We are driving approximately 170 kilometers to Masaka, but the Masaka Road is the busiest in the country and reports the highest rate of fatalities: around four hundred a year. I’m sure most of the traffic accidents could be avoided by commonsense driving but, as I am reminded on a daily basis, that doesn’t exist in Uganda. The roads truly are scary and I’m still learning that nothing moves according to schedule over here.
Lush, fertile scenery hugs us from both sides of the smooth road. On the rougher roads, small villages fight for our attention, as do the children shouting, “Muzungu!” and waving excitedly at us. We wave back with just as much enthusiasm.
Bare feet and broad smiles chase the car, curious to see white faces. They are hoping we will throw them some loose change or a bottle of juice. The red dust whirls and swirls as the car rushes rapidly on, leaving small dusty figures waving off the muzungu royalty who has just driven past.
We pass ladies young and old, gracefully carrying their goods on their heads like the caryatides of Athens. Not even an earthquake could cause anything to topple from those heads. We see a young girl who looks to be around ten years old struggling with ten-liter jerry cans in each hand and a baby strapped to her back. We drive past the hungry and the thirsty. I see one young girl trying to get the dregs of juice from a bottle thrown out of a car window. She’s too thirsty to chase our car. I watch her meander along till she finds another bottle and drinks what is left. I know that not far behind her will be the plastic bottle collector boys. A kilo of these discarded bottles earns them fifty cents, and it takes hundreds to make up a kilo.
The day is going well; we arrive at the equator bang on time. I get to witness the water going down the hole clockwise on the north side, anticlockwise on the south and straight down in the center.
All this science makes it a tourist attraction, so vendors are lining the street on both sides. I buy some lovely African jewelry and a few souvenirs, but decide to pass on the food. I’m learning that unless you know exactly where and how it is cooked it is better to go hungry or, if you’re like me and need to eat regularly, then bring snacks with you in the car.
Another hour’s drive and we will be meeting David in Masaka. David is a teacher, just like his mother. He’s actually the deputy head of a government school, Kabungo Secondary School. I’m so excited to see him in the flesh. So far, I’ve only seen pictures of David; there is some resemblance to Frankie, around the eyes mainly, but it is not as obvious as it is with Frank. I am much more emotionally prepared meeting David than I was with Frank. However, the same can’t be said about visiting Janet’s grave. I want to take flowers so we have arranged to meet David just outside a market in Masaka.
I spy David immediately. He’s slightly smaller than Frank. He’s well-dressed, wearing a white and black checked suit jacket, black and white striped shirt and smart trousers. I know he has dressed especially for the occasion and this makes me smile. He has been standing waiting for us on the side of the road. I can only imagine what he must be thinking and feeling right now. I am excited to meet him and hop out of the car to greet him. Frank introduces us. He gives me a big, full smile and puts his hand out to greet me. I search his face, looking to see Frankie. Our meeting is much lower key than it was with Frank. We meet on the street and there is little time for conversation, but he is warm toward me. Frank tells him, “This is your sister David. We have a sister from Scotland. Can you believe it?” David hugs me, “It is amazing, Sister. So good to know you. Thank you for coming to Masaka to see me.” There are no tears. I’m very composed. I like him. He seems like a nice, caring man. I sense a little apprehension, which is understandable, but he is gracious with me. It must be as surreal for David as it is for me.
David tells us he has found a place for me to buy flowers for his mum. He came to the market earlier, on a scouting mission, to find the exact flowers. Oh, good, I think to myself.
We start walking toward the market. David says, “So tell me, Sister...do you think I look like my brother?”
“Do you mean Frank or Frankie?”
He laughs, “Ah. Yes, Frankie—our brother, Frankie. Do I look like him?”
I know he wants me to tell him he looks just like him. Perhaps Frank has told him how much they look alike. I sense he wants that reassurance of a connection too.
“You do. Across the eyes you do.”
