#whack!whack!!

The punishments we got in school bannange. There was this teacher—— I don't know where she learnt that pinching the inner thigh caused so much pain. She inflicted this punishment even for the simplest of “crimes”. A wrong spelling, over-asking to go to the toilet, coming into class late after break-time. For boys, she would pull up one leg of their wide khaki shorts, and for the girls, the checked green-and white dress allowed easy access. Then she would take that meaty part inside the upper thigh between her fingers, and give it a tight, hard, tug, kind of like wanting to wrench it off the bone. It lasted only a few seconds but the ‘inflictee’s' howls and tears assured her that the punishment had been effective. Even the toughest of little boys cried.

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Abing Abong was my Std Six teacher. He had a faun-like look, just that his ears were not as pointy, and he didn't hold a lyre. Scraggly beard, thin lips. That man could punish. Thank God he never touched me, but I remember that we wrote our lessons in fear because his mood was like the weather. Sometimes he came late, and because he had the class key, we waited outside even after the bell rang and all the other classes started.
Abing Abong parked his car in a shade near the classroom and we would see him drive into the school as we stood in the corridor outside the classroom. He didn't say “Good morning” to anybody as he walked past us. Just jangled the bunch of keys and opened the door.
On some mornings, “Who wasss sssuppossssed to clean this classsss??” he hissed, through the slit in his lips. No answer. We all looked away, pretending to busy ourselves with our school-bags. He repeated the question. Still no answer. Then he pounced. “You! Come here!!” All heads whipped in the direction of our unfortunate peer.
Abing Abong had a whip in form of a pipe, a broken hose-pipe. The unfortunate victim walked to the front of the class with tears in his eyes to where Abing Abong stood, caressing the pipe in his hands, a half-smile playing on his faun-like features.
“Bend and touch!” That meant “bend, and touch your toes”. And if the victim was wearing a sweater, Abing Abong pulled it away using the end of the pipe. So that the only thing between the pipe and your skin was the thin cotton of your uniform dress or shirt. For maximum effect. The pipe landed on the upper back, near the shoulder. Woe betide you if you put your bu-fingers there to touch, he would give them swift little taps, equally painful.
None of us laughed, even when the victim made all sorts of faces and begged all sorts of ‘begs’, apologizing for a crime he did not commit, howling in pain, and shaking with fear. Five whacks were enough to keep you in tears for the rest of the day.
And MORE woe betide you if you sniffled your way through his lessons.

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Then there was the Std Five teacher everyone talked about. She loved the wooden ruler. By the way, I wonder why the makers of those rulers put a blade on one side. Madam Teacher usually meted her punishments during Maths lessons, or when she received the list of noise-makers.
She read out the names the class-monitor had put on the piece of exercise book paper, and the owners of those names knew the drill. Ukaenda to the front of the class. They waited in the line for their turn, their bu-knees shaking. “Make a fist and give me your knuckles!!”
The Maths’ sin had its number of strikes, and the noise-making sin had its own. Sometimes  the number, and heaviness of the strikes depended on her mood. And she gave nyongeza if you pulled your hand away and she missed.
And when that punishment was over and the sinners were furiously rubbing the pain away, she announced, “Empty tins make the most noise!”
And the lesson continued.

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My class Four teacher was not much of a beater. Hers were mind-games. And she was like an elephant, she never forgot. She would “store you” till the end of the day. Then when it came to home-time, or if there was a game in the field, you stayed in and wrote “I will not talk in class”, “I will not reach school late” 100 times, 200 times on a paper. And which, when you handed to her, she tore into 1,000 small pieces, and threw in the waste paper basket.
As you looked on.

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Before I joined Standard One, my older sister told me that the Headmaster used to give 'hot sticks'. Ati he had a jiiko in his office, and that it was always lit. Yaani, it was always on fire. So woe betide you if your crime was too big for the class teacher to handle and could only be dealt with by the Headie. Mbu he would put the cane on the jiiko, and when it got really hot, then he would give you six of the best, as you lay on the floor of his office, writhing and yelping away for help. Anyway, I soon found out that this was a figment of her very imaginative mind, and that the Headie was as kind as a puppy.

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Sometimes the teachers pinched your ears and left them feeling really hot, and you imagining that they had turned red. Or they went for your cheek(s), and you would imagine she had left an imprint of her fingers. That feeling lasted for hours. Sometimes you picked leaves for the whole of the morning till break-time at 10am. And the headmistress- Mrs Kamau- we called her "Kamale"- was an expert at caning. Boy or girl, it didn't matter, you all lay down and allowed her to administer the kibokos.

