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.