an untimely death
TRANSCRIPT
An Untimely
Death
Mistrust in the Family
These are memoirs and questions about how one simple woman’s death revealed the cracks in to a
family I thought i knew
Table of Contents Chapter One ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Chapter two ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter three .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Chapter four ............................................................................................................................................ 8
Chapter five .......................................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter six ............................................................................................................................................ 14
Chapter seven ....................................................................................................................................... 17
Chapter eight ........................................................................................................................................ 20
chapter ................................................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter One
As a child death happens and it goes away like the wind that passes us each day that we live from
one direction to another and it’s gone just like that. All you hear are muffled voices from adults as
they emphatically rush through suitcases hardly ever touched looking for what I later got to learn
are burial clothes. Longer, larger around the body and so long they sweep the ground with a wrap-
per around the head to keep. My auntie used to carry a long a head scarf with beads at its edges
then a thick jumper to keep warm that we always jokingly referred to as grandmas sweater since it
was so warm even in the coldest of times it always felt warm. To protect her feet she wore thick
mountain climbing boots and always carried as few things as she could since many times she cried
those at the burial site always shopped her things.
After packing up all she needed then came the frantic phone calls accompanied with runs and back
by me as I ran to the airtime scratch card retailer shopping airtime cards that was quickly wiped
off her phone in a matter of seconds. One time she was calling a distant relative who I only knew
by face, then the annoying one who when she visited never really wanted to leave as well as the
other who always came with her kindergarten of kids which always ended up me vacating my bed
to accommodate the extra small bodies littered all over the house.
At one time it she was praising the deceased as having gone to early and how dearly they will be
missed even though I can count off my fingers the times she would have killed him/her if she had
the chance. However most times she was consoling the party on the other end of the line and
that’s what made her different from the other members of the family as I knew. She always had a
line dripping off her sleeves to console the other party on the other end. Words like ‘God gives
and he takes’ said out with a punch that it not only calmed the party on the other side but also kept
them quiet and dried them of tears that I could see were pouring down the phone.
After everything was done and setup, she then turned to me and read from a familiar script of the
do’s and don’ts when she would away. As she read specific instructions like don’t open for any
random knock apart from mine, ensure you close the door early enough blah blah I couldn’t help
but sing along with every line that she let slip off her lips. It wasn’t like the burial was some kind
of vacation running two weeks depending on the burial site it never took long than one night. She
was gone today and back the following day however all the neighbors knew and we give an SOS
to stay on their feet just in case I made a scream in the middle of the night calling for help.
When all was said done once she turned her back to me I always felt a since of independence. It
was something that was like a mini prisoner leaving jail after a couple of years with the whole
house to myself. For the first time in a couple of weeks I got to watch cartoons the whole day and
night, watch the TV programs I always wanted to watch without having an adult voice watching
over my shoulder with talk of
‘Emma, isn’t that program too old for you’
Its talk I hated so much since these free to air channels always announced the next program to be
of certain age limits only for you to sit through over 120 minutes of TV time without any kissing
or profanity that the channel had warned you about in the beginning. All those characters ever did
in the whole show was talk and talk until you literally fell into a deep sleep only to be woken up to
the sound of the blue sky peeping through the wood cracks or auntie shoved me to prepare for
school. TV was my biggest companion living in a house of few two people most of the time of the
year even over the ‘big days’ like Christmas and Easter and when a show was done and dusted
there was nothing not even a peck on the cheeks of another character which was twice disappoint-
ing than the whole beware this show is filled with profanity.
Alone in the house I shared my sleep between the chair, my bed and the flour depending on what
creepy idea crept into my little head at that instance as I killed the time as my auntie went to see of
the random dead person from far off.
Chapter two
Burial growing covered in that sea of activity always felt like some kind of get together of the fam-
ily members exclusive to only the adults of the time. It was like everyone had to be there to the ex-
tent at the burial people did mental roll calls of who attended and who never attended, those who
did dodge with apology and those who didn’t. the few times I did attend a burial apart from the
comical crying that was resonating from each corner of the home I had another duty to get to know
everyone young or old who did attended the burial.
My auntie moved from one tend to another introducing me to each person in attendance explaining
this is your auntie on your mums side who happens to also be your mother. The link was very con-
fusing as the fact that somehow I was supposed to call a stranger ‘mother’ given I didn’t even have
a letters conversation with them. This literally went on for hours or minutes depending on how
‘important’ the deceased was in the family. The family was not your nuclear one with mother and
father but a collection of human beings with different characters who somehow could plot their ori-
gins to one man or woman who happened to live a couple of years ago.
