“We beat drums to affirm our rhythm, speak to affirm our voices, and hope this music will drown out non-belonging”
Everything must belong somewhere.
Was there anything ever made
that belonged nowhere?
There is what we found
and there is
what we made of it.
There was rhythm
long before drums,
cacophony, unsound, too.
We tightened skins
over drums and beat out
sound already there
just because we needed
our hands to affirm
what our hearts already knew.
That in a demonstration
the freedom is demonstrated
in the hands holding hands.
That bodies
are containers keeping
safe space for each other.
And I have found safe spaces draped
over sunlit shoulders, waiting
for me to rest my head.
Others I found
in the hands that hugged mine,
keeping me from grasping misery.
How many revolutions were born from verse?
Perhaps if we cried in stanzas
people would listen harder.
We beat drums to affirm our rhythm,
speak to affirm our voices,
and hope this music will drown out non-belonging.
Gloria Kiconco is a Ugandan poet, journalist, and editor. Her poetry has been published in Brittle Paper and Lawino. She has written articles for STARTjournal of the arts and Doppiozero’s column, Why Africa? She often recites her work in Kampala at Poetry-in-session. You can find more of her writing on her blog, Rhymesbythereams.
Never seen Gloria perform? Here is a video of her performing at Poetry In Session:
Footprints In The Water, Part 2 | Rich Wagaba
“Seeing the pattern is not the same as knowing the design!” Photo by Edward Echwalu
“Kasayi, why are you hiding back here?” Taata Chali calls me out from some hidden place. I know he’s not here; my mind’s playing tricks. But I swear I feel his presence, hear his hearty laughter rustle in the trees as the kids he raised slip and stomp in the mud of his backyard. “How can you let Bwanika overtake you? Hahaha!”
“I’m not hiding, Taata, I’m strategising.”
“You’re strategizing; meanwhile they’re stealing your Katima!”
“She’s not mine, Taata Chali,” I spy Hawa in the distance, her dress half-soaked, the sun glistening off wet arms and smooth legs, her head thrown back in the joys of yesterday. “She’s not mine.”
“But Kasayi, stop fooling around,” He urges, squeezing his hairy-knuckled grip into my shoulder and laughing as I twist and squirm to get loose. “Hahaha, Kasayi, fooling around just.”
“No fooling, Taata Chali,” I contort my shoulder to escape his vice-like grip and when I finally come free- It’s just me and the light breeze haunting the trees of the perimeter fence.
My cohorts get loud again, shoes are soggy and I realise there’s mud on my cheek. Slipping a hand into my pocket to fish out a hanky, I’m intercepted by the warm clasp of familiarity.
“Auntie Anita! I-I-I was just-”
“I know, Ronnie, it’s okay,” Maama Chali reassures, newly widowed but eyes as gentle and steady as the time she caught Hawa and I playing “doctor” in the outside kitchen and led a terrified Hawa off to discuss “womanhood” while I scoured the hills for a tall tree to live in rather than face the wrath of my parents. “He would be happy to have you tear up this backyard one last time.”
So for a few peaceful moments, we stand there unseen, watching a mature cast act out my childhood; the civil servant and the engineer’s wife, mothers and uncles themselves now, floating through the sun shower mirage of an afternoon’s folly. It’s like flipping through an old album, recognising hints and shades of the voices behind the smiles and poses, shades of who I once hoped to be and now latch onto the warmest of those memories before they’re forever washed away.
“You know, this house has had running water since before you were born,” Maama Chali muses.
“No, I didn’t know that, Auntie Anita.”
“He used to… hehe…,” she loses herself in wistful nostalgia for a moment, smiling at some private joke, then continues, “He would spend an hour each evening emptying half those jerrycans back into the water tank.”
“What? Why?”
“Well he couldn’t just waste all that water, Ronnie,” Maama Chali adjusts her mourner’s veil as she makes her retreat to the main house. “He didn’t believe in that kind of foolery.”
“But… but if he didn’t need the water, why have us trudging through this muddy mess, day in, day out, to fill his shed?”
Maama Chali pauses by the side gate to share one last piece of her beloved husband’s old haunt before we all send him on to the next place. A sudden swell of tears surges to the brim of her matriarchal gaze but it’s the kind of sorrow that cleanses and calms the soul.
She smiles softly, “The man liked to laugh.”
And then I’m alone again.
I shouldn’t be surprised one bit; in fact, I’m laughing too, now. Laughing at myself, at all of us, for being unknowing participants in Taata Chali’s finest joke. I can hear him now, watching us through the dining room window as he sifts through the crossword section. Yelling pointers through the burglar proofing, baffling us with his motivational idioms:
“Seeing the pattern is not the same as knowing the design!”
