ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES: 2005-6. You have finished Senior Six and return to Nyanja for the long vacation. You have been looking forward to this. Six years of boarding school seem to have disoriented you so you are eager to discover yourself again. You no longer stay at the Nyanja Primary School quarters, you will be staying in Dads house in the Trading Center. With him. And Mum, when she is not at her workplace. This is the first time you will live in the same house with both mum and dad for longer than two weeks and so you are excited and anxious about this experience. What will you do for the vacation? Some people get jobs. Some people study short courses. You did a computer one in your Senior Four vacation. You really want to be in the village. To live in Nyanja. To not do what others do. You have no problem having your future in Nyanja really. Your Literature teacher, Bernard Mukhata introduced the idea of being a writer to you and you have some poems and short stories, and something you call a novel and all that, but you want to do it from Nyanja. After a few days, catching up with old friends, age-mates etc, you think you can go digging. Not in your own garden. You mobilse fellow youths, all genders and start a farming project. You will grow vegetables. Kind neighbor gives you her plot of land for the project. When did you last dig? You were never a regular digger. But you will dig. You dig. To the surprise of some. You learn a few things afresh, about how to hold the hoe, etc, but you dig. One. Two days. There is a future. The collective effort is amazing. Young people. You are very proud of your collective effort. The plan is that you shall sell the produce and share the profit. Labour is yours. Your aunt does not call and tell you to come to Kampala to work in a restaurant. You do not come to Kampala and later to Pallisa as cashier and waiter. You stay in Nyanja. You keep working on this collective project. You write more fiction. You get some coaching jobs in the village, for Senior Four students, and even talk to the Headmaster at Bishop Robert Gay SS, so you can teach History, Literature, English in their lower classes. You become a villager again. You never left. You develop new bonds with Nyanja. You cant exoticise it. Nyanja is you. You really are ambivalent about university education. There is power in living at home. Living somewhere the heart feels. The politicians think your youth group is dangerous. But it is because they do not understand how it works. That you do not want to leave the village. That you are not ambitious. Some say you are wasted brains. But you leave. You do. Kampala. Palissa. Makerere. Budapest. You leave. You do. And Nyanja keeps bleeding you in her dream. You keep thinking of her as well. In Budapest, you write an ode to her beautiful self. Fables! You want back. You want home. Home is in you. You want to be at home. You want to return. You want to undo the past. You want to wait for the first harvest of your collective youths garden. You want to see your movement grow. You want this connection with the land to last. You want to own yourself.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 18:08:36 +0000
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