{UAH} 1983 continued

By Omar Mayanja 

By this time my father had also heard about the misadventure of our first term holiday and deprivation of the terms that followed and it made him awfully sad.  He could not come home yet, he had no money and being close by across the border in Kenya had so far proved of no benefit to his young and growing family.   For the time being however, he had settled his wives in two homes if you can call a school teacher's quarters that.  One base was in Elgeyo Marakwet where Maama Mariam taught Science and the other was near Kisumu where father taught English and Maama Aminah kept house on top of nursing the newest addition to our family, Ssempebwa.  

While lesser profile dissidents were being granted visas and permanent residence in safe countries like Canada and Australia where they could also pursue their professions, father's applications were being denied everywhere.  As far as they were concerned his life was not in danger given that the bulk of his dozen "wives" and scores of children were "alive and well" at home in Uganda where he should have been enjoying protection as a member of parliament.  Of all the players in the struggle including those of the gallant men and women who braved the bush for four years, my family is possibly the only one that failed to secure protection as political refugees and the only one that was left in complete disarray.  JPAM and his family were not the only ones eating sausages you see.  Many families including those of bush commanders were safely tucked away in first world capitols where posho and cassava were not on the menu. 

After ending the marriage to Maama Hadija in '78, father was raising twenty four children by himself.  For some reason, at the beginning of that marriage he had chosen monogamy, parted ways with the rest of our maamas and 'won' custody of the children by paternal right.   For ten years myself and my younger siblings knew only one maama.  Some of us did not know they had a different birth mum.  After maama Hadija left, It took daddy just one year and a war to conclude that raising children was not a task for any man, not even superman.   Moreover, not having a wife was bad form for a politician on the campaign trail. 

Before time was called on the 1980 election, daddy had married twice and made it three by 1982.  He would have made it four but for an initial and brief stint in exile in 1981.  Soon however, he discovered his new brides who were young and beautiful and viable, could not handle teenagers whose mothers were no longer in their lives.  He was married but unfortunately still a single-dad.  He was managing barely and only because he had money and he could send us away to boarding school for weeks at a time.  

That was until he was forced to flee, lose control of the assets and businesses which he depended on for school fees and the adults he left behind were not interested in the children.   Without school fees, food and someone to watch over them, the older girls and eventually some of the younger ones sought protection through 'marriage' to the first person that showed interest.  Wantaate was not yet 18 when he assumed head of the house and keeper of some of the unmarried boys and girls who could brave the dire conditions at Lungujja.  

[In the photo taken at Uhuru Park Nairobi, Baaba Kisuba telling daddy she had married rather unceremoniously in his absence, daddy putting on a brave face and jokingly walking her down the aisle in consolation] 

Nyonyi-teyise found a job in a supermarket and on days she knew she would be at the till, she encouraged her brothers to come shopping (and lifting) as then they could walk straight past her without paying.   Ssemuwemba's 'real' mum died of natural causes while he was trapped behind enemy lines in Nyakasura.  He could shoot his way back home with the NRA or risk a solo mission across enemy lines.  He chose the former but since there was no way for the family to know this, he was assumed missing and very possibly dead.     

Two of the new mummies joined father in Kenya while the third together with her baby Kabeng'ano secured a visa and passage to Europe.  One day a visiting in-law came calling at Maama Mariam's house.  The caller could not help noticing the humbling circumstances that his sister founder herself in and asked if there is anything he could do, anything at all.  Father was less concerned about his situation and only lamented leaving his young children behind, a topic that brought a lump in his throat every time.  So the visitor offered, upon his return to Kampala, to come visit us wherever we were and give us some grub.  Father thanked him but then explained that his wish really was, even if it's just for a day, to look us over, stare into our eyes, hug us and give us what little money he might have on him.  "The amount of money was not important", he clarified, "what was important was that it came from the sweat and hands of a father to his child". 

That December holiday, the same visitor came to mum's shop with a letter in father's handwriting confirming  that he longed to see the children and had authorised the man we only knew as "Uncle" to travel with us across the border to Kenya.  Mum was hesitant but she knew how important this was, and given the times she also hoped, that once safely across the border we would not have to come back.  Within days we took a 'kigaati' (minibus commuter) to Jinja from where we caught a Peugeot 504 station wagon to Tororo and then the original boda-boda to Malaba border.  A boda-boda used to be a 'maanyi ga kifuba' bicycle used to ferry people and their wares between border towns.

At the border, Uncle bought a kibbo of fresh bananas for each of us to balance on our heads as we crossed the small bridge over the river that separates the two countries.  We would not carry any travel documents as they would reveal our parents' names.  We were to pose as locals which given our state and cargo was too easy to pull off.  We were young, pale and skinny from eating posho and bean weevil soup at school.  However, at this age I was also old enough to know we were committing a crime and while we all managed to cross, it was not without trepidation.   On the other side we took a small bus to Eldoret and from there a Peugeot pickup truck with a covered frame which carried about ten other passengers.  The 'matatu' took us towards Kapkenda Girls High School where we arrived just before dusk.

We were exhausted from travelling all day and even if happiness and emotion were killing us, that night we just shut down and lay like logs all over the small teacher's house.  In the morning father woke us, led us in prayer and then took us outside on the lawn, to experience a wintry morning with our bare feet.  It was teeth chattering cold!  We learnt we were in a part of the world, the Kenya highlands on the edge of the rift valley,  where the locals tended tea estates and dressed in winter attire all year round.   My geography lessons started to make sense.  The rift valley dropped and then extended as far as the eyes could see, the Ugandan school teachers and textbooks did not do it justice.  There is also the law that says "the higher you go the cooler it becomes".  This is something you could never explain to a child on a sun scorched afternoon in Kampala.  Geography trips were important but we had missed all of them for lack of money.

Dad was also right about what mattered, because I don't remember coming back home to Uganda from those trips with anything of material value.  But I was happy that in a space of a few weeks, most of my daddy issues had been cured and I would be the envy of my school mates if for nothing else, the fact that I had been abroad.  We were no longer abandoned and underprivileged kids.  We were the children of an acknowledged genius who were also invariably gifted according to the intermediate test results displayed for all to see on visiting Sundays.  Some of the parents started inviting us to their signature picnic lunches, making no pretences about the fact that this was some form of inducement to help their kids who had challenges reading from the blackboard or understanding the teachers. 

 

Sadly, at the beginning of December 1983, days after we broke off for the holidays, General David Oyite Ojok was killed in a helicopter crash, his boys did not return to the school and I never heard from them again.  My erstwhile privileged play mates became orphans and for all I know a lot worse off than I who had hope of seeing my father again.  All of us had been victims of the bad politics and conduct of government although when it was all said and done, they bore the brunt of it.  They were not the only ones.  A large part of the force that overcame the UNLA, were the thousands from Luweero who had been orphaned, forced to bear arms and told "Ono ye maama ono ye taata" in reference to the guns placed in their right hand and ammo in the left.

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