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In secondary school, which I did in Uganda, there were punishments for all sorts of things- even matters that we scoffed at, like - going with the key, staring (idle-gazing), or wearing high-heels that made you walk like a lame horse. They sounded like very silly charges, but they had been carefully thought out, to stop you being silly, irresponsible and careless later in life.
And so we knelt on the Meditation Green, we walked in bare feet, and we screamed and kicked as we received 15 canes for declining in class.
One time, the ones who “Despised Diet” or who were “Absent Food” had to wear manilla boards over their clothes- to class and in prep- with “I will not miss meals” scribbled on the paper.
There were others- several strokes of the hippo hide for drinking alcohol, and a scrub, and several pails of cold water for the girls who partook of the forbidden drink.

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There was a cabinet minister’s son who went berserk on a Judge (yes, we had a whole judicial system in school) who had sentenced him to receive some canes for one or other crime. He broke a wooden chair over the Judge’s head when the Senior Four examinations were over. Then he left the school, confident that he would never to return.
Of course the Headmaster was not amused, and so was the Cabinet Minister when he heard what his son had done. Two weeks later, as we were in class, about 11am, the emergency siren sounded. That meant “drop everything and run to the administration block”. From there, we were ordered to hurry down to the main hall, about seven minutes away.
The headmaster’s car was parked in its usual spot. He was already standing on the stage. He announced that the Cabinet Minister’s son had committed a grave offense- attacking a fellow student and grievously harming him- and for that, he would be punished. Publicly.
The Cabinet Minister’s son was led on to the stage, kind of like a sheep to the slaughter, by one of his father’s uniformed bodyguards.
Then very dramatically, with a wave of his fingers and a folding of the arms, the Headmaster declared that the penalty would be 25 sticks of the cane. To be delivered, not by him, but by the bodyguard.
“Lala chini!!” The Cabinet Minister’s son stretched himself out on the floor. We craned our necks. Whack! Whack! Whack! Somewhere in the middle of the whacks, Cabinet Minister’s child started whimpering and leaped up in pain, clutching at his buttocks.
“Rudi chini!!” the guard ordered.
He 'rudid' chini for another bout of torture. Again he jumped up, this time in tears. He clutched at his bottom, it must have been red-hot and numb at the same time. He walked in circles, but the canes were not done. And the Headmaster was counting faithfully.
Again the bodyguard ‘towad order’. By the time the boy’s ordeal was done, he never ever wanted to look at another wooden chair again.
And—— to add salt to the wound—— he had a girlfriend in the "audience".

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Of course there were more severe punishments in the form of suspensions, some indefinite, and expulsions. A Senior Four girl stole some money, and strenuously denied that she took it. She cried and told pity stories, and even rolled on the ground.
“Those people accusing me, they just hate me, oh God, I don’t know what I ever did to them. I know I am from a poor family, my mother doesn’t have money but I CANNOT STEAL! I am not a thief!!”
I was the chief investigator in the case. Someone said they had seen her, with their “own two eyes”, take the money from under her roommate’s pillow.
The case went on for three days, and the girl did not go to class all this time. She knelt on the Meditation Green, not even the law of Harbeus Corpus could save her.
I talked to her, pleaded with her, and promised that if she told me the truth, I would ask for a lesser sentence. And still she said she didn't take the money.
So, on the afternoon of the third day, armed with my search warrant, I decided to do a thorough final sweep, just so she could be freed from the embarrassment of having to be led to the Green for a fourth day. Everyone was asking what felony she had committed, they were that concerned.
That thorough sweep led me to the store, to her tin trunk where the 'edibles' for the term were stored.
She’d given me her keys at the start of the investigation, and so I opened the trunk. Save for half a bar of washing soap, there was nothing there. The bottom was lined with new newspapers. I put the padlock back, but as I walked away, my gut instinct told me to check under those newspapers.
And there, in the corner, was something folded in an exercise book page. It could only be one thing.
Sure enough. It was the money. She had not touched even a shilling. I expected her to say that I had planted the “evidence” but she didn’t. She was suspended for two weeks and off she went, quietly. She never returned.

