Taro (Kimitolotolo) in my Village Perspective

Internet picture of the Taro plant (Kimitolotolo)

By WABUYI DENIS

Isn't this kimitolotolo?
They are very delicious when prepared in ground nuts with kumushelekhe.
We used to have a bird which would always remind grandma whenever she delayed to serve lunch.

It would sing like,
"kimitolotolo, kyera Wokuri"
"kimitolotolo, kyera Wokuri"

Meaning; sweetness of kimitolotolo is killing Wokuri.

I last tasted them in 1996 when I last ate from my grandma.

The next time I visited her in 2000, she had lost her sight and was staying with her blind mother (my great grandma).

They always insisted on singing to me.

There was this funny song whose lyrics I cannot recall so well but it was a mix of Luganda and Lugisu.

They went along something like,
"Khatalina khatalina bakhana, banasul'ebwelu,"

Then great grandma would sing along,
"uuuu, uuuu"

I never used to want to leave but they always had sudden change of mood and their nice stories often ended in bitter disagreement and then the blind great grandma would threaten to hit her blind daughter (grandma).

This would make my grandma cry which would also reduce me and my cousin Biira to tears. In May, a few days before or after my 11th birthday, my grandma died.

Somehow, I have not understood why but my grandma was buried at the same site as her father and not her husband. One of these days I will ask mummy whether it is because she was the youngest of my grandpa's wives or because she did not have a son born to her. She only had daughters and all went to settle in their marriages.

But I think having born only daughters in such a setting is the reason why.

In turn of events, my mother has born only boys for children. Same number as her mother.

My grandma was the last grandparent I had and was the only one of my biological grandparents who crossed to the new Millennium.

I need to find out how her husband (the one I am named after) got to have 3 wives, many children but still educated almost all his daughters. For a man who was born in early 1900s, that was epic!

Mpozi, how did I reach here?

Kimitolotolo ikyera Wokuri!

Should We Cover Our Eyes, or They Should Cover Their Private Parts?

Serena Williams cups her breasts
(Photo may be subject to copyright)

BY WABUYI DENIS

The current Covid-19 scourge will definitely leave a mark on our lives and may also change us forever. This change we shall carry on to the future generations without telling them why it was necessary.

One of these days I have started imagining my children's children having to wear a mask covering their mouth and nose without knowing the real reason why. And innocently, they will also carry it on to future generations. These generations may also take it without asking.

If you're doubting this, tell me the reason why African girls cover their breasts? Does anyone have a genuine founded reason as to why it is "indecent" for an African girl to move topless at a beach the same way a man does? No. It was just carried from somewhere and adopted as a way of life.

It reminds me of Gilbert Bukenya (fromer Vice President of Uganda) when asked why he supported NRM for that long and thus being part of a regime that impoverished his people. He retorted that he was also innocently carrying ekifulukwa whose content he did not know; he accepted without asking.

Apart from a few uptown girls, majority people born before the new Millennium should bear me witness that while growing up in our villages, we would go to the garden with our mothers. As the sun rose and it got hot, the women would pull off their blouses, tie them around the waist and leave their breasts out.

The same woman would come back home, walking all the way from Shituulo to Namunyu without attracting any stares because along the way, we would find even men hanging their shirts on the backs as the sun got hotter.

I also don't know when breasts became private parts but the first time I saw it was in the movies. Then one time we escaped from school went to Kingfisher resort in Bukaya. There, I saw women covering their breasts and not covering their butts. It was my bewilderment that drew the attention of the attendants to arrest and flog us for trespassing. By then, flogging a kid was a community responsibility and somehow, those matters simply ended like that without involving the parents and the schools.

But at the resort, I could not imagine someone taking trouble to cover their breasts and not minding about their butts. Maybe because the butts of the other generation had depressions inflicted by injections and "riding bicycle'' that we never saw our predecessors (in Africa) display them with pomp.

Thus, from our setting a man or woman could carry on with their activities topless and it is not regarded indecent but if you move with your bottoms out, that would earn you a day at Kanyanya’s shrine to conjure the ancestors! But of course if you have been watching movies or your parents have, it is the opposite; cover the breast, let the buttocks swag!

And as times surely change and people prefer to shed off more clothes, I picture future generations being asked to cover the faces so that they don't see each other's private parts. In their wisdom or rather lack of it, they won’t realise that it all started with covering the mouths and nose to protect ourselves from Covid-19. I do not wish to live in those times but I equally don't find reason for wearing clothes if all our faces are covered! If the face mask falls off and you get to see all the undressed people around you, you will endure it; the same way we endure when wind carries a woman’s dress and she takes a minute to pull it back or rather the way we villagers are trained; when you happen to see an elder naked, close your eyes.

I will end this by thanking President Museven for the lockdown. It has pushed some of us into a creativity (you may read idle) mode. Some people from Mayuge are working on the cure. But some of me here, in Busiu are also helping the world with ideas which will shape society after the Kadaga’s cure has been launched and the whole world cured of COVID-19!

WABUYI DENIS

When Hunger superseded Disease

The road to my Village

Today, I woke up with enormous joint ache, but some pains make me forget mine which have persisted for 2 days; because I know that this is not even a 10th of what other people going through.

Today, I thought it wise that the children who are loitering around need to get revision papers to keep them "in class" while in this lockdown, avoid idling and possibly learn from one another.
I encountered a good friend of mine (bodaboda rider) who told a heartbreaking story but one which is a representation of many Ugandans under current circumstances.

A friend came to his place at 5:30 am and knocked (to his bewilderment). Just like a good neighbor, he opened to him asking what the matter was. The friend narrated to him how his family spent the previous day without any food and his little children have been crying all night. He was therefore requesting Simon to give him his (Simon’s) motorcycle so that he can be able to ride around hoping to get money to feed his family.

He also told him that the youngest of the kids is sick and the last time her mother took her to a hospital, they prescribed some medicine which he has not been able to buy. “how will the baby even swallow the medicine on an empty stomach?”

It is a painful story because currently, the bodabodas have been banned from carrying passengers which forms over 95% of their clientele. Simon ceded the motorcycle and 2,000 for fuel. Even as he gave out the motorcycle, he was not sure whether it will return because thousands of them have been impounded.

As if that was not enough, as I was bemourning the great pain the bodaboda riders were experiencing, another man from Namunyu, who had also come for printing told me that I have not seen enough

Simon the Bodaboda owner and rider loading cement in Busiu,
Before the lockdown

"I went to see the woman in the neighborhood who helps me with my garden and I wanted her to assist me with the garden. Fortunately or unfortunately I did not find her but instead her son who had come with his family to her mother. When I told him why I was there, he hushed me and asked me to just show him the garden before his mother can take that tender."

"He did not even suggest how much, he just said whatever you offer, I will take it. Apo na apo (there and then), he took to the garden with his whole family and by 6pm (after 4 hours) they had cleared the garden."

"He insisted that I choose how much I give him and seeing the desperation and also the speed at which they had cleared the garden, I gave him 2 times what I could have given another person".
This is how bad it is, the people out there are looking for survival not enrichment or convenience, they are hungry and angry but they have nothing to do.

Today, one young man was reportedly shot dead in Mbale town for carrying a passenger on a bodaboda but for those people out there, they would rather die of COVID-19 but not hunger.

We can do something about it; all of us. You can reach out to a neighbor who does not have food.