Despite my indulgence still the party was an only adult affair and my place was reminded to me
with every step I took. I was instructed by my auntie to keep with my age-ments at all times or near
our sleeping quarters. These weren’t even real quarters but areas mapped out according to your re-
lationship with the deceased family. It’s these maps mapping people basing on their relationship
with the deceased that finally made me understand the reason why auntie always packed toiletries,
a bed sheet and a blanket. She claimed those attending the burial were sometimes left to fend for
themselves in the night which made me wonder she couldn’t simply let go of attending these many
burials given we weren’t being paid at all.
Watching many of the adults made me look at adults in a very different way that I wasn’t allowed
to see them before. Tears ran down there old faces in big torrential river like streams yet I grew up
thinking adults never cried others fell down to the flour like they were possessed by those biblical
demon possessed characters. Some raffled their clothes as though undressing while lamenting how
unfair God was to take away their dearest loved ones, one woman I remember was one who used to
come to visit with a permanent scarf on her head that sometimes I wondered if she was born with it
until at grandpas burial she ruffled her clothes ripping a button on her gomesi revealing a socks like
breast, rolled herself on the ground while wailing the deceased name.
While the adults did the crying all the kids in the area did the wondering what is going on like me.
Adults moved around in well-choreographed movements as they went about their roles at the burial
site like well-trained actors all covered in muffled conversations so discrete like it was not to be
heard by the kids in the area. As some men did the digging of the hole, others reportedly cleaned
the deceased body an act that was more like taboo and I don’t remember any child creating a vivid
story of what goes through cleaning a dead body. Everyone’s story somehow had a vaguer begin-
ning than the biblical creation of the earth all we saw was a brightly painted wooden box that my
auntie nudged me whispering that’s the coffin containing the dead body. There was mini stampede
at the grave hole as the box was laid down into the hole and in order of importance everyone had
chance to throw a few dust particles into the grave as a sign of good bye until the biblical second
life when we would meet them again.
After this came ‘you are on your own’ rule was applied with full force and the pre-burial solidarity
was thrown to the wind. The mapping area where we had spent the night now looked like an aban-
doned camp house with people moving in and out of the area with their belongings until next time
when the SOS call for another burial was echoed over the family burial broadcasting service.
Chapter three
As I think about those events and the amount of activity that normally takes place at a burial site
was also the fact that she was trying to cover the amount of childish showing off guilty of adults
that I thought was the reserve of we the children. As the families stood by brought together by vis-
ible grief of the deceased they did it in a visible pattern that was demarcated along the lines of
wealth, job standing and financial power.
Growing up most of these power lines were hidden behind a carefully constructed diplomatic pow-
er wall that my auntie had built over the years through her interaction with many of the family
members that to-date I don’t know most. While she smiled with most of them despite their acts de-
manding for respect she loathed most of them. A thought of one would lead her to recite a whole
essay of the things she would want to do to them but somehow she always never mounted the ener-
gy to do it.
One incident clearly stands out like it had just happened yesterday. Grandpa had being a pioneer
civil servant in Uganda’s post independent Uganda had taken up the habit of all men of the time
were doing. They married a wife at the work station that they were posted with every new posting
by the government came another wife to the family and so forth. All this despite the fact he some-
how remained a loyal member of the Catholic Church and was on first name basis with the local
priest with whom he frequently shared swapped banter back and forth over a warm pot of alcohol
brew malwa. These cross country romps had led to a divide in the family tree with several branch-
es sprouting out of one stem which went alittle in explaining why unlike most families in the area
that boasted of members with same head shape, nose and skin complexion. Ours was a United Na-
tions of different complexions in one family with those having very small heads to those with huge
ones, other members were too dark while there were those who were so light skinned they looked
like misplaced sheys. However like all family branches there was always that one lineage that
springs and tries to eat up the other.
Funny though these lines were split along education lines although wealth was frequently used as
bait to make one lineage of the family cross to the other side of the family divide. On one side was
the an uncle who hadn’t made it far in education but through diplomas, certificates got from here
and there as well as some forged at Nasser road had managed to amass a substantial amount of
wealth. He came with an army of followers who all didn’t do well or go far in education but some-
how through long stay in the city, a willingness to do all manner of odd jobs had seen them amass
quantified amounts of wealth. They were like the workers of the family doing all the odd jobs but
never being gaining the praise they wanted for anything they did.
Then on the other side was the well-educated lineage with their army of kids who were regular stu-
dents of some of the best schools in Uganda. They always harbored together with their own line of
conversation and views of life. They spoke of acquiring the latest phones, particularly didn’t have
businesses but were working well-paying jobs in and around the city amassing huge business pro-
files to the extent they could afford long holidays that brought everyone to view what’s new and
what is not. Despite all the luxuries they came with, one thing they did that annoyed the other side
of the family was the frequent way they picked on the semi-educated line to give them jobs on
their projects. It wasn’t common even at a young age to hear tales of I worked on this building
while he spent time looking for a wife in country X said out with such spitefulness one could feel
but see the envy that they had on members of the other side of the family.
