Crying out to my father's people

Jul 23, 2001

Richard Ajuna is only a 21 year-old, but has two painful lumps in his life. One is an old black and white photograph of the Tanzanian father he has never seen, and the other is that he does not know any of his father's relatives.

By Joshua Kato Richard Ajuna is only a 21 year-old, but has two painful lumps in his life. One is an old black and white photograph of the Tanzanian father he has never seen, and the other is that he does not know any of his father's relatives. Most certainly, they also do not know of his existance. The circumstances under which Ajuna's parents met, are as dramatic as they died. Ajuna paints the pain in his chest, like the portrait of a lonely boat at sea. His mother, the late Keturah Nsubuga told him that he is the son of the late Abdalla Said, a Tanzanian soldier. "My father came to Uganda during the 1979 Liberation war and in the process met my mother," Ajuna recalls. At the peak of their romantic sorjorn, Nsubuga became pregnant. Shortly after that, misfortune struck! " My mother told me that my father died when she was only a month pregnant," Ajuna says. He died in a car accident on Entebbe road. His mother never attended the burial, and therefore did not meet the deceased's relatives. Ajuna was born in 1980. The name Ajuna was given to him by his maternal grandmother, who knew something about Tanzanian names. But Ajuna is not sure of what it means. He is however, proud to have got a name close to his father's people. "My mother decided to look after me single- handedly and did not trace my father's relatives," Ajuna says. She later married another man and got children. However, as Ajuna grew up, the urge to meet his relatives grew stronger. "At the beginning of 1993, I began asking my mother to take me to Tanzania and look up my relatives. She, however, was reluctant," Ajuna said. Probably, she had a feeling that this was a wild goose chase. In 1996, she accepted to take him to Tanzania, but unfortunately, another tragedy struck. "It was just a few days to the day we had prepared to leave. Mother fell sick and died instantly," Ajuna said. The only treasure she left him was a black and white photograph of his father. Ajuna has kept it to this day. He says he will keep it until he meets his late father's relatives. Today, Ajuna lives at Naluvule village, Wakiso district on Hoima road. "By the time my mother died, I was in primary seven. My grandmother paid for my fees, until I reached S.5 at St. Augustine college Wakiso. However, now there is no more money to cater for my education," Ajuna, who is now a peasant laments. " I want to see my relatives. I need to see where I come from, for l'm living like a lone wolf in the wilderness," Ajuna says. Not that he is unhappy with his grandmother, but the urge to claim his identity grates him. " I'm proud that my mother and grandmother did all that they could to raise me, but that remains the only star in my otherwise small world," he says. Ajuna prays that some of his father's relatives not only see, but recognise the photograph. This he thinks will be the brightest side of his entire 21 years. "I call upon anyone who recognises the photograph of my late father and can trace his origin to call 077-635255," he says. Ends

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