We cooked and ate my brother

QUESTION: Give us a profile about yourself.

ANSWER: I am Kayiwa, 13. I was born in Bamunanika, Luweero district in a village called Kikabya. My father Kamya died when I was four years old. My mother, Nakato, stays in Kikyusa where she got married after separating from my father. I was raised by my grandmother. My only sibling died and we ate his body.
I am in primary three. I probably would be in senior one now but my grandmother refused me to go to school.

How did you become a cannibal?
My grandmother is a cannibal and a nightdancer. It is a disease that was inherited in my family because I was told my father was also a ‘man-eater’. My grandmother initiated me into cannibalism when I was young.

How did you know you were eating human meat and how often did you do it?
There is no way I could have mistaken human meat however young I was. I could tell from the fingers, legs, head and all the other human parts. We ate it every night.

How did your grandmother get the bodies?
The moment you catch the cannibalism bug, it becomes pretty easy. My grandmother used to exhume freshly buried bodies and bring them home. She would exhume bodies within a twinkling of an eye, she was very good at it.

How did she exhume them and when?
It was always after midnight. Before going for the exhumation mission, she would first have a cold bath. She would then strip and tie human bones around her waist. Stark naked, she would begin the dancing. On reaching the grave she would sing a song with incomprehensible words while spreading some charms (powder) on the grave. Then the body would jump out upright from one corner of the grave.

How did she carry the body?
It is difficult to explain but it followed her. She ordered it to follow her and it did. If it was in the coffin, after reaching home, she would remove the body, and we would break the coffin and use it as firewood.

Did you ever accompany her on her mission?
Yes. Four times as far as I remember. But my work was mainly to collect banana leaves on which she used to lay the bodies. My other duty was to collect firewood and fetch water.

How did she prepare (cook) the meat?
We used to share the meat with fellow cannibals around the village. They normally took the legs and we kept the upper parts including the head. She never added any spice - not even salt.
She used to bury the intestines. Many times we never slept because by the time she finished the whole process of cooking and by the time we finished eating, it would be morning.

How did she get away with it? Why didn’t your neighbours or the police come to know about your activities?
My grandmother was an expert at using charms and witchcraft. Our house is isolated in a banana plantation and our immediate neighbours are also cannibals.
Moreover, there are only six homes in our village. Other homes are a distance away. One other thing you should know is that nobody can suspect my grandmother of being an evil person. She is so tricky, during daytime, she is an old woman, but at night she throws away the stick and walks upright like everybody else. She is very cunning indeed.

When you became of age why didn’t you report your grandmother’s bad activities?
You surely don’t know about cannibalism or night dancing. It is difficult to disclose it, let alone abandoning the habit. Instead, you become obsessed. You find yourself more and more involved in nocturnal gyrations enjoying it the more.

How did you come to Kampala?
I never wanted to take chances. I feared for my life. I thought I would be the next victim. We had just eaten my brother. He died of malaria and we buried him but my grandmother exhumed his body that night and we ate it. I was reluctant to eat it but she forced me, saying the Kitambo (demon) had ordered her to exhume the body and eat it. If we had refused, something terrible would have happened to us. It was too much for me, I had eaten my real brother! One night, I timed her when she went on her mission and I took off.

Then how did you get saved, or come to know Pastor Dortch?
When I came to Kampala in January last year, I did not have anywhere to stay. I used to sleep on verandas and eat from KCC skips.
Someone picked me and took me to Kim Centre in Mengo - an institution for unprivileged children. But the people in charge of the centre didn’t understand my deviant character.
One day, I chopped off a leg of a live frog and ate it. Another day I bit off a boy’s finger and ate it. Everybody started fearing me and calling me musezi (night dancer). The manager of the centre sent me away. Later I was picked by a good hearted woman who found me in a skip. She took me to her church - Elim Church and introduced me to the pastor and other members.
They started praying for me and told me about God’s love. That was when I accepted Jesus Christ as my saviour. The pastor and the people around are very kind and they encourage me spiritually.

Are you now free from cannibalism?
Absolutely free. I don’t even want to eat meat though there is a lot of it where I stay. However, I am sometimes haunted by my past. At night, evil spirits attack me and traumatise me.
At times I see my grandmother running after me. Sometimes when the Kitambo is about to strike, I say a simple prayer, which goes: Ngoba ekitambo mulinya lya Yesu (I drive away the demon in the name of Jesus) and it goes away immediately

How do you relate with your fellow pupils at school. Don’t they ridicule you?
They know my story but they are good and kind to me. Most of them are Christians. We interact freely and pray together.

Who is helping you now and what do you want to be in future?
I am under the care of Pastor Dortch and all the Christians around. As for my ambition, I want to become an evangelist - a very powerful pastor to spread the word of God. Meanwhile, Nakasaga who picked the boy and stays with him, says Kayiwa has undergone a transformation since being prayed for. “When he first came, he wanted to bite everybody on sight but prayers have helped him to settle. He loves God and I am sure he will achieve his goal of becoming an evangelist,” says Nakasaga.