The third lineage carried every one of the other useless line those whose relationship needed a
whole essay of its own on how they happened to be members of the family. They never talked
about grand pa the way we did but were always members of the family and never attended any
family gatherings since no one would ever recognize them at all nor their input. They were a mix-
ture of the modern learned who were just emerging from university and there definition of family
had moved away from extended to a more nuclear small family holding hidden away from what
they called the troubles of the greater family. When they married there not everyone was invited
and believed everyone had to earn the right to be invited unlike the educated class that saw mar-
riage as a show of power, success and the larger the wedding the further the wedding news spread
which in turn forced the semi-educated to copy the educated and saw success as doing what the
educated were doing. The third linage was reclusive never engaging in family politics about who
inherited what, did that or proposed all this and that. The third linage recruited its army of soldiers
from those who had suffered frustrations of not being able to join the other two super linages and
saw breaking away as their only way of survival.
All this played out initially behind the smoke screen well built by my auntie well hidden from my
innocent eyes with guises meet your uncle. She never let me get involved with any of them with-
out her supervision and only let me meet those that she deemed not to be foot soldiers out to re-
cruit for whatever linage that existed. Looking back to those many years I can’t believe how all
this politics played before my eyes yet I somehow didn’t manage to see them at all.
Chapter four
I will be lying if I said I knew grand pa more than anyone would given he died at age 70 and I was
a paltry 11 years old. All I can tell was the time was around Easter unless my memory serves me
wrong. He was a classic product of the post Uganda independence civil servant whose life reso-
nated around the love for the bitter drink. His work clothes at least from what I saw from the 1950
style black and white photos littered everywhere in the main house in the village was him in a Ka-
unda suit with well-kept mini afro that had grey very much visible on his head. Other pictures had
him holding babies posing with women dressed in round 1960s fashion round dresses with small
belts in their tiny waist. There were no wigs back then every girl at least speaking to the pictures
they all had short cut hair and those who had long hair had tied it into a pony tail at the back of
their head. The scarcity of cameras was visible as all set of 20 photo frames were taken in a studio
setting with the camera man facing the people his photographing. There were no funny poses that
are synonymous with many facebook photos that are common today. The photo backgrounds were
always dull and blank except when the camera man got very innovative and place a half drawn
curtain behind them posing like they were facing the now infamous Idi Amin firing squad that I
have frequently read about.
His shoes were always polished black and he walked with a gait only familiar with someone who
had worked with the government before especially back then when the government actually
worked. He frequently complained at how the government service had been reduced to a den of
classless thieves who didn’t even have the decency to at least button up when they messed up. The
civil service to him was a perfect litmus test of what’s wrong with post independent Uganda. Now
that he was retired, all he did was reminisce about the times gone by and if he was not visiting his
grandchildren indoctrinating them about the need to take malwa as he whistled his way deep into
retirement. That was life for him until he got an injury after one of those lazy nights taking malwa
with the priest one evening when he got at cross roads as to what was needed to revive Uganda’s
fledgling economy. The priest was calling for a divine intervention something which annoyed
grand pa so much to which he replied with a barrage of examples detailed to the extent that at one
point as he was demonstrating how divine intervention he stood up but slipped up and hit his thigh
on the sharp hima built cement verandah. The yeast in his system initially kept the pain building
up in his thigh at bay and it was conversation as normal till late into the night.
Next morning however the story had a different taste to it as he un usually delayed to leave his
bedroom. Initially talk was he was applying the final touches to another theory of what is wrong
with society today when grandma walked into his bedroom just in case things were as bad. He
threw her one look and asked her what she was doing in his bedroom, did she have her own to
tend to since he hadn’t called for anyone to tend to it. Besides on so many occasions it’s not actu-
ally grand ma who cleaned his room but one of the young nieces around the house. As the days
progressed his mobility around the house reduced day by day however his ego couldn’t let him
visit the nearest sub-county doctor. Till one day an uncle from the educated side of the family
came by an announced to find him seated at the corner of the verandah that had now become his
favorite corner of the house. This uncle spread the news back in the city between both camps
however what initially looked like a just cause was span around in all camps into a sinister plot
using grand pa as a pawn in their power struggles.
The most vocal member of the semi-educated fronted his camps solutions first asking why there
was a need to claim grand pa was sick yet he had not sounded any SOS call to anyone. He had
every ones phone number and his phone a Nokia block was always pampered with airtime credit
that kept pouring in weekly so much to the extent grand pa would simply hand the phone to his bar
mates to call whoever they felt like calling. On the other side was the educated who kept crying for
the need for grandpa to see a doctor. As the arguments kept flying left to right so was time flying
away on grand pas hopeless situation then in the heat of the argument the leader of the semi edu-
cated stood up and boldly declared the only doctor grand pa would be closest to seeing would be a
witch doctor and specifically the family doctor.