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One Sunday morning at the weekly conference, the Headmaster shamed a girl in my class. As all of us listened, he asked her to stand.
“This girl will have AIDS by the time she’s…”.
Her case was that she was “…disturbing her Auntie during the holidays and running off with boys…” and a lot more. And so he decided that the public shaming was good enough punishment to make her cower, and change.
She disappeared from school in the night and there was a frantic search for her the next morning when her roommates discovered her  unmade bed was empty. The poor “abasadha b’e misaayi” (bloody men) askaris were summoned, and interrogated 'a’kana, n’akataano' about how they could let a student out of the gate but they couldn't explain how.

#alone&frightened

“How did you get yourself pregnant?”

Your parents are yelling. You are huddled in the corner of the long sofa eyes fixed on the floor, shaking inside. Your mother, in between sobs, informs you how she will become the village laughing stock, how much you have let her down, how you are now doomed, how she will not be able to go to the Mother’s Union meetings any more. Your father threatens to throttle you, calling you the child of your mother. Like you are not his.

And just as you are beginning to let it sink in how much of a sinner you are, that you are surely destined for damnation, and the hot fires of hell, they want to know, “Who’s the boy, eh? Who is responsible for putting you in this family way?” (They are too decent to ask, “Who did you sleep with?") “Who’s son is he? Is he a married man? Does he go to school? Where does he work? Does he EVEN know you are pregnant??  Olubuto lwaani?” Your mother shrieks, beating her thighs in anguish.

“It was a mistake!” you plead, as you sob, and cradle your head in your hands, wishing the earth could open and swallow you. “Forgive me, it was a just mistake, it won't happen again!”
“Get out of my sight!” Your father roars. “Mistake my foot, rubbish!!”

Meanwhile, you are there wondering where this boyfriend of yours who kutikkad you that mimba is. I mean he was a man when he was making you pregnant, but suddenly he’s like the wind. He doesn't call, he doesn't check on you, actually, he’d rather be miles away from you, having fun and pretending he’s still young and free. And you’re here pregnant for him. Facing the fire.

Alone. 

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Ntare School, a boy’s only school, this week sent home 280 students. The whole of the Senior Three class was sent packing after they went on rampage in frustration over “being attacked and beaten by students of International Window School last Thursday… after a football match” (Daily Monitor, Tuesday, 28th March 2017). (By the way, let me re-look at the name of the "beating" school- International Window- who names their school such?) As a result, the games were suspended.

The Headmaster Jimmy Turyagenda is reported as saying that “one class got out of their senses and broke some glass windows…”. So the administration made the decision to suspend the students.
These things of suspensions are hard to deal with. At school, you may all look the same, speak the same language, wear the same uniform, eat the same beans and weevils. Unless otherwise, the matter of your parents’ financial standing rarely comes into play (actually in school they used to say that the poor students always got the good marks while the richer ones were at the tail, because their future was secure).

Teenagers have emotions as well and are wont to express them, as many hot-blooded adolescents would do. Many of them have endured their parents' “avoid peer pressure, remember you came alone with your suitcase” lecture every beginning of term. Now comes this school with a funny name attacking you because you won the football match. I’m sure there are individuals who remembered their parents words at this stage and kept away. But peer pressure caused many others to go breaking window panes on the headmaster’s house and going riot on a dormitory.

The real problem comes when you get out of the school gates and prepare to face your parents to give them an explanation, and in the same breath, deny that you were part of the strike. “Ah, nze bali abaana abalala bebamenye amadirisa. Nze nabagamba balekeraawo, nebagaana!” (Ah, my classmates broke the windows, I was not part of them. Actually, I pleaded with them to stop and they refused!”

At that moment- the one where you are explaining yourself in the best way you can- you are alone. The group is gone. In other houses, some have been slapped, others have got six of the best, others have received it the “musaasaane” way. Alone.

But there are others whose parents told them not to worry, after all, “that ki-school doesn't even teach well”. Their parents have money, and connections in big places, and with powerful names that matter, and another big school is a mere call away. They let the child rest for a week, sleeping in, eating hearty meals, lounging in front of the TV, playing video games, and taking the car to hang out with their friends in the malls in town. And when that week is done, a new uniform has been bought and the guzzler is ready to transport the "suspendee" to a better school.  

Kati you with your problems, you keep your ears glued to the radio, waiting for that announcement mbu the school has asked you to report back with a good explanation. And with your parents.

But feeling all alone.

