There wasn't a heavy storm, neither was our neighbourhood droughty. Older folks than me hadn't relented from digging the ground (my parents called it cultivation). The green grass that covered the hills behind our village was still as green. The sun set was still as beautiful and appealing as it had been. All was usual save for the temptful famine that had our village in seizure. It had but worsened everyone's habit. The known hardworking, like Naka, my short, light-skinned mother, was now busy as bee in the fields earlier than usual and knocking off later than usual. The thieves were now going about their game more passionately for their families' sake. The alcoholics like Wanjala, my father, were bringing on their A game. Wanjala's routine was wake up, take breakfast(if there was any) end go to the bar. His footsteps would wake me up as he staggered his way home. If I was lucky not to be woken up by the footsteps, I'd never skip his slap as he woke me up to help him find the cells to his Makula radio receiver which he'd remove before going to the drinking joint so we'd not tamper with his radio. My father's alcoholism was twinned with arrogance and cruelty. It was getting to my nerves. For a man who knew not of how disgustful it is to work the fields all day and retire to an alcoholic's nagging authoritativeness, he was being man enough in his wild imaginations. Most times the hopes of having an evening meal were fainter than you can fathom. No one, not even Rakeli, my two year old sister, ever minded lunch for we were too busy to think of it. Rakeli was minding more about crying for lunch than lunch itself. My mother was much more bothered by her pursuit for what to eat than lunch. My father's biggest worry was crafting enough jokes to crack at the drinking joint to earn himself a drink; I doubt he could afford buying for himself. I, too, was minding more about what we'd have for supper, if there would be any at all. Whenever luck was with us, and, we got what to call supper, my mom would pour tons of salt. The sauce was getting saltier each day that went by and that was intriguing. When I asked my mom about it, I was surprised to learn that it was a sauce saving stunt. "When the sauce is salty, you can only take a little of it, " she said.
Famine went on to ravage our village and in our family, it was on the worst case scenario. The only thing we were left with was the English that we spoke. My father's family had migrated from Budama in Eastern Uganda to Kooki, Rakai in central Uganda. People here (in Rakai) didn't comprehend any of the languages from Budama. When my father married Nakanjako, my mother (a muganda) the only viable means of communication was English. So as children, we were raised speaking English unlike all our neighbours.
At this moment, my mother decided to send me to my grandparents(her parents) who lived in Masaka. I packed a few of my clothes in a paper bag and my mother gave me three thousand shillings and instructed me to use that for my fair and give any possible remainder to my grandma.
I, in company of my my mother and Rakeli on her back, went to the main road. A dark blue van with blue patches fast approached and I was instructed to get aboard. I waved goodbye to my mother as the van sped off. It was my first time in a car and it was fascinating. We had always walked to Masaka. Everything was mysterious. That day, I confirmed Mr Ssendi's claims that plants and trees, too, are living things. Mr Ssendi was my science teacher in primary four before I quit school in primary six. Mr Ssendi, a tall dark deep-voiced Muganda man had always told us that plants, just as human beings, have life. Here I was, three years later, confirming his words with sight of plants, trees, crops running(perhaps for their dear lives) towards where we were coming from. Why and where they were running to remained mysterious. I pitilessly kept thinking our small banana plantation had run too.
"Oh Kato my boy! Is it you!" A sharp voice, certainly my grandma's, emanated from the banana plantation.
I got to my grandma's house towards dusk and I was stunned by sight of my grandmother. Her smile was in competition for brightness with her gray-almost white hair. She hugged me excitedly and I gave her the one thousand shillings note that I hadn't used for transport. That earned me a second hug in a row and numerous thank yous.
"How are you and everyone at home?" She said as her wrinkled hands lay a mat for me to sit at.
"Hungry!" I replied boldly. My mother had always urged me to stick to the truth. Using Proverbs 23:23, an excerpt she got from a certain book called the Bible as her reference, my mother had continually implored me to cling to the truth; to buy it and never to sell it. She told me she'd read that book and often listened to readings from it every Sunday before Wanjala stopped her from going to church. So I was truthful here, everyone at home was hungry.
My grandmother always inspired me. She'd always challenge me to speak English, the fact that I was out of school notwithstanding. For she was fluent in English, a language she'd learnt merely by working as a maidservant in a nuns' convent in Kampala during her teenage days.
English was thus the order of the day for the two months or so that I spent here. My frail grandma often told me stories most of which didn't make sense to me but I offered to listen for the sake of obedience. My eyes would constantly stare at her wrinkled jaws and wide lips as they relayed stories from her childhood. One of such amazing narratives was that of a beastly man called *-Idyamini* who seized power from his boss and assumed the presidency which he executed ruthlessly. It didn't occur to me till about six years later that she was referring to Iddi Amini Dada. My grandmother also told me about the numerous young men that made marriage advances to her before giving in to the lucky man, the late Kasibante. Most of her stories clearly made no sense to me. It was even more interesting to watch her facial expressions as she narrted than actually listening to her. There's however one captivating narrative that was regular on her lips. Whenever I went about ranting about the famine and Wanjala's alcoholism, which were the top challenges back home, she always said mysterious things like "God will help you. " Another time she'd be like "God will provide for you." It wouldn't be long before adding "God never forsakes his own children, keep asking him, he'll remember you."Man! That was music in my ears. It had never crossed my mind that God was actually willing to help me. Never had I thought that I was God's son! I remembered what had transpired in the taxi.
As I was coming. As soon as we set off, I overheard two women whom I didn’t know chatting in the backseat.
“That’s Wanjala’s son, right?
“No, it’s God’s.”
“Are you crazy? Was that not Naka, his mother?