Back then in rural Africa each home had a small round hut located strategically at a certain corner
of the house where members of the family gathered to attend traditional religion and each family
had a family doctor whom upon death through the use of rituals chose who inherited the duties of
leading the family through these religious affairs. This belief was so entrenched in the family set-
ting that any occurrences of un explainable resulted in consultations with the witch before anything
of modern medicine. Depending on the doctors diagnosis his word was implemented to the letter
until it was proven not to be working at all then secondary measures like seeing the doctors in
white gowns was nominated. It being a family tradition that grand pa had also guiltily practiced
before it was concluded he had to see the doctor. This created some discontent that even in the
modern era witch craft would reign supreme. Many felt betrayed by the other members of the edu-
cated lineage who with all the negotiation skills learnt in school they would somehow corner the
semi-educated to let grand pa visit the white gowned doctor.
Animals were quickly slaughtered to appease the gods to give the right answers to explain the lat-
est condition that grand pa was going through despite his noticeable disagreement his old crackly
voice wasn’t going to win against the energetic youth he called his sons. One test in the dark lonely
spiritual hut behind the main house then another led to nothing despite grandpa sipping a concoc-
tion of herbs, smoking multi holed pipes and reciting alien scriptures nothing seemed to work. The
educated mean while on the kept pointing at their watches waving time was running out how ever
the semi-educated kept insisting no one had the right to pressure the gods in working their magic
and called for more time.
Fed up with the finger pointing a prominent member of the educated one time under the cover of
darkness had smuggled grand pa from the village and brought him to the city under the disguise of
doing him some shopping at the district market. It had been a long time that grand pa had left
home and the herbs he was on had taken a toll on his health for the worse so when the chance came
for him to see the other side of the road he willfully jumped in. What started as a simple trip to the
district market had seen him driven to the city without even a set of changing cloth whatsoever.
Straight on arrival in the city his first stop was the missionary built Rubaga hospital where the di-
agnosis took a while before it sank in for all parties concerned.
It had been ages since grand pa had last visited the city so when he arrived he couldn’t make out
most of the places by the road as Kampala city had a notoriety of losing its road signs and roads
being renamed overnight. The city as he knew it back in his hay day had changed drastically so
much he wondered whether Kampala was still its name or that had changed too. The big Indian
owned duukas that had monopolized his civil servant days had been replaced by storied structures
that grand pa referred to as buildings that are carrying each other. The roads too had become more
narrower and filled with potholes a sight e claims was un-imaginable during his time since the city
traffic was heavily regulated in numbers of who entered and left the city unlike now when the mo-
tor cyclists boda bodas were out numbering both passengers and taxi drivers alike. The only place
that had refused to change as he noted was the towering Uganda House in the heart of the city that
was littered by Kaunda clad men with envelopes in their seventies. He claimed the only thing that
had changed was the fact is that those who used to work inside now line its corridors however its
splendor and pomp christened on it by President Milton Obote glowed louder than the more expen-
sive structures put up by the current government that few months down the road were in need of
repair. He also noted that the medical system though more efficient wasn’t necessarily better than it
was back then when even the poor would easily afford it.
As he spoke about the once familiar city now alien to him the doctor stormed into the room with
clip board in hand to which grand pa exclaimed you are doing to calculate my blood sample with
that thing.
‘no no…..this has your diagnosis results’
And just when the doctor was about to ask uncle to follow him out to receive the news grand pa
back
‘I am not a small boy you will keep hiding the truth from tell me now so I die in peace’
Chapter five
Grand pa lay on the bed looking at the roof like any moment from now it would fall on his head
any minute. The news from the doctor had hit him so hard that he wouldn’t understand himself
leaving him lying on his bed aimlessly wondering what had befallen him. His thigh had it spent
any more week in the village was going to be amputee to prevent the infection from spreading to
every part of his body. The infection had been caused by his thigh leg cracking on that fateful night
with the village priest but due to the amount of alcohol in his body and his well-watered habit of
taking it signs of it had not showed. Along with this was the fact that he had left farm work a while
back and spent most of his time seated leaving the leg rest most of the time.
The crack in the born had in the process created pass which had attracted a viral infection leading
to the muscles in the thigh to slowly but steadily rot away. The mere thought of having his leg am-
putee had shaken the very core of grand pa because most times he always prided in being a pioneer
civil servant in Uganda a field where you were never expected to suffer from poor man’s ailments
like disability yet here he was staring at it in the eye. The diagnosis burst his ego forcing him to
heed to everything the doctor said even double checking to ensure those around had got the in-
structions clearly. Within days he had become some sort of cyborg with metals sticking out his
thigh while it hangs at ninety degrees from his body to the roof. The metals were stainless steel
aluminum bolts, screws and clamps that he freely let us touch the few times we were in hospital to
visit him. He made it a point to recite the story to us every time were there at how the doctor had
screwed all these into place while we watched to ensure the doctor didn’t make a mistake.
