to me the minute no news came from him after we buried my mother.   

Aunt Florence was trying her best to be good to me, she was the best person to me but I was stubborn to accept that she loved me. I was always in fights with her. She hated that I did not do any chores around the house and that I spent all my free time with friends since school ended. One morning she refused me to eat breakfast until I talked to her. I was always scared to talk around her and she eventually caught on. “What’s wrong with your mouth when I’m around?” I had no answer for her. Silence around her wasn’t something that I controlled, it happened naturally. My mouth would just go shut when she entered the room. She would always tire to cheer me up but I was so bitter that no matter how hard she tried to make me smile I didn’t. That morning she told me that I was not allowed to leave the house anymore until I learn how to talk to my family and to play with my cousins. It was hard to believe that she was actually doing this to me. I was ten years old now. Grown enough to pick my playmates and I never remember my Mom telling me who to play with.

I didn’t like being around my cousins for a couple of reasons. At times there were only nice to me when Aunt Florence was present. When she wasn’t around they never cared for me. Nelson was alright but he was younger than me and at times not as fun to play with as kids my own age. He wouldn’t climb trees or go up to Lubya hill to hut from wild animals like the black dotted leopards that Deo and I went after almost every morning. Winfred and Innocent I couldn’t stand. They always had a lot of friends over and all they did was to play house with white dolls. Not liking dolls since birth I did not want to hang around and play father of these dolls. If anything in my perfect world girls just didn’t know how to play just as us boys.

 Aunt Florence left that morning to go to work. I even though she told me to say at home, it was the holiday and all I wanted to do was to play. Deo and I played all day that day and when I returned home from playing my cousins were getting ready to go spend part of the Christmas Holiday with another relative. I wasn’t invited or even told about the trip.  

For the first time I felt like un-outsider. My face was burning with rage as I watched them get ready for their trip. They were all happy and looking forward to spending time with other relatives in the family and in a world so small. None of them seemed to cared that my black face was in the same room as them.  I looked on as they all got ready and I had nothing to say. But in that very minute I became bitter against the world I was living in so I ran off back to Deo’s house crying with a sharp pain in my chest. Mad as hell when I saw Deo I told him that I was running away to Bomma’s House. I didn’t where it was, I had only been there once long time ago but I could clearly remember the name of the village and all I needed was money to get me to the taxi park to catch a taxi that went to Sinda Village where Bomma lived.

Deo helpful as always, he was loaded with great ideas and I expected him to come through with one of his money making ideas and Deo did just that. He had heard from the older boys around the neighborhood that most local business were seeking old car tires to burn as we brought in the year of 1995. Every new year at twelve o’clock people gathered in different squares of Kasubi and burned old car tires to welcome in the new year.  


There not many business in the area that need old tires but the few that would pay for them were handing out the money on a first come basis. The two of us along with a few older boys made plans to begin working when dawn came the next morning. We were going to go to different parts of Kasubi all in such for money and each one of us had a goal for the money. Deo and the other boys have been playing football up at the school and they each needed football shoes. I needed money to catch a taxi to run away because that day I had broken my aunt’s radio and I was very frightened on how she will react

manuscripts Jeremy Jjemba

Mock ... Daft in work .....   

Part I  

Memoirs of loosing my mother to AIDS here in Uganda! Early life etc ... written about 2005 rough draft...all rights reserved

In my life if I was to write one book. This will be it. If I was to write about one subject, it would be death. And if I was to write about one woman, it would my mother.

I was born in Kasubi; one of Uganda’s Ghettos in the suburbs of Kampala, Uganda’s capital city. Kasubi is home for some of Uganda’s working class people. Most people here like my family live in slams. Housing is simple and somewhat ancient, some are made out of made bricks and some still have grass rooftops.    

and most of the sub-Saharan countries during the mid nineties and on through out the end of twentieth century, we had a plaque that was sweeping through our countries killing most of our parents. Not a single day went by without me seeing a dead body being transported to a funeral. Something bad was killing most of our parents but we were so naive to know why all these people where dieing. Everyday news got to our ears that someone we knew had died. All that were dieing had the same symptoms. They were all kinds of reasons I heard to why all these people were dieing. Some said it was witchcraft. That the country was bewitched some said, other claimed that the Europeans and other countries overseas were trying to wipe off the black race in the world and what better place to do that here in Mamma Africa. I heard people say that white countries of the Western World had planted a virus within our human species therefore the virus was to spray killing all the were exposed to it. We had radical that called this massacre a punishment from God to the dear people of Africa. What greater sin did we commit to deserver such a punishment? That part of the story was never told.   