“Oh, that is good. Nice. Very nice. I wish I had met him.”
I smile, “Yes. It would have been great.”
“But now we have a sister. This is good too.”
The market is full of little winding corridors of street vendors crammed into tiny dilapidated structures held together by old corrugated iron, plastic, wood—just about anything people can find. It seems to me they are held together by the will of God and not much else. If there is an infrastructure to the place, I can’t see it. The conditions are poor beyond belief. I am glad I am here for flowers and not food. There doesn’t seem to be much mindfulness regarding the hygiene of food products strewn on the ground, or other garbage left lying around.
The vendors are even more excited than the children were to see a muzungu. We are the walking wallets. The millionaires. Rony wants a t-shirt made that reads, I AM A MUZUNGU NOT A MILLIONARE. Sadly, it won’t make any difference; they believe we are, and nothing we say or do will ever change it. Looking around this market, it’s easy to see why they might think so. It’s all relative, and in comparison to most people here, I guess we are.
Through every nook and cranny, someone is vying for our attention. It’s like a circus—colorful, vibrant and alive. Vendors load their bicycles like an acrobatic juggling act. And, so too do the basket bearers who stack fruits high on their heads. The women wear them like carnival headpieces; swaying this way and that without fear their precious cargo might topple from their crown.
We finally reach a hole-in-a-wall flower shop the size of a cupboard. David proudly presents me with a plastic-wrapped coffin spray that takes up practically the whole shop floor. It is obvious that this vendor has been waiting for us. In fact, all the vendors have been waiting for us. I think my face is saying it all but I try to explain, “It’s lovely David. But we only use these for funerals.”
David and Frank look perplexed.
Rony is trying not to laugh. He looks at me as if to say, Let’s see you get yourself out of this one, girl.
I don’t want to risk offending anyone. I mean, I have only just met brother number two, and he thinks he has found me the most beautiful flower arrangement for his mother’s grave. However, I simply cannot bring myself to purchase this over-the-top funeral tribute. A simple bunch of flowers is all I want. I explain again that in the UK we only use this kind of arrangement on a coffin on the actual day of a funeral.
The boys both nod in unison, “Yes.”
It’s obviously a cultural thing.
“Did your mum have a favorite color?” I ask.
They both look perplexed again.
“Well, I usually take yellow flowers to Frankie. Can we ask the shop lady for some nice yellow flowers? I want something bright.”
“You mean you don’t want the funeral flowers, Sister?”
Rony looks like he’s about to burst at the seams with laughter. He hands me the camera and starts talking to the shop lady. Before I know it, money changes hands and he is holding a small bunch of beautiful yellow roses. “Job done,” he says as he hands them to me.
I hope I haven’t offended my new brother, David, and that this misunderstanding hasn’t set us off to a bad start. But he seems to be taking my rejection of his floral arrangement okay. At least he keeps saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. Kale. Kale. Kale”
Another half-hour’s drive finds us outside the place Janet once lived as a child with her family. Frank tells me his mother is buried here. It seems that in Uganda, it’s not unusual to bury your re
latives in the back garden. I’m a little perturbed by this idea. It makes me think about being a child and burying my hamsters at the bottom of the garden. I made small wooden crosses for each of them and Dad always performed touching wee services as we placed them in shoe boxes and put them in the ground. I remember our pet cemetery feeling a tad creepy when I passed by, and this is a big step up from that: actual people at the bottom of the garden.
Janet’s house reminds me of a slightly smaller, ransacked version of Little House on the Prairie. Her father’s small wooden church on the grounds next to it is still standing, just a few feet away from the house. It looks a bit like a primitive car garage with a cross above it, but I’m moved by its simplicity. It’s like a beacon of Frankie’s lineage, a bygone time in his biological family’s life. I romanticize that a few local villagers might have come together with some primitive tools and nails and built this little church by hand. It’s a credit to those parishioners that it’s still standing here looking magnificently meek.