Meanwhile back home the semi educated were still refusing to concede defeat pointing out that the
witch doctor was on course to discover the ailment the white gowns had pointed out. They vehe-
mently refused to fundraise for grand pas medical bill and only sneaking into the hospital when
vising grand pa as they saw it a duty of the educated linage to care for grand pa until he was back
to full health. His stay in hospital didn’t take for eternity as earlier been judged and he left the hos-
pital with in a couple of months however something had changed for the worse in comparison to
the old grand pa as we knew him. The doctor on top of diagnosing him with the cracked bottom he
discovered grand pas liver had been eaten away by the amount of alcohol he had been drinking
over the last few years ever since he had left the civil service. The doctor discovered it was work-
ing at less than 40% and the rate was steadily falling which left him with few years to live unless
he changed his ways.
This new set of facts had not changed grand pas look on things on life but the way he saw how the
family was set up with one front up in arms against the other. Initially he had fanned it on in many
of his drunken stupors as a means of encouraging hard work between the family members however
being an old man he could help but note it break the family into large power swathes aiming for
each other’s throats. What was worse was the fact that he was even more powerless to do anything
about the trend of events as none of the children would listen to him anymore. In the heat of the
moment grand pa had been guilty of manipulating one side to benefit from the other materially
from his children instead of waiting for his annual tithe from the children that came once a year
hence any form of meddling would make him be shut down by threats of revealing such Machia-
vellian like dealings he had pulled off unseen.
Thus instead of call for peace between his warring sons instead he had turned cold and delusional
about events taking place in front of his eyes. He spent most of his time in silence and all to him-
self under the big mango tree. He stopped the random visits he used to make to his various chil-
dren’s homes even when he was given a special invitation he dug into himself to turn it down
somehow. At one family gathering he proclaimed that all those who needed him should visit him at
his home since he was an elder not a beggar. This to many was interpreted to him being an old man
that had finally met his match and had been forced to actually retire unlike before when a party
wasn’t a party until he was invited to have a say on proceedings.
Within a couple of months rumor moved around town that grand pa had passed on in his sleep
however many thought it must the other lineage trying to ruffle the other. It was not until the news
was confirmed by the village priest did people start to actually take the news serious that the old
man had really departed from us. At the time he passed on I was at school and was dragged out of
school to attend my first actual burial and this was done specifically to draw blessings from him
and nothing else. As family members were supposed to move around the body of grand pa lying in
the open coffin then using stuff made from banana stems we rubbed grand pas ice cold clean shav-
en fore head while mattering some words I have no clue in what language they were in or what
they meant. After his body was laid to rest in its grave as proceedings were taking place a new
power struggle was taking place behind the scenes and it and a little known neither loved woman at
the center of it all.
Chapter six
From the laws of physics there can’t be a vacuum in certain places and so true is it when applied
to the human workings too especially in the spheres of power and relationships. With grand pa
gone a cloud of delusion hang over the family creating an arms race of who would rise to the
question of the day and lead the family forward. The two warring lineages played who breaks the
ice first. None showed visible interest in the position of heir to the family given grand pa was a
learned man there was this suspense that screamed we all know there is a last will written tucked
away in one of those many Kaunda suits handing well placed in his closet. This cloud of suspense
acted as an anti-dote for any reckless behavior no one wanted egg face if it the damned document
was dug out of the dungeon.
It was a ritual for the deceased’s room to be cleaned upon his death since the culture of turning
homes into museums was the reserve of the white race. As the scramble and partition of his old
suits was being shared over a toss of a vowel, one young man discovered an old musana A5 size
envelope wrapped in a piece of paper. Written in faded ink was a single line of wording,
‘to my children’
The young man out of excitement ran out of the room towards the other elders who were outside
handing it over to the eldest of the educated who was favorite to be named heir however no one
dared mentioned it. The announcement of the discovery spread like bush fire and everyone wres-
tled to view the contents of the wrapped up document. Encouragement was made for him to un
wrap and read whatever what was contained inside it.
A quick roll call was made and with everyone seated in a semi-circle and the leaders of each line-
age seated strategically he seated un wrapping the document of its content so carefully not to tear
a letter of the contents. He took off the translucent polythene bag and placed it on the ground after
verification by everyone present like it’s done during Election Day. He then unfolded the paper
along its edges with the first one being un wrapped four times before it gained its shape. On the
inside was another paper that he unfolded like the one before however this time this was stapled at
the edge with one two rusted staple wires. Due to poor storage the words had a slight fade along
the folded edges with words now looking like gibberish which he held at both corners and showed
it to the crowd with the words,
‘this is all that is there members’
He was then urged to read the wording on the paper to which he did read initially he took a long
sigh then his face lit up when his eyes landed on the underlined heading that too was faded like
the bulk of the paper.