Millions died from this plaque. Kasubi had a number of carpenter shops and their profits had now more than tripled because they were making and selling wooden coffins like never before. Most business Men in the town were all throwing their capital into the business of carpentry if you say so but the hottest product on the market were the wooden coffins all the shops made. All the men that were creative with wood took up carpentry to make coffins. Some shops had a buy one get one coffin free special. Some shops offered a special buy where the buyer would choose a set of coffins, either one for a grown body and a small child or have two coffins for grown people. The best dealers were far out of town were the shops offered three coffins for one price. You can burry Mom, Dad and Child all for one price and maybe same colors. You could buy which ever special suited your need and nothing else in Uganda was selling more than these wooden coffins.

Farmers were planting more timber trees to maintain the supply of coffin demand. People died everyday that the priests at Kasubi Church of Uganda had to hire more priests to attend all the funerals. On Radio Uganda, the only major radio station at the time in the whole country. The hour of special death announcements was now extended to two hours of special death announcement during the day and an hour during the night. During those hours the announcer would read the announcement in hundred of all the people that had died non-stop. The reason for this was the our dear country had not yet invited a way for its people to community privately in times like this due to a lack of ground phones technology. So announcing death on the radio was a norm as it is for most people who tune in to the radio for entrainment. Everyone tuned in and those that didn’t have a radio gathered to one close by to listen to all the names the guys was calling out and to my surprise we all knew at least one person from the hundreds of people that were dead.

Carpenters won’t the only one cashing in during this era. Taxi drivers were banking like never before and most of their prices were set therefore the price was the same everywhere you went. Sometimes it was impossible to afford a taxi so the dead bodies were then carried on the back of a bicycle as the carriage a family could afford to transport a dead body.

*The dead on the back on the bicycles were scarily for an eye to catch. These are images that still come to me in the deepest of my sleeps. The flocks of these dead persons were not carried in a coffin rather in bed sheets or brown backcloth on the back of a bicycle with hundreds more bicycles carrying  hundreds of family members flowing behind to escort their loved one that their final resting place. Husbands carried their dead wives on the back of these bicycles. Fathers carried their dead children on the back of these bicycles. Since most people in Uganda do not own cars therefore in those Ugandan days a car still wasn’t a major form of transportation to reach some of the remotest places in the World where these families had to burry the dead one. Places like in the deep green villages of Masaka and others way across the country past my hometown deep at end of Hoima Road toward the majestic villages of Masindi District, where roads are still unpaved to help a car transport Ugandan people to their burial place.     

Most of the bicycles in Uganda come with two seats to carry to people at the same time. So when a family could not afford a coffin or a taxi to transport their dead relative. *The bicycle was the way to do it then. The dead body would be wrapped first in bed sheets or backcloth, then they would place sticks all around the body that were it stays in place as they rode through the dirt roads of Uganda to go burry their loved one at the family cemetery.      

During this era every early morning the streets were filled with school children walking to school. Workers going to work, farmers were going to their gardens and people taking dead bodies to burry them. On weekend mornings the roads were filled with more dead bodies than anything else. Coffins where in every direction you turned you head. People were crying in every direction you faced your ears. Everyday someone was getting ill and sick enough not to go to work and soon died. All the kids of my generation shared something in common and that was that our siblings that were born in this era and on through out the mid-nineties were dieing off with our parents, just like my brother Jonathan.

Our fathers and mothers were dieing living us in care of extended family members who were also sick sometimes and soon died. There was a group of special persons that my heart went out. Our grandparents, especially grandmothers, these are the angels, idols and heroes that have saved my generation for becoming children with no parental care. The majority of our grandparents all the out the soils of Africa are uneducated about the modern world; most never stepped a foot in a classroom and none of them understood anything about the plague that was eating their own children leaving them with mouths to feed, clothes to wash, extra water and firewood to fetch and above all this hard work. They were left to care for hundreds of sick children in their little villages that were battling the same illness that killed their parents.

Our grandparents turned to what they new best to cure the little ones left behind and that was God and ancient medical. “Our Father who art in Heaven, why dear God have you forsaken us,” they cried. “What have we done to deserve this Father,” they asked God above the skies with their faces tilted above the sky. The work was hard that’s the known fact but not giving up was even harder. No matter how hard these old ladies worked to save their grand children that fact still remain that pretty soon around the corner they would be burring all the children they cared for within months of burring their own children. This didn’t stop them. Every morning they woke up and went to work odd jobs to earn a few shillings to help cure the plague that was killing their children and grandchildren. Every sunset these women woke up and went to the bush to hunt for bush medications that had cured all their illness when they were young. They were not working for money, all saw no result of improvement with the sick and it wasn’t a job they had to do. But it was what they did because they loved us, their grandchildren.    