I have the urge to go in and pray, but the church is padlocked. I’m sad that I’m unable to honor Frankie’s grandfather and his family by kneeling down in this humble little church they have built.
Janet’s family still owns the land, but there is another family living in the house. They stare at us, even while the boys speak to them in their native language.
Suddenly, the two boys and our driver sling garden hoes over their shoulders. They motion us to follow them through a field of plantain. Apparently, this is the back garden. At least I’m dressed for the occasion with some casual khaki trousers and loose cotton top. I’m learning. But by now I am beginning to panic a little. Good God, surely not. They’re not going to dig her up—are they? Could that be a custom here—to let me have a good look at her?
It’s obvious that no one has been here in a while. The undergrowth we fight our way through seems to be closing in behind us. It is claustrophobic. For the first time in my life, I wish I had a machete. I could chop down the overgrowth of huge banana leaves I’m trying to weave my way through! My skin is getting scratched to bits and bitten by insects. Something runs across my foot. Good God—I hope it’s not a rat! I’ve recently learned from the locals that rats blow on your toes and feet to numb them and then nibble on the skin. At least it didn’t feel as big as the rat that crossed my path on the way to my guest room the other night. That one was like a small dog!
Finally, we come to a clearing, and the two boys and the driver start digging. Oh, God. They really are going to dig her up! Rony sees the look of horror on my face and asks what their plans are. We are very relieved to find out that they are just clearing the overgrowth from the top of what turns out to be three graves covered in concrete.
The boys begin muttering amongst themselves in their native tongue and jumping feverishly from grave to grave.
“Which one is Janet’s?” I ask.
They look at each other. Frank eventually admits he is not sure. It has been eighteen years after all.
Eighteen years since they have visited their deceased mother! There isn’t even a headstone. They assure me it is something they have always meant to do.
Rony looks at me and mutters, “It’s like the three bears. Mummy bear, daddy bear and baby bear. What height was Janet?”
“Five feet, three inches,” I tell him. Frank is still weeding around all three of them and David is scratching his head.
“Well, the one Frank thinks it is was for someone about seven feet tall! The middle one is four feet. The last one is probably about six feet.”
Despite Rony’s calculations, neither of the brothers is sure. Eventually Rony does eenie meenie minie moe and chooses a grave. Everyone sighs with relief. Frank and David agree that the one Rony has chosen is probably their mother’s. Yes, they have suddenly remembered it is! Hurray!
I still don’t know if it’s the right one but I kneel down with my yellow roses and am overcome with emotion. I can hardly take it all in. I can’t believe that when I arrived in Uganda only a few weeks ago I didn’t know anything about Frankie’s mother. Now here I am, knelt down at her graveside with his brothers beside me. The emotions are raw—really raw. Losing Frankie and having the painful separation of this mother and child brought to light hits me. I have come on a pilgrimage like no other.
Frank wants to pray. He thanks God for his new sister. He thanks God for leading me here. He thanks God for revealing the truth about his brother in Scotland. He thanks God for how our family has looked after his brother. He thanks Scotland. He thanks Glasgow. He thanks Rony. He thanks the airline that brought us, and the God who brought us here. It’s a moving prayer although it is thirty-five minutes too long. I know Rony is praying too—for the word Amen.
Once I have composed myself and dried my eyes we are taken to see Frankie’s grandfather’s grave—just behind Janet’s. There’s no problem finding him. An ostentatious marble headstone has his name inscribed on it: Rev. Canon Samuel Kaggwa Wevugira. The man lived to be 103! He also died in 1994, the same year as Frankie. I am blown away to discover that he was made a saint. Wow.
David says he has picked a place for his new sister to have lunch in Masaka. I am hoping it’s not too expensive since I’m learning the muzungu always picks up the check. But mostly I am hoping Frank isn’t going to say grace! He does, but mercifully it’s unusually short—he must be as hungry as I am. All that graveside weeding has created an appetite.