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This week Matthew Kanyamunyu, he of the Kenneth Watson Akena murder case over a supposed traffic incident in Kampala, returned to the High Court to apply for bail. And for the second time, he was denied his freedom. His co-accused, accessories to the crime, the judge said, were let free. Cynthia Munwangari, his girlfriend, and his older brother Joseph.

When finally the trio was charged, they all wore “we shall overcome” smiles. The people were angry. “How dare they be happy like that when a life was lost, a life they claimed they were trying to save???” However, a transformation happened in prison. The smiles slowly disappeared into oblivion and their faces wore more worry lines every time they had to reappear.

And just like that, Matthew found himself boarding the prison bus back to Luzira. His dear brother was not with him. His love Cynthia (the Bukedde reporter pronounced the name as Sincere) was returning home. To a warm bath, a hot cup of tea, a delicious supper, movies on DSTV, and hugs from her loving family.

And he was going back to cold prison quarters, squat latrines shared with several other prisoners, and the one daily meal of kawunga, and water with beans. No mazongoto, no cereal for breakfast, no fried chicken for lunch. No stories and laughter with his brother. Just him.

All alone.

#Ihavebeenattacked!

I can't recall the year this happened, it must have been around 2006.

Late one Friday night my phone rang. It was a few minutes to midnight.
“I’ve been attacked! I’ve been attacked!”
I didn't recognize the voice but it was a man’s. He sounded frantic.
“Who’s this?”
“It is me Professor …. I tell you, I have been attacked!”
I was wondering how he wanted me to help. Call the Police perhaps? Was it a wrong number?
“Where are you?”
“I am at my home here in Makerere. The New Vision has attacked me! How can they run an article criticizing my views?!”
Oh God!! A grown Prof making so much noise over a mere newspaper article? I groaned inwardly and rolled my eyes.
“Oh, okay” Calmly. “So how can I help you?”
“Come to my home tomorrow at 11am, I want to talk to the media. I have to issue a rebuttal! How dare this newspaper attack me like this?”

So I went to his house the next day. The dining table where we sat was piled high with books and old newspapers, journals, examination and research papers. There was a red flask, a China teacup on a saucer, and a bowl of sugar on a tray. The room was dingy and there were cobwebs on the ceiling. There were only two journalists there. One from a newspaper. And me. With my heavy hand-held tape recorder.

It turns out that the agriculture Prof, who, on occasion addressed a political party weekly press conference, had purchased the early bird copy of the New Vision. In there, someone had written a letter criticizing an article he had earlier submitted for publication. His article, I don’t remember what it was about, was nearly a month old. It had elicited some response in form of a letter on the Editor’s Page. A month later.

Armed with a copy of the newspaper in which his article ran, and the early edition with the letter, the Professor raved and ranted, waving his hands up and down, banging the table, raising his voice, removing and putting his specs back on, biting on the temple tips, and scrunching his face in anger and disbelief. He alleged that the "rebuttal" must have come from someone working for the government, someone who was bent on seeing him enter the grave before his (Prof’s) time, someone who clearly did not understand that he was a whole Prof who had read his books for years.

The other journalist wrote and wrote and wrote, and scribbled and scribbled and scribbled. I recorded and recorded and recorded and recorded. The first side of the tape ran out. I changed it. The other side also ran out and still, the good Prof continued his monologue. Railing and ranting against the unknown writer. The writer of three paragraphs, mind you. He questioned how the paper, "a big paper at that, could allow him to be challenged, and how it could publish such rubbish, eh?"
 “I am an expert in this subject, how can someone who is not even qualified question my views?? I always doubted this paper, and now they have proved my suspicions right!"

We could not get questions in edgewise because he would put his hand up to give us the Stop sign like a policeman at non-functioning traffic lights.

I pretended to change the tape again and switched off the recorder. I’d heard and had enough. He wasn't even noticing that we were shifting in our chairs and not listening any more. The other journalist had stopped attacking his notebook and was sitting quietly. Then the Prof stopped his tirade.

“Okay, I hope you have got everything, eh? If there is anything you have not understood, I can clarify it now.”

We both looked at him. No one uttered a word.

“Ah, okay. Thank you very much for coming! Make sure you run the story. When can I listen in? And you, you said you are from which paper? When will the story be published? These newspaper people also them. Make sure you don't attack me, you hear!”

He got up, removed the crotchet cover from the flask and poured himself a cup of tea, stirring loudly and carelessly. I wondered who had put it there, because it seemed he was alone in the house.

The story did not see the light of day. 