As the plaque swept through Sub-Saharan Africa most of all ours parents died leaving the youngest kids possible to care for themselves if they did not have a loving grandparent. By the time I was ten years old most of my friends had dropped out of school to care for their dieing parents, some never returned to finish their primary education because after the death of their parents. These little boys and girls not even teenagers yet became the primary caregivers of their family. Caring for the sick and growing food to feed a family

None of us wanted to move in with our aunts and uncles after our parents died. In some cases this was the worst that could happen. Orphans were treated us Cinderella in extended family and some as work horses that would stay in the working fields working from sunset to sun raise to earn just one plate of food. An orphan to this plaque had limited favorable option, which included the oldest to care for the youngest, move in with grandparents if they were still alive. And pray to God that some of the missionaries that were coming from overseas would take you and you siblings in one of their overcrowded orphanages. Those were the best choices after you watched both your mother father died from a disease so complicated that you yourself could not comprehend in the smallest detail.

All us the had a dieing parent had seen first hands what was happening to our peers that had lost their parents long before our own parents got sick. All our neighbors had all almost taken in an orphan from somewhere within the roots of their family trees. My closest relatives were all taking care of somebody else kid who had died and I had seen how those kids were treat without the presence of their parents. To say that they were treated like slaves might be an overstatement but unpaid servants would suit the case. AIDS orphans have suffered some of the most devilish treatment a person in our modern world can undergo. Little girls have been raped in every corner of our countries by their closet relatives forcing them to loss sense to the meaning of life.

    Our grandmothers stepped up the plate to help some of us that made it out alive during that time. I’m telling you that nothing else mattered to a child that had lost both parents than a love of someone who could take them in and protect them from all abuse a young child might face after being orphaned by AIDS. Only grandmother could save little orphan girls from getting raped by sexual predictors whom Africa isn’t short of but most of these don’t have this on their record, for our so called Democracy hasn’t paved away yet to even keep sexual predictors off the street. For when a young lady is raped, silence becomes the only hope they would turn to if they wanted their life. Grandmothers were the best option for every orphan left behind because they not only fed you well and understood the pain you were going through. But they protect you from all harm to the best of their ability some even loosing their lives.

After my mother dies....I moved in with my aunt Florence; 

Florence  never made me feel whole at heart. I was new into her care and lacked much of what she expected out of me. I was always scared to death that if I made a wrong move on my side I could end up in one of orphanage somewhere. My fear wasn’t anything aunt Florence had created, it I was fear of not knowing what to do or how to react in a new place of living. Although we had lived over here for the last three month while mom laid in bed dying. I still did not feel at home. My cousins were there for me though and it was something so natural to them to see me as one of them. They would ask me to come out play with them but I had a feeling of loneness that I could only deal with lonesome.

I developed my own system of spending all that much free time. I was now old enough to just wonder around Kasubi on my own and my favorite place in Kasubi wasn’t the school I went too or the churches. I t was visiting my grandmother’s gave yard. I would never get that close I would always stay back a few yards from it and watch it from a distance. One morning as I hid behind the trees Jajja’s sister Ms. Nanono was on the way to go weed the grave yard. Since Jajja died Ms. Nanono took up the duty to keep the weeds from growing into the green beautiful yard where the graves laid in rows from the oldest members of the family who had passed on to the youngest who were no longer with us. Back in the day when Jjaja would go to weed the yard she went in such a happy mood signing, praying and talking to the graves as if they would hear them. I would squat on the side with my thumb in finger and just watch her clean up the yard. When she was done weeding the whole area looked clean you could see the small insects in world crossing over the top soil of the grave yard. It was always a pleasure to be in a presence so full of a joyous mood.

When she often got in this mood, everything around the grave yard came to a compete silence. The birds in the trees would live to go feed, almost everything that was near like the hens that wondered all over that place to video. But when I was at the grave yards with Jajja even the hens would keep their distance. The wind was always blowing back and fourth through the tall banana trees. I could also hear birds sing sweet soft songs far from far away. Often the only sound I heard while I watching her weed the grave yard for at least an hour or longer would be an occasion sound caused by a car passing, honking, stopping to drop or pick up some and it’s doors swing from open to close.