We sit around a plastic white table on the terrace. The beers and Coca-Colas flow as well as the conversation. The boys relish sharing their life stories with me as well as memories of their mum. It turns out that the two boys haven’t seen each other in at least eight years. It feels good being instrumental in bringing them together again.
I want to know how they felt when their mum went to Ireland to study, leaving her young boys behind. I’m surprised when they laugh, even more so when David says they weren’t sad at all. “We loved the fact that Mum was in the UK. We got lots of presents sent to us. It was a wonderful time.”
Frank pipes up, “And shoes too! Other kids didn’t have any shoes, but we did! We got lots of other things sent to us that no one had, even records—especially Elvis Presley. Oh, Mum loved Elvis Presley! Do you remember, David?” Frank starts doing an Elvis Presley impersonation. “One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and go cat go.” The boys are taking as much pleasure from their trip down memory lane as I am in listening.
They tell me they lived with Pastor Wevugira and his wife, Miriam, and they were well-taken care of while Janet was studying. I learn Stephen was the first born, then Frank, then David, then Paul. Stephen and Frank were the only brothers who had the same father, but Janet had never married that man.
Janet was certainly not the sweet, innocent young girl I had imagined being swept off her feet and led astray by some charming medical student in Belfast! It seems she was a hot-blooded mamma. My nice little romantic scenario was being blown right out of the water. The question of why Frank was given the same name as Frankie troubles both Frank and David—it’s just not done in Uganda. I am beginning to build up theories in my head. I’ve come this far, so now I want to find out who Frankie’s father was but no one seems to know.
I want to ask some questions but I know I have to get to know the boys a bit more before potentially opening up another Pandora’s Box. No, right now isn’t the time. The conversation is cooling like the sun. Dark clouds are appearing in the stories as the cheerful chat of childhood memories gradually turns to the shocking, turbulent childhood of both David and Frank.
From 1971 to 1979 Uganda suffered harshly under the reign of Idi Amin. Then, after Amin’s demise, worse was to come. A raging civil war took place between opposition leader Museveni’s National Resistance Army and the government of President Milton Obote from 1981 to 1986. The Bush war, as it became known, was on the doorstep of Luweero, where Jan
et was teaching at the time. I had written about this violent guerrilla war in Luweero, so at least that gave me a better understanding than most of the complex history and the atrocities that had taken place in this particular area.
Frank tells us how one day the soldiers came and he had to dress up like a girl and hide in one of the bunkers at his mum’s school. Museveni had started to conscript child soldiers, so Obote’s soldiers saw all male children as a threat. Eventually it got so bad that all children were seen as a threat and the use of landmines became widespread to specifically target young civilians.
Frank shares how one Saturday he went to visit his mum in a neighboring village a few miles walk away. He was tired and decided not to walk back so late at night, staying over with his mum instead. He walked back to his village the next day to discover that every man had been stripped naked and shot dead in his church that morning, and every woman stripped naked and violated. If he had not stayed over with his mother, he too would have been in the church that morning and would have been killed.
The boys go on to tell me of their great escape from the Luweero Triangle—the area later known as the killing fields of Uganda, where millions lost their lives. They tell me how Janet managed to get Red Cross visas via one of her sisters. These cards were like gold and were passes to get them out of Luweero, but to use them they had to get to the Red Cross vehicles miles away from where they were staying.
Frank and David struggle to relate the distressing tale of how they walked for many miles in the heat. They tell me their mum was carrying her youngest son through this danger zone; when she finally got to the Red Cross she collapsed with sheer exhaustion. As the boys speak of this traumatic episode I realize Frankie was perhaps the lucky one after all.
The wounds of war are still deep in Uganda. The history is indelibly printed in the memory of most Ugandans today. The intense competition and fighting for power have left psychological land mines, and if one is not careful, they can be stepped on inadvertently. Tribal bitterness still exists. Much healing still needs to take place.
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