#somethinginthewater

There must something in the water that the Lihanna brigade is drinking these days.
Because for the past two weeks, they have been very noisy, restless, worked up. I don't see them, I hear them. Over the wall that separates our houses.
Last night was the limit. I marched to their house and demanded that they keep down their din. I’d had it. Someone, Lihanna’s older sister, she’s about eight, was bawling her lungs out. The night was quiet, and then all of a sudden the racket started. The child was crying, the new maid was telling her to keep it down, Lihanna was yelling. Oh God!
I put my Bible down. “God, help me to be patient. And tolerant,” I prayed fervently.
The din crescendoed to something else. This time I could make out the maid shouting, “You go to sleep! You go to sleep!”
But the child was having none of it.
And I was also having none of it. It was so irritating. I didn't look for my nightgown. I just marched out of my gate and into theirs.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! On their front door. “Shut up and go to bed!” I yelled from outside.
The silence died down immediately, like somebody had turned it off.
“Shut up and go to bed!”

Rihanna flung open the curtains of the front window and peered out. The sitting room was bathed in a ghostly blue light. Lihanna Younger and the maid were standing near the door to the corridor, frozen like statues. My screams must have frightened them.

“Go to bed!” I demanded in my most menacing tone.
“Yes, you go to bed!” the maid echoed in her baby-like voice.

Lihanna let go of the curtain and it swished back into place.

The din started again in the morning. It was not yet even 5am. I know their mother is not at home because she cannot stand that kind of rubbish. She would have given them a proper reason to cry. Something must be wrong. This is just not comfortable.

#backsidegashes

 
My mother has always said, from as far back as I can remember—— make sure you wear clean underwear, and make sure it is IN ONE PIECE.

We’ve listened well and these days we even joke about it. But what used to go through my mind when I was younger was that if I ever decided to be careless, may be the day I might get an accident, or get malaria and have to get an injection. And then the doctor would look at me differently.

Now—— to the real reason I’m writing about wearing presentable undergarments.

This good man, someone’s husband, was wearing blue boxer shorts with a huge gash down the back. We were attending a meeting, and discussing “highly delicate diplomatic” issues (thanks Henry Barlow) and in a moment of laughter to ease the seriousness of the discussion, my gaze landed on my neighbor’s back as I shifted in my seat.

You know these eyes, they can develop a mind of their own, its like they work bila the brain. I was scandalized. I quickly averted my gaze. But the damage was done. My brain kicked its engine back into action and this time commanded me to, “Look again!” I looked again. The eyes refused to move away. His shirt had come untucked, and somehow ridden up his back, divorced from the trousers (which had no belt by the way).

And there---- lo and behold!---- was a huge and fat tear, a slash, a split, a rip. It could only mean one thing—- that the underpant was torn.

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The wearer continued to spew very intelligent information, with everybody listening intently.

#drunkbodas

As I left my sister’s house in Kiwatule on Monday afternoon, a bodaboda motorcycle whizzed past me. I shouted “boda!”
The rider, wearing a Muslim cap, stopped, and came back for me.
I got on, with my migugus, straddle-style. In the process of getting comfortable, the motorcycle started rolling backwards and then it reared, like a horse with its front legs in the air.
I jumped off, scared, migugus and all.
The boda guy said, “Madam sorre, tuula tugende,”.
I got on cautiously, giving him a bad eye. “Naye gwe ogya kunsuula!”
I had barely completed my sentence when the unmistakable whiff of a cheap gin hit me. Beckham waragi.
“Gwe, oyagala kunzita! Kale genda! Ova kwekatankira waragi!”
He didn't say a thing, didn't even look at me, just revved off as fast as the boda could carry him.

I walked to the taxi stage, imagining myself in Mulago’s casualty ward, lying helplessly on a narrow cot, with a bloody chin, a huge wound on the back of my head, split lips and two missing teeth. It’s bad enough that I’ve had a broken front tooth for decades.

                              (Source: Red Pepper)

Last night, I encountered another boda drunko. Now this one looked dodgy from the start, but it was late, and the distance I wanted to go was short. He was parked at the boda stage opposite my work place.
I sat on the machine. “Gyebale ko Ssebo.”
“Nawe gyebale Madamu.”
I jumped off.
“Ate kiki Madamu?”
This one had probably drunk about five buveeras of Liberty waragi and a half liter of badly brewed Lira Lira. Ho!
He didn't say anything, just slunk away. 

These necessary evils!