So years had gone by now but I still recall how comfortable the place was and it was the reason to why when nothing made no sense. When I made my way there everything was just as usual as I remembered it. At time I would disappear for hours down here and when I returned home no asked about my whereabouts. There was plate full of food for me ways. I spent most my days just quite not talking to anyone unless there were talking to me directly. I became a loner which looked as a sign of constant sadness to everyone I came across. I wasn’t her child and even when she would hug and kiss me. I personally felt that I was bringing a burden on her. I

 

Aunt Florence is a very beautiful woman. She has light black skin, beautiful black hair which she mainly kept short and a smile of an angel. Some morning when she walked me to school boys her age were always waiting for her on the path. But she had a bitter heart that she never stopped once to talk to anyone of them. One of the guys tired so much that I had to switch my path from school because he would wait on me and hand me letters to pass on the Aunt Florence everyday. Every night when she got home I would give her a letter and after she read them, “nonsense,” she would say. She would then take the letters apart in pieces and threw on fire. She then told me not to bring that route back from school anymore because that crazy guy after her.

One late night a gentleman was coming to pick her up for a date, aunt Florence never dated or really went out with anyone so in my mind I was thinking this guy had something every special on him and I couldn’t wait to meet him when she told us about him. They had met one morning on a taxi ride on their way to work. She told as that they had been meeting up almost every morning and that they rode back together from work. Although his stop was a little further than hers, she said.  Every evening since they met he was getting off at her stop, paid for her taxi fare and helped her carry things she had bought for the house to the house.

Things were going right between them until a few days ago. Aunt Florence found out that the gentleman was married had a young boy who went to my school. “All men are pigs, she would argue with my uncles. One time she caught me staring at her after she had made that remark. She knew I heard what she said and my mind was processing sorting those words one letter at a time. And by that look on my face she figured I didn’t agree with her but I didn’t anything. I just stood there holding a big stick I was playing with that day. She repeated herself, “all men are pigs,” looking at me as if she was directing her bitterness towards me. I walked away but she followed right behind me and said in a very living voice, “Except you Jeremy! You! And Nelson the only men I love in my life.”

  When aunt found out that the gentleman who was trying to date was married. She spent that Saturday evening not preparing for a date but preparing to teach her a lesson “this pig has a lesson to learn,” she repeated all day long. Earlier I heard her make a comment to her friends that she did not want to go confront him at his house. I heard say that she feared breaking up his family to leave his wife and children suffer. Aunt began collecting ideas that would only harm the “pig” and not the piglets or his family. A few ideas came up, “we should boil a kettle of hot water and pour it all over his body,” said Uncle Francis. My other Uncle John opposed, “I can get some battery acid and when he tries sleeping with you, take a cup and pour it all over his privates.

That will do it.”  “No you boys are mad,” aunt Florence objected.  My cousin Innocent who was eleven at the time also pitched in her idea, “we should gather a lot of broken bottles and toss them at him when he arrives at the house.” Apparently it was something her and her friends had done before to keep away old men who were always trying to rape them. Aunt Florence liked the idea at first but she said it would take a whole day to collect the broken bottles all around Kasubi. “I don’t have that much time, he’s due here in about less than an hour,” she said.

My neighbor Mr. Bossa had a hen farm at his house. Since he’s had the farm he was throwing the rotten chicken eggs all around his garden to fertilize the soil somehow. So Uncle Francis suggested that we should walk over to his garden and take some rotten eggs to throw at the gentleman where he showed up. The idea was grand but first we had to construct a plan to enter Bossa’s garden. Bossa was protective of his garden as you and I would protect our most valuable assets we own. Although I had never seen it happen in my life time of knowing Mr. Bossa, it was rumored that back in the day he had killed a thief stealing from his garden with a bow and arrow, my uncles all believed that he still owned it because he had tried shooting them a few time when they tried eating from his garden. Everyone feared to set foot onto Mr. Bossa’s residence without his consent and even while just kids playing.  If our ball fell in his garden while we played. We first had to seek permission from him before we stepped foot onto his residence to fetch the ball.

So we had to come up with a plan that couldn’t cost any of us our lives. “Let’s just go and ask him,” aunt Florence suggested. She told Nelson and me to walk over to his house and tell him that we had a special school project that we need some rotten ages.

“Be nice to him when you go to this house,” she said to us, also greet him first with respect before you ask him for the eggs. Nelson and I took off to Mr. Bossa’s residence and when we showed up at his door. He was already by the door hiding something I didn’t see behind his back. As we were told we greeted him with respect. His boys who were about our age came to the door also. After we greeted him he looked at us in the eyes high with deferral in his look. We then told him the story word for word; he looked over and saw my aunt and all my uncles looking our direction.