‘in the left corner I can see the date which reads 25th /01/2000…’
He then held the paper at its edges to flatten it before continuing to read from the paper with eve-
ryone glued to his every ear like he was the town magician pulling off another trick. Flipping the
page towards the crowds in the heading you can see clearly reads
‘FINAL WILL’
With no identifiable lawyer on the family books it was agreed that the family gather and the will
read out aloud for all to hear and digest its content instead of wasting money hiring a lawyer.
Written in bold blue ink that had resisted fading over the years of poor storage in that polythene
bag. He the n started reading the long essay that came below the heading which started off with
introductions and greetings starting who he was, the family he came from and the number of chil-
dren he had as well as those we never knew about but he did. The next paragraphs were the most
important at least by the way adjusted their stiffly placed bodies to keenly pick up whatever was
written. This paragraph spelt out the amount of wealth and how it was going to be shared between
the many children waiting to devour it.
‘I have 14 acres of land stretching from muzamilus home down to the river bank and stretches to
the forest and to the east it borders the great railway that runs to the west of the land. Atop of this I
own a storeyed building in the central business district and they deposit rent money three times a
year on account number 1236674999345 with two signatories me as well as my first born. The
kraal has a 120 zembu cows with 60 goats at the last count of writing this date…..’
This went on for a long time as he outlined his wealth as well as the source of this wealth. However
issues came when he stated listing the number of children he had as well as the wives and concu-
bines he had accumulated over years however their rights to participate in the meeting were cate-
gorically quashed with talk of
‘why should we take the initiative to call them if they never bothered to come bury him’
Then came the most critical lines in the will that was being read out aloud for all to hear.
‘as for my heir it will be my son who will take over the reins of the family when I finally depart.
The land will be shared between all the sons in the family the first born taking 1/5th of the land, the
multiple orphans will take ¼ of the land not as ownership but planting crops, the animals in the
kraal will be used to pay dowry for the feed your grandmother, all sons will be entitled to share the
remaining land. ¼ of the remaining land will be given to my children from outside in case the come
asking for it…’
This went on for a couple of lines before the will was signed off with a line
‘always learn to love and respect each other’
The will was read three or four times as each line was translated occasionally for those who didn’t
go far in school to understand it. However some points created such debate reading was paused as
everyone shared his understanding of the cryptic statement issued by grand pa in his old Milton
Obote trained English. Some were met with jeers and whispers as some asked each other
‘do you know that person?’ while others swore some items in the will would never see the light of
day. Despite all this there was one thorn that if grand pa meant the will to maintain peace in the
family he had failed harder than the United Nations did in Rwanda back in 1994.
There was debate on what he meant by
‘as for my heir it will be my son who will take over the reins of the family when I finally depart’
Given he had several sons for the start numbering to over 14 grown sons without counting the lita-
ny of small boys who had emerged from the will that he had fathered over the last few years and
months. What line was going to be taken to decide who takes the reins from? Traditionally the eld-
est son was also the most natural heir however just the very thought of it was taboo that no one
wanted to mention and any time it was brought up was quickly quashed with whispers of shhhhhh
or else we land in trouble. On the other hand was the wealth question did this first son deserve to
have more wealth heaped upon him given he had accumulated so much wealth all by himself over
the last few years. Everyone who left the village for the city used his house as a first drop off point
where he sort of interned on life in the city with its high gates, over 12 hours of hard labour in a
relative’s house exchange for a plate of food and a place to sleep. Everyone from both lineages had
at one point passed through his house ironically even his younger brother who now was substan-
tially richer than him. The dabate raged on for a long time but it was naturally agreed the eldest
son from the educated lineage would take over for the time being.
Chapter seven
It’s not uncommon for a plan to lose the gist like it does in Ugandan societies at the end of the har-
vest season plans are drawn out detailing the need for quick planting that is much needed then the
season comes by and all goes with the wind under a sea of excuses. The heir debate had gone stale
for such a long time it didn’t actually matter anymore chiefly because the no one actually stayed in
the village. Most of the many acres of land were deep in the village that was not economically via-
ble to set up anything as well as every month relatives were packing their bags to head for the city
in search of better jobs and higher standards of living.
With grand pa gone the surveillance of the village and operations had literally gone numb and
communication was being done periodically over specified periods of time. This new vacuum had
created a situation where members of both linages came visited and left un announced at any time
of the day or the month of the year. What they discussed with whoever they visited in the village
remained with that person and only spread to a third party if there was need to make alliances fired
by their individual needs. With no identifiable adult left behind to pamper grand ma had taken the
seat that was once occupied by grand pa. All visitors left her with tips to take care of her as this
was viewed as a way of tapping into the blessings she had amassed over her long life on earth. Ini-
tially it was a kilo of sugar, a bar of soap, salt then currency notes. As this became frequent I guess
she got blinded by the love of money and had taken up grand pas old habits of manipulating her
givers.
