Drawing from memory.
By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: I mentioned, in the last installment, that, because every family had to bring to church the chairs they were to use on Sundays, the church furniture was almost as varied as the worshippers and sitting positions were permanent. The chair one sat on in church was a fairly reliable index to their financial standing. There were […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: The white-washed, oblong structure snugly nestled at the common foot of the village hills was the church. It had narrow, stained-glass windows, timber doors and a pitched roof of rusty iron sheets. On the upper side of it ran the village feeder road, and on the lower side was a large compound which was used as […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: Sunday was considered the Sabbath, and strictly observed as such. There were no Seventh Day Adventists in the village or neighboring villages to try to dissuade us from this belief. But even if they had been there, and had tried, they would have found it impossible to convince anyone. Unlike the English nomenclature for the days […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: Bakasherura must have been a child of around ten at the commencement of the 20th century. In the 1980s, his hair was utterly white, a fact that couldn't escape the notice of those of us eagerly making our first impressions of life. “When people grow very old, their hair becomes all white – like Bakashurera's?” we […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: We owe a great deal to constancy. Exploration would have been impossible or futile if the geographical features had changed location with time – if John Speke, on returning to Mwanza, had found that the vast lake he had seen months before and christened Victoria had relocated, perhaps to West Africa. It would be meaningless to […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: I was born amidst war – the war that brought Saba Sabas to my village, and rid my country of a president whose name had become an international byword for brutality. Before the war, the phrase Saba Saba had never been uttered in my village – the sound of the Soviet BM Katyusha Rocket Launcher, which […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: The moment of birth must be as painful for the baby as it is for the mother. Everybody talks about labor pains – and I suppose they are as severe as they are said to be – but the experience of being thrust out of the cozy womb, snugly inhabited for 9 months, through an excruciatingly […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: Whenever the hour hand of the clock struck 1 pm, we sang the cherished farewell song, and started on the way home. The school, which was adjacent to the local Anglican Church, was at the common foot of the village hills, and there were tracks going up each of the hills, as well as a feeder […]
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By Nick Twinamatsiko, Uganda: Every afternoon, throughout my first two primary school years, as a final act before breaking up for lunch, we sang a vernacular song whose lyrics were: Nkabugana orwoma nitwetambuza Omujungu yarutera embundu Ruti ndekura Osiibegye masita, twagarukayo Eshaha zietu zahika ezokutaha Kare bayi bayi, kare bayi bayi. Loosely translated, they say: I met a walking […]
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