“What subject is this for,” he asked us. I stared blank rolling my eyes and scratching my nappy rolled up hair for an answer. Before I could say anything, Nelson buffered some word of his my mouth, at first I didn’t hear what he said even though I came could feel his warm breathe we were standing so close to each other.  After he took note that no one heard what he had said, he got louder, “SCIENCE!”  “Science,” my voice came in an echo to his. Mr. Bossa took another look around at where my uncles, aunt, Innocent and Winfred were taking stand. After he observed them for sec he took a step forward. “Science,” he confirmed with us. Now a little scared of him in a polite manner we nodded yes. He left us standing there with his son Dawodi and went behind to the garden which was a on a very larger land. He walked passed the little tiny house where he raised his hens and came to a complete stop. He stood there, bent over and for a while just looked deep into his garden.

He turned around and headed back our way. “What is science,” he asked Nelson and me. Before we could answer is oldest son Dowodi began to give him the answer. “Science is,”... “ne..da..ne..da,” he shut Dowodi up before he answered the question.  “Science is the study of living and non-living things,” I answered with a dithering tone and Nelson agreed. I was getting panicky a bit, the whole time since we got to his door steps he was walking around with his hands in a crease hidden from us. When he walked passed us heading to the garden he switched the position of his hand from back to font keeping them creased hiding something mysterious from Nelson and I.

After we gave him the answer he walked passed both of us and once again stood in front of his front door, “how many,” he asked. Nelson and I didn’t answer but looked at each other both taking a mental count of our own. “Five, ten,” I said still frightened of whatever Mr. Bossa was holding in his hand. Nelson hollered out a large sum as took a look back at everyone we had left behind. Mr. Bossa finally permitted us to help ourselves and take as many rotten eggs as we needed for our science project stretching and dragging the word science out of his mouth. He told us that we should not dare pass into the sugarcane bush. As he stood in his door way watching as picking rotten ages into our plastic bags, “What did he have in his hands,” I asked Nelson. “A kitchen knife,” he answered. “What a mad man,” I said to Nelson “Indeed he is,” Nelson assured his agreement with me.

The plan to ambush the man was already drawn out when we returned to the house. Uncle Kiwa, Uncle Francis and Uncle John were going to climb into the three trees that stood aside the little small dirt path that led to our house. Uncle Kiwa was going to be in the closet jackfruit tree; Uncle Francis was to conceal himself like a chameleon high under the middle mango tree that produced big green mangos when in season. Uncle John the oldest and strongest out of the three of them hid under the first mango tree the smallest one that produced small sour and bitter mangos. The rest of us kids were to hid under a flower garden right in the center of our front yard all of us with our rotten eggs in hand and ready to take on this man as he came towards the house.

I tried opposing our hiding place because days earlier I had been stubbed by the thrones of the red-rose-flower tree that stood center in this garden. I wanted to hide high in a tree also but my aunt and uncles had drawn the final blueprint of attacking the man when he showed up to our door-step and it was final. It was right after the sun had just fallen deep into the skies leaving that beautiful reddish cloud color on the tip of the clouds above us. In distance we saw someone walking up the path that led to our house. Aunt Florence confirmed that that was the man running on time like an airline pilot so it was time to take our hiding place. The gentleman was very dark and just as tall as the banana trees he was passing through to get to our house even midgets could see him if there were kneeling down.  He was on schedule carrying something in his hand; as he neared he held a rose in his hand. He was well dressed looking like a person from oversea, he indeed remained me of my father the first time I saw him. He was dressed in long black trousers, black shoes covered in mud and a bright red T-shit that had the word Tokyo by its pocket. My uncles took as many eggs as possible out of the bags and took cover up to their trees as the guy walked up to our house.

As he walked up to the house he saw Uncle Kiwa in the tree, he begun talking to him. Nothing too serious to blow our cover but mainly giving him tips on how tell if the jackfruits up in the trees were ready, “if there don’t smell ripened, two more days,” he said. Uncle Kiwa just went on about his business of pretending to check on the jackfruits which he had already done just this morning first thing when we woke up. Nothing was ripe up there but that wasn’t mission anyways, everyone was ready.   

 Innocent, Winfred, Nelson and I took cover behind the flower garden. As the gentleman walked up to knock on our door my aunt came out of our one-roomed shark and walked midway through the front yard. She paused and said, “I forgot to lock the door,” which was the cue for us to get ready to toss the rotten eggs; when aunt got back to the door she leaned over and picked a rotten age from the bags and threw it right in the gentleman’s face screaming. “Adulator, adulator,” over and over again, not knowing what was coming his way the man began walking toward my aunt defending himself against these acquisitions. 

As he got near to her about a dozen rotten eggs came flying out of the jackfruit tree catching him in every direction he turned. He began heading back to wherever he came from and as he neared the flower garden more eggs got him in the face. Uncle Kiwa was now down under from the tree and tossing egg after egg at him.  He wasn’t taking his run seriously until he got stoned by more eggs from John and Francis. Aunt Florence had stayed back laughing hard, us Kids; we were running behind and chasing after him screaming, “adulator” over and over again.