“Yeah, she was, they say she had an affair with God, look at the nape, is that not God’s?”
“Oh I see.”
I should’ve caught more of the conversation, but I was too obsessed with the running trees and crops to concentrate.
That conversation played back consequent to my grandmother’s stories I reconnected and the whole thing was beginning to make sense.
God, (full name Godfrey, as I same to learn) was our “rich” neigbour . By rich, I don’t mean what’s on your mind now. Posh cars, villas, huge investments, NO! God had a Mate motorcycle, a permanent house and a farm with a couple of livestock, but most importantly, his children went to private schools. Now that, right there, was our idea of rich.
My grandmother’s narrative began to excite me when I learnt that “I was God’s child”. I spent about two months here and her stories were only spiral, but not really different.
Time for going back home, she stuffed a number of foodstuffs, notably yams and maize flour, in a sack. It was a huge luggage as heavy as lead put it on her head and we slopped to the main road where I boarded a taxi, my second time, wow! I got home at dusk, my mother was as happy as a clam at high water on seeing the luggage. She doubly happy on learning that the contents were foodstuffs. That was however non of my business, I’d grown more solicitous about meeting up with a rich man God who would help me. I was taciturnly engineering a rendezvous with a man who was all along able and willing to assist.
One foggy morning, as my mother was making porridge, I, in a low tone asked my mother about God. I didn’t want her to know beans about my forthcoming meeting with God. So I was so cunning in asking.
“Mum, do you trust God?”
“Yes, I do, my son: Who doesn’t? Maybe your dad. He has no respect for God.”
She went on and on about how God loves us all and how he’ll get us out of this “poverty and famine mess”. My mother, just like my grandmother, had a solid belief in God. It didn't occur to me that their God was actually different from my God.
After about a week, it is evening time and I’m seated in the compound reading a piece of old newspapers and watching the sunset, Mukwaya, a near –lunatic in our village, passes by and shouts “Kasooli amazzewo ente” which translated “corn has finished the cows”. To understand Mukwaya’s intimation, you had to flip his words vice versa. So, here, he meant that cows were eating corn in our garden. My mother instructed me to go and repel the said cows. It turned out they were two bulls and a heifer which belonged to God, our neighbour. I took them straight to his kraal and his herdsman thanked me. As I was going back home, I met God atop his small motorcycle returning home. He stopped to ask me if all was alright. I said yes but I knew this wasn’t true.
I took a very deep breath and sighed. He kickstarted his motorcycle and I went like “Mr. God, …”
He switched off his motorcycle and gazed at me. I read something in his eyes. There was a blend of guilt and suspicion. I had no idea what that was for.
“Am I your child?”
“Hm, ah, why?”
“My …”
“Your mother? Did your mother tell you that?”
“No, my grandmother did.” His completely shaved head nearly sweated as he struggled to get his lips to utter a word.
“I’ll talk to you and your mother about that, good night.”
He re-ignited his motorcycle as if intimidated by my presence.
“Do you really care about me?”
“I do, son!” He said as he disappeared in the dark through the tiny path leading to his home.
I went back home repleted with facts;
God is my father and he cares about me.
It was however ironical why he wasn’t paying school fees for me let alone letting me starve. Second in irony was who on earth was Wanjala? Why the devil was I living with him instead of God, my father?
I got home and my mother was making millet bread. When supper was ready, Wanjala was still out, drinking probably. My mother and I sat in our round muddy grass thatched kitchen eating millet bread with bean stew. Rakeli was already in the land of nods. “Mom, God is my father!”
Lord! She was both startled and infuriated at the same time. She nearly dropped the piece of millet bread in her hands. She stared at the muddy wall for close to two minutes, this moment must have reminded her when, at 3 years, I asked her why I was called Kato yet I didn't have a twin sibling. She was surprised perhaps not by the fact that I didn't know that my name was actually Katongole but rather that I could identify twins' names as young as I was.
She looked at my face at once and then she started.
“I am sorry son. God is truly your father. I was expectant when I married Wanjala. Wanjala is not your father. He's Rakeli's.
I didn’t want to tell you this before you are eighteen, thank heavens you found by yourself.”
“He wants to talk to you and I.” I replied not bothered by her long elucidation.
I kept wondering why my grandmother believed so much in my father, and not Rakeli’s. Every evening, after eating supper, we’d kneel somewhere and pray to my fathe, God.
On a second thought, I solved this puzzle by myself: It's because he was rich. Surprisingly, even Wanjala, sometimes praised God, a man who sired a child -me- with his wife. He’d, on some days, go like, “Thank God it has (not) rained, thank God this, Thank God that ………………
“So my father is that powerful? He makes it rain or averts the rain if he pleases!”
I would think to myself sometimes.
That was, however, none of my business.
All I needed from him was to take me back to school and rescue me from starvation at Wanjala’s.
After about a week, my mother secretly met up with God and they resolved that I should go to God’s house and stay there with him. They made a few arrangements behind my back and one Saturday morning, I was instructed to pack up and leave for God’s house. I packed my few clothes and old books and bade farewell to Wanjala. Something emotional happened as I was bidding farewell to Wanjala. He hugged me for close to a minute when we let go, I realised he’d shed a tear. I didn't know he loved me this much. I also felt an emotional roller coaster kind of feeling; I was leaving what had been home, probably forever though I could have been headed for better.
Life at God's was really nice. God took me back to school and life really changed for the better.
I write this sitting on a black couch in God’s new house that he built when I was in my form six, awaiting my graduation that's due in three weeks. I'm really thankful to God (the one my grandmother was referring to) for having made me find God, my father.
The End.