The escape haven that did not help me
Mar 18, 2011
YOU will understand my dilemma the day your mum starts cross-examining you about your alleged girlfriend. Those questions are easy, but only if you are not in the situation I was in. Was I Carol’s boyfriend? Even I didn’t know!
YOU will understand my dilemma the day your mum starts cross-examining you about your alleged girlfriend. Those questions are easy, but only if you are not in the situation I was in. Was I Carol’s boyfriend? Even I didn’t know!
How could I be when she left me stranded to jump into Roger’s car and drive off. A Benz? Who cannot own a Benz? Okay, I don’t have it now. But I will some day. I am going to work hard.
It had been a tough week. Arsenal had been bundled out of the Champions League, then the FA Cup, then my clash with Roger, I needed to run out of town because if Sematimba lost, I would be forced to visit a witchdoctor about my bad luck.
Monday would be a public holiday – only for the people in Kampala – you know the mayor stuff – so if I left Kampala on Friday. I would have three days to rest from my troubles.
That is how I found myself, sitting cross-legged in my mother’s sofa, holding my chin in my palms, eyes glued to some far off nothing, not knowing how to identify myself as: Carol’s boyfriend or neighbour? I couldn’t even tell mum that the girl she so much enquired about had just chosen another guy over me, and that she was the reason I had taken the trip home! That was neither manly nor inspirational! No mother would want a loser of a son.
HIV! Mum was asking whether I had taken an HIV test with Carol! My sister had made a complete job, telling mum ‘everything!’. But this was not all my trip offered me.
Sunday, found me inside our local church. Ever since I left home for Kampala, I became scarce in the village. I did not know most of the people in the congregation. Surprisingly, they knew me. A sharp-knife-like-thing cut diagonally through me when the catechist called onto me to hold the basket at the time of offertory. I didn’t have a single coin in my pockets, yet being one of the land’s few exports to Kampala, they expected a lot from me.
After the service, the catechist decided they hold a mini-fundraising and, again, I was asked to sell the bunch of matooke. This time round, I bought it, but on credit. I knew mum would easily settle the debt.
Continues next week
How could I be when she left me stranded to jump into Roger’s car and drive off. A Benz? Who cannot own a Benz? Okay, I don’t have it now. But I will some day. I am going to work hard.
It had been a tough week. Arsenal had been bundled out of the Champions League, then the FA Cup, then my clash with Roger, I needed to run out of town because if Sematimba lost, I would be forced to visit a witchdoctor about my bad luck.
Monday would be a public holiday – only for the people in Kampala – you know the mayor stuff – so if I left Kampala on Friday. I would have three days to rest from my troubles.
That is how I found myself, sitting cross-legged in my mother’s sofa, holding my chin in my palms, eyes glued to some far off nothing, not knowing how to identify myself as: Carol’s boyfriend or neighbour? I couldn’t even tell mum that the girl she so much enquired about had just chosen another guy over me, and that she was the reason I had taken the trip home! That was neither manly nor inspirational! No mother would want a loser of a son.
HIV! Mum was asking whether I had taken an HIV test with Carol! My sister had made a complete job, telling mum ‘everything!’. But this was not all my trip offered me.
Sunday, found me inside our local church. Ever since I left home for Kampala, I became scarce in the village. I did not know most of the people in the congregation. Surprisingly, they knew me. A sharp-knife-like-thing cut diagonally through me when the catechist called onto me to hold the basket at the time of offertory. I didn’t have a single coin in my pockets, yet being one of the land’s few exports to Kampala, they expected a lot from me.
After the service, the catechist decided they hold a mini-fundraising and, again, I was asked to sell the bunch of matooke. This time round, I bought it, but on credit. I knew mum would easily settle the debt.
Continues next week