We ran after him for a while chasing him throughout our neighbor’s gardens who were all looking out for interludes. All the children in the neighborhood came out and chased the guy with us. All our rotten eggs were thrown at him, so missed and now there were all over the place. We chased the guy for a while all the way at the beginning of path. We were now all out of eggs so my uncles began picking up solid rocks and stoning the man as he ran for his life. After a tiring run, we returned to the house where Aunt Florence was already breaking down the story to all the gathered to know what was going on. We sat on the ground by the path near under the banana trees waiting for my uncle to return, they had ran off way ahead of us kids keep up with the gentleman toe to toe. All three of them chased him until they all disappeared in the long spare before us. Only seconds passed before we saw them talking over each other as loud as possible about their individual contributions to the egging. They came and joined us and we walked up back to our house.  

           

 

From that day forward I never saw the man again and no one would tell me which one of my classmates he fathered. Innocent my oldest cousin had made many remarks that the man looked like one of my classmates Mugisha but I hadn’t taken a good look at him therefore I could not drawn that conclusion. In addition I personally hadn’t developed an esthetic skill to group individuals that looked like. When I returned to school days later I took a good look at Mugisha, it was a look of curiosity that made him ask me why I was looking as I was. I couldn’t make a connection in their resemblance for I really didn’t remember how the gentleman looked in the face. The question was burning inside me though. I just wanted to ask him if his dad owned a bright read shirt with the word Tokyo. At least I was inquisitive to know what Tokyo was, if his dad owned a shirt like that then maybe he knew what Tokyo was. I finally came at peace with my blaze of questions…took a deep breathe…looked at Mugisha as he looked at me wondering why I was frowning at him gay as if I was in love with him. I turned around said nothing by now the teacher was in the classroom so it was time to pay attention to the class.     

 

 

AT SCHOOL I was very social unlike at home and a great learner but all the children in the school were very competitive at everything that was done there. We were taught a very extensive curriculum that include, algebra, regional and world geography. I was in primary four so school for me was from 8:00 to 4:00 PM Monday through Friday. The whole school only had seven rooms one for every grade level. It was still under construction, widows were missing, no doors and the floors were still dirt. Apart the sciences, the math and the foreign languages we had to matter before walking the stage here. Every student was required to take part in drama. Usually every Friday after lunch we took the drums out and took lesson on our own. We also took part in debates teachers always chose the subject well were educational and meant to help us figure out what we wanted to do in the future. Tops included many such as “A teacher in better than a Doctor,” the subjects were simple but in fourth grade they made great debate. Students in the whole school would take a position and every one had a chance to debate. The debates were all organized by students from choosing the topic, to making up the rules during the debate. We also had to choose a time keeper everyone had the same amount of time to present their case. We had a panel of three judges who were in charge of most of the debate. The judges took noted of all the points that were presented. We were not allowed to repeat ourselves and if this happened the panel will alert you that your point was already made unless you had a different point to made you had to yield the floor to the next presents. Debates were fun especially when we debated issues like “Woman are better than Man,” social debates like this shock the whole school up and usually had the most influences on the student body. Even the not so talkative members of our school came out to make their point on hot topic social issues such as human rights and injustice.  

 

 All that we did during these Fridays led up to one competition day.  PARENTS DAY: Around the month of December right before school lets out for Christmas holidays. Schools in Uganda hold an event on campus called “Parents Day.” This day signals the end of the school year and on this day our parents and relatives come into the school for a showcase of all the materials we’ve learned the past three terms in school, including sciences and math and other projects we’ve worked on during the school year. It is a day that all parents come to and all students look around for to come.

The December of 1994 was the first December my mother was to be missing from the audience for since I began school in the late eighties back at Kasubi Church of God Nursery School. It was the end of primary four (4^th grade) Parent’s Day. That morning when I woke up; Aunt Florence was already up preparing to get me ready.  As she got me ready for this day, she was helping me practice my lines for my part in the AIDS play and musical the school was putting on. It was something we had all worked during the school year and when I returned to school it was just about to cast for actors. I was chosen for one of the role. Parent’s Day was more than acting and singing for a day. It was a day to show that out of the whole entire school you’re the best at what you will be performing that day. All the roles came with pressure but it was something that all us were used to.