Women in traditional Uganda are always treated second in anything even when a relative visits and
leaves gifts unless specified all belonged to the man of the home. Items like sugar and other tangi-
bles went to the woman who then split them up to feed the family while intangibles like money
slipped to the man to fuel their drinking habits. Yet here was grand ma faced with a multitude of
children inching to pamper someone so she took up to receiving these gifts with open arms.
Grand ma was a small frail woman who never pretty said much unless asked like all women of her
time and kept herself busy in the kitchen ensuring meals were made on time. On many occasions
visitors would come and go without noticing her and given she was most times dirty to save the
least she had created un likeable being and the silence that she carried with her made her not the
type to have a conversation with. She also suffered from heavy language barrier as she spoke only
the traditional language that half of us didn’t speak at all so it was always ‘how you…am fine”
from us and that was it.
One day auntie came home complaining the head of the educated class had noticed a sharp in-
crease in the number of random trips the head of the opposite linage had done over a short span of
time to the village. He queried what he did a task that auntie in her selflessness had somewhat tak-
en up and here she was pulling the hair from his head digging up the answers to this question.
What did he carry and why were the trips becoming more common. Confronting him directly
would lead to a more finger pointing from the other side of lineage. Auntie had advised him to
abandon the whole thought over a lengthy telephone call the two had had the night before her
voice so loud over the iron sheets being shattered by the equatorial rain synonymous with the rainy
season. She was at peace for a couple of days till one day we were watching a telenovela over the
black and white television screen when her phone lit up and started vibrating. The scene was so
absorbing that we ignored the phone hoping it would die away like most un answered phone call. It
did the first time before lighting up once again to which she cursed get me that damn phone.
That was the plan until she saw the name on the screen it was a call from the leader of the semi-
educated linage. Her heart skipped a minute before she pressed the green answer button swerved
her hair to reveal an ear where she rested the phone. I didn’t pick whatever they were speaking
about however one thing was clear it must be something about the other side. Her face frowned
then frowned twice rolled her lips then closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. She lis-
tened to the rest of the conversation with her eyes closed periodically punctuating the other party
with numb sounding
‘No……please tell me it’s not true’
The phone call lasted like forever then the other party hung up at once and silence descended on
the room for a minute before she glared at me;
‘But what is wrong with these people’
I was more shocked than concerned about the people she was talking about to start with how I can
give you a balanced opinion if I can’t tell what you discussed over the phone. She then went about
breaking down the long story they had discussed over the phone and one thing was clear. Someone
had leaked the plans of the other lineage to this one and she was being put to the task to explain if
she knew anything about the impending plans of the lineages leaders. He especially wanted to un-
derstand why he was asking questions of his trips to the village and if there was a law banning
someone from visiting his own biological mum. He had then warned him to shelf all plans that’s if
he had any at all the phrasing of the statement so vile auntie first washed it with detergent before
rephrasing it and telling it to me.
Each linage over the last few months had grown weary of the other side of the family and operated
as a cold war faction constantly spying on each other. The battles were fought out over telephone
calls as a way of digging information from any one in a well-planned case of profiling to get to
know who fell on what side of the family.
Chapter eight
‘Will go for the meeting?’ asked one of my cousins
‘what meeting’ came the snap reply
‘well the one called by uncle’ to which he replied
‘ohhh that one….never his not the heir’ before she hang up on me
Over the last few months the heirs authority was becoming increasingly threatened by constant
questioning of who appointed him to take up such a prestigious role. If they are as educated as
they pretend to be why they do use tradition to claim to be the heirs of the family a chant was be-
coming more and more audible from the other side of the lineage. This was after he had asked for
more openness about trips to the village so as to prevent saturation of the village with loose mon-
eys that he feared in the long run would reduce all visitors to sources of quick money. He in the
process he had suggested a close up family meeting so as to iron out these issues so that there was
no communication on who went to be village and on what date as well as on his letter had said a
group trip to the village was more cheaper than random multiple trips. His concern had grown after
reports had emerged conversation from the latest migrants from the village who had camped at his
home as they prepared for the city adventure. They had identified the leaders of the semi-educated
linage as to have increased their trips to the village and of particular interest was that fact that they
left behind on their trips considerable amounts of tangible as well as large amounts of money. Of
late even grand ma had started even sponsoring some village kids from her side of the family com-
fortably without needing the support of the old sources of funding. Initially he wrote it off howev-
er with new members came more reports and more scathing details.
The meetings were categorically rejected unless he never signed off the meeting invites as the heir
to the family which too quickly turned into a war of words. Some asked then without a sense of
leadership then how are we to grow the family and keep the family heritage. When meetings were
finally held it was always a case of them against us with one suggestion being turned down after
another. When money was suggest creating a sort of family fund to avail funds for the many or-
phans at home, the need to build and renovate houses back home everyone mysteriously fell in.