My mother had developed a place in my heart hat loved drama. The years I spent with Mom I watched her be in plays especially at church. I had seen her coach young girls on town for a play. And since I started primary one at Green Valley, I took part in a drama on Parent’s Day every year. In past three Parents Days I’ve been part of. I’ve played the main male character in the play. I’d played Moses the year before. In primary two I played one of the three Wiseman in a Christmas play. At Green Valley I also played a homeless living in Kampala city. Officials from Kampala City Council were present in the audience that day. The goals of these plays were to educate the public about issues that we were facing within our communities.

To be in school plays became second nature to me and mom did very well training me back before she was gone. Before the actual date of Parent’s Day was chosen. Talent shows were held everyday after school. It was something a little extra our teachers did for us because most of us had nothing to go home to after school. Through these shows teachers randomly chose who will be in the plays, sports and other projects for Parent’s Day. Whatever it was that I was chose, I made sure that I will be the best at it so that the teacher can allow me to perform the part on Parent’s Day. My choices always leaned more towards drama; I wasn’t too good at football, the only sports performed in school. This year the school drama department had prepared a 45 minute play to be performed at the event. The drama was the main event on Parent’s Day; the melody of sweet young African boys and girls voices gathered a whole town to hear a sound so sweet that the birds in the trees paused from their songs to hear ours when we began to sing.

Today began early for me to prepare for the event. Aunt Florence was helping me get ready all morning when she noticed that I had burned a whole in my school uniform shorts. She got upset with me because she had just bought me those shorts a few weeks ago so I can have new shorts for Parent’s Day. She began to lecture me something my mother never did. I wasn’t used at beginning lecture Mom always just got up and took action to correct me. “Jeremy you not a child anymore, you’re a grown man and you should know how to ion your own cloth.”

She mad I could see a burn on her face. “How could you burn these brand new uniform shorts that I just bought and not TELL ME of it? How..!” She took the shorts out of my hands and threw then at me and left the room to prepare the morning tea without saying another word about it. I took the shorts scared to death and put them on me without saying a thing. I was wearing a little white underwear and my little but cheeks were hanging out the bottom of the shorts were the hole was.

Aunt Florence came back in the room after a while; she didn’t seem to care about the matter any longer. It was as if she went outside and God gave her a way to deal with me. She entered the house with a sweltering tea kettle; went straight to cupboard and pull out five ugly plastic red mugs. She then sat on the floor and made us each a cup of warm milk with green flesh tea leaves she had picked earlier that morning; she always made her tea with a few blocks of small cut ginger root, and a slice of bread and real butter. As she poured the teas, she looked at me and begun telling me how I was going be an embarrassment to the family with a hole in my uniform shorts at this event. “People will think I’m not caring after you since your mother’s death. I already here rumors in the market that I don’t feed you” she added as I looked down into my tea cup.  

The whole time she was talking to me I was mute as a manikin enjoying my cup of tea and the buttery bread. I would take the bread, sink it in the warm milk-tea and then took it to my mouth where I nipped on it slowly enjoying every crumb of it. She went on through and I was hearing everything she was saying. About how, “since the death of my mother, nobody on my father’s side of the family has given her a shilling or a hand to care for you; your father is in America but the MAN can’t even send me a dollar in a letter.” She would go on for minutes as everyone looked at me as the outcast of the family. I had nothing to say but to soak in the wisdoms my aunt was letting out of her mouth. All her blushes always ended with words so sweet they permitted me just an inch of comfort to be under her care; “your mother is gone now Jeremy, but you are my son now and I need you to grow up baby,” she added that next time I burn a hole in my pants for school I better tell.

After breakfast she walked me up to Rose Pasika Primary school where mom had enrolled before she died. On the way to school she read me the lines from the play. She was also asking me and making sure that I knew all the parts to the two songs I was leading during our class talent show. When we got to the school where I was due for rehearsals for the play, she told me that she would be back with lunch and everyone else. As I often did I looked her in the eyes without saying a word and took my book pack from her and I entered the small wooden gate that entered the school. That morning we ran through the lines of the play and both of the musical. The school had taken off into a different mood. All of us were glad to be promoted to the next grade level. I was going in primary five with Deo and other friends. We were already looking forward for the Christmas Holidays that were to begin right after school ended today.

The message of the play today was to educate those in the audience about the dangers of AIDS. The lyrics to the song which my teachers composed addressed the first symptoms a person should watch for to determine if they have AIDS in order to go for a check up. The lyrics were sharp explaining bumps, bourses, rushes and such. The parts had to be acted out very dramatic and sincerely so that the gathering community could learn from the play but also be touched by the performance. At the end when the drums in the back ground mellowed down. A young girl and I shared a final chorus of what AIDS has done to our whole country and in those last line we proclaimed to the audience that if we don’t protect ourselves from the AIDS epidemic. Soon we will all be victims.

 

 

Our teachers taught us everything for these play. The composed, directed and filled in all the missing gap to the play.  From how to beat/play the drums, how to dance, what tone and pitch to sing in and where to stand on stage, everything was to be done according to plan. We took multiple takes on songs, drumming and the plays and then we went home. At about noon that day, Aunt Florence, Winfred, Nelson and Innocent were all present at the school, everyone’s families were arriving too, mainly to bring lunch to all of us. When Aunt Florence showed up she came with a black plastic back that had a comb, Vaseline, black shoe polish for my shoes, a brush and a big bowl of Indian rice, fried cassavas and five glass bottles of sodas. After we sat down on a panic matt, she un-wrapped the food talking about how she thought she would be late for the only hour we were allowed to eat lunch with our families before the opening act.

As she got the food ready she reached out and threw me a brand new pair on uniform shorts. I silently rejoiced inside, I was glad but didn’t really express it that much. I thanked her. She told me to go to the latrine and change but to leave my shoes behind so Innocent could brush them for me. After I changed I came back and she put a well pressed white shirt on my back. She helped me tack it in as she brushed my nappy hair and smeared Vaseline all over my body. We said grace and begun to eat.

As we ate on our picnic mat laid out on the ground I manage to catch a glance of my aunt’s eye staring devilishly at the gentleman two picnic mats away to the right of us. The five of us including the gentleman knew why she was picking at him that way. His wife and his two children including my classmate Mugisha had no clue that a few weeks ago their father was egged down by us kids here, my aunt and uncles in font of our house as he tried to cheat on their mother. The guy sat with his back facing us eating, talking and laughing with his family and not saying a single word to us, not a wave or a simple hello. After we ate I went back to the drama classroom and got ready to sing and act with Mugisha, I looked gaily at him and said nothing. He seemed to be a happy child and I had no bases of messing that up. A crowd of people was already gathering under the shady trees where the stage was set. On the stage a few speeches were given to open the event, nothing in particular out of the boring speeches caught my attention. It was the usual opening of a Parent’s Day with our Ugandan National Anthem and a prayer.  

A few acts went before my group and then the hands of the clock landed on the minute for us to get on the stage and sing. I got real nervous before I got on stage. Ever since I was in primary one (first grade) my mother was always sitting in the front row next to the school officials. When I go on stage I had to introduce my self and my parents first before I sang, it was something all the students in the school did.  Since mom and my sister Joan were the only two people that came to see me in school plays back then. I always had to say the same introduction Mom had taught me, in a shy scratchy voice I would say, “My name is Jeremy Earnest Kimbugwe, I live with my mother Alex Nakuya, my sister Joan Nabikyalo and my uncle David. This is what I did back them.

When I got on the stage this morning I didn’t know what to say, so I stared at the crowd still and calm as they stared back at me in silence for a second. I looked over where my mother would be sitting if she was here tonight and I could not see her there. I was always good at spotting Mom no matter how gigantic the audience was. My eyes wandered in hope that maybe some magic would happen and   my eyes will catch her there staring at me with joy just one more time as they had done for the last three school performances I had been in. I didn’t introduce myself because I didn’t what to say.

One of my teachers standing next to the stage noticed that I was lost for word. He ordered the drummers to begin playing the song. I was now on center stage when the music begun to play. Noticing that I needed no introduction I began to sing. After the music came the play which was the headlining event followed by an award ceremony that ended today’s event; this year the drama department had a goal while writing and preparing this play. The school wanted to alert the community about the AIDS problem that was eating our community one mother, sister, father or brother at a time. I was playing the main male character KIZZA who an orphan living with a stepmother who hated him. At the end of the play we sang a duet to close out the play. The song rapped up the whole play describing in detail what AIDS can do to our community. After hours of performance we all ended the event with a Bakussimba dance (a traditional dance.)

One of the songs I sang was titled “Beautiful Uganda” I expressed to the crowd a song about the beauty of our country. It talked about the beauty of having the Nile river start in our country, we talked about the unlimited resources God has blessed us with. The song was written to praise the government for keeping us safe and helping to fight AIDS. It thanked our President Yoweri Museven for fighting and bringing peace to our land. The best line of then all came in the last line of the last verse asking the audience to make a pledge and never forsake our land by loving another land. After a long day every thing went as planed. We sat around for the award ceremony after performing. I didn’t win anything for my roles which tickled my bone on the spot but I never took those feeling away with me after that. After the awards were handed out, all the students went to the Headmistress’s office and picked up our report cards. Mine said I was promoted to primary five as of the first term in the following year 1995.