The monthly fee suggested was a small fee of 20,000 Uganda shillings that was to be documented
periodically, meetings were scheduled every month and members of the standing committees were
to come from both sides of the lineage.
In the light of day it was a good sign of progress from the standoff created by the death of grand pa
which had created many power centers that were fighting for dominancy over the rest of us. Be-
hind this agreement though was a plot well wound it wound in which the semi-educated linage
plotted to have more control of the family? They were the most active during the meetings and im-
provised the much needed stationary, mobilized the members to attend the meetings. This helped
mainly by the type of the jobs that many did for a living as shop attendants, electricians and
plumbs and tile builders. These jobs involved a lot of human to human contact as well as consider-
able travel around the city from place to place. This made it easy to mobilize members and bring
up constructive ideas to build the family. There was un usual open communication between linages
as they got closer and closer to each other. In the third meeting an annual family get together was
suggested by family members in which all family members carried their families to the village to
get to know each other a little more and prevent same clan marriages. The logistical problems
were curtailed by the fund created and this provided the meals that were to be devoured over
Christmas, the sodas.
Traditionally males build houses at their father’s house in preparation for their journey to leave
their fathers homes. As times had changed and so were the homes that were built from mud and
wattle to iron roofed houses to which he had built a huge bungalow with a plan for grand pa to
shift in. This hadn’t happened however hadn’t but over the last few months had become a land
mark of progress when a son finally becomes a man. It’s this enthusiasm that hard earned him the
right as the most deserving heir to the family which his adversaries hadn’t done. The educated
side’s leader had in the last few months put final touches to his huge bungalow that he had built in
the village after several burials had created such a mess as members were reduced to pitching
camp for the night. This would provide the lodging for the planned family excursion of the festivi-
ty days that were coming up in a few months.
On the other side of the divide though the semi educated were plotting an ambush and a show of
power as well as their progress.
chapter
Her death was pushed down my ear slowly not to ruffle any hard feelings that I didn’t know ex-
isted in me for all these years. Initially talk was that it was random malaria and her stay in hospital
was nothing serious and before long she would be out of hospital. One day led to another and be-
fore I knew it she had moved to one week in the hospital without a disease being diagnosed by
whoever was doing the diagnosing. However far off the dark side of the story wasn’t played out
before me until the dust had settled on the whole story did the politics land right at my front door?
The call hit me like a rush of cold water after all those days hallucinations had been floating
through my head of what if she didn’t make it out of that hospital. At the turn of the year my sister
had suffered a random attack that saw her end up in hospital diagnosed with a disease that none of
us could comprehend. Days after that auntie complained about sickness in her feet something we
wrote off with claims she was a local breed there was no way she was succumbing to a disease
just as if she were an exotic chicken.
Ever since we had moved deeper into the city her circle of friends had narrowed down considera-
bly as she resigned to being a non-participatory member of the third linage even though all this
time she had been floating from one lineage to another using a skill only her she would master.
Several times she used her little shoulders and voice to quash war instigated by one end of the
family to another until next time when another side played victim in reference to another side of
the family. At her death bed these battle lines played out like the black and white spaces of a
chase board. Who jumped in first to calm the fire or provide for the dying while the one educated
side played diplomat handling issues from the distance, the semi-educated were non-existent
which left the third linage got involved heavily.
In her last days having cut off ties with the other two lineages, she had had picked up the charac-
teristics of the third linage living all alone so on her death bed it revealed a sect that had devel-
oped in the educated class. It was made of the young educated ones who were desperate to make
to the top to occupy the power vacuum that was slowly but steadily developing at the top. This
vacuum had one problem it was naturally going to be adopted by the only son of the current pro-
tagonist of the educated family who was well armed by the militant antics of the semi-educated
class. Seeing this opportunity many of the emerging cadres of the educated linage were busy
working their way up so as to gazzump this place before it fell vacant. Auntie’s death bed provid-
ed a launch pad to exercise this influence as they hijacked all duties in provision of whatever the
deceased needed and even his belongings were taken up by them dishing out instructions to who-
ever was concerned. They even provided a sort of family broadcasting service giving timely up-
dates on the condition of the deceased to whoever was concerned. On face value this looks like a
plan well working however it had a flaw which was picked on by the result driven third linage
who quickly provided the educated cadres to only providing lip service instead of the final prod-
uct. The pampers never arrived, the bills were never paid only the deceased property was taken
care of yet news spread around crediting the educated cadres of a job well done. This hurt the
third linage so bad they cut off all ties with other members of the family paralyzing the whole
family. The coup was done so naturally it hit the educated so bad none even noticed the takeover.
The key legal documents had a bearer of the third linage and nothing would be moved till they
signed paralyzing all the plans.