“One does not follow footprints in the water!”
And then I imagine he’d duck behind his newspaper and enjoy a good chuckle at our expense. The man kept this up for years and never once let on that he was less than serious about keeping his shed full. Can you imagine the resolve it would take to sustain a gag so exhausting and unnecessary? And yet, knowing Taata Chali, this elaborate prank folds comfortably into the cloak of his delights. He’s probably laughing now, in a room we can’t see, in a place we’re not yet ready for. Sharing his stunt with those around him and-
“Hey are you okay?” Hawa’s suddenly hovering over me; not sure when I descended to the ground. “It sounded like you were laughing at first but…”
She’s waiting for some explanation and I’m a bit lost in the moment. “But what?”
Hawa hesitates for a moment then gently and deliberately, swipes her index finger across my cheek and lands it softly on the tip of her tongue. She doesn’t press me any further and I realise that I’ve been crying for some time now.
The game has wound down in the clearing; I can hear Enoth enthrall the others with tales of power struggles in his mid-level office, as we all start to transform back into who we grew up to be. There’s a few muddied jerrycans scattered about the yard, giant sploshes of the day’s activities with small waves still swaying outwards. Hawa’s resting in the grass next to me, gulping down large breaths of this soon-to-be-forgotten air.
Hawa, the one I should have given my all to marry.
Kasayi… just fooling around.
I want to share Auntie Anita’s revelation with Hawa but I’m not sure I see the point to potentially rewriting her entire childhood. Besides, Taata Chali preferred to keep this one secret joke to himself; no sense in me ruining it. No, we’ll wash our hands and our feet, and lay in the sun until our clothes dry. We’ll make sure every last jerrycan is stored away and that the shed is secured. And then we’ll shut the tap off forever, and return to the family and friends converged in the main house to say a final farewell to a man respected in his village and loved by those who knew him.
Then we’ll go on with our lives, never returning to these hills, and our footprints in the water, never leaving.
For Uncle Ed, who loved nothing more than to make everyone laugh. Rest Well Unc.
There are puddles of safety and sorrow lapping at my Dockers when Hawa discovers me out back, filling rows of jerrycans by the rusty tap, sleeves rolled up, pants tucked into my socks to protect the cuffs from getting muddy. Who knows how long I’ve been out here; we were born in these hills, which means in some ways we never left.
I can feel her worried gaze lingering on my hunched over figure; Hawa, forever pointing North when I hunger for hope and the slightest hint of innate virtue amidst this wreckage. There’s a current of hushed urgency now that I’m around her again, as unchanged as our small little hamlet, where the heated nature of childhood rivalries once cocooned the earliest kindlings of a first love.
“Uh uh, keep your neck straight… no cheating,” Hawa finally speaks up; her sportive goading echoes memories of our beloved patriarch who’s brought us back here today, to the painfully eroded backyard of the house I grew up in. I thought I’d rather do this alone but I’m glad she’s here, glad she’s already kicking her heels off and unconsciously folding her purse onto the dusty ledge of the outdoor kitchen. “There better not be anything that can prick my dainty feet in this mud.”
I scoff loudly at the feigned vanity but my heart smiles at her in ways the rest of me no longer knows how to. “You sure you want do this right now, Katima? You’ll ruin your dress and I can’t imagine you have another one in the car.”
Even without glancing over, I can hear the storm cloud forming over her head as she rises to my challenge. This is how we’ve always given to each other, in layers and jabs, snide remarks that peel away the husk of impermanence separating who we were as kids from the solemnly draped grownups we are today.
“Just keep your eyes off my boobs, you,” she warns, steadying herself for the weight of the filled vessels beside her.
“What-” I start to protest.
“Don’t think I forgot!” she grins, neck stiffened, muscles tensed as she begins the splish-splashy lift. One never fully envisions how majestic a lioness can be but watching Hawa reconnect with this particular patch of earth beneath her feet, the muscles at her soles re-acquainting themselves with this old foe, her adult body ceding control to the teenage girl within whose focus and tenacity drove me to my limits years ago, I can hear her spirit roar in competition.
It’s not about the water.
The game is simple: it’s a 15 metre course from the rain-gathering water tank to the shed where these old 20-litre jerrycans are stored for usage, and everything in between is a virtual minefield, with each unseen muddy pool waiting anxiously to sink the blind fool. At least that’s how Taata Chali explained it to us as kids to get us all to fetch his water, and so that that shed was never so much as half-empty. It didn’t matter that we quickly figured his scheme out; the renown of that battleground carried across the hill and it became a rite of passage for any kid who hoped to fall in with Kabowa’s resident youth.
The challenge was to keep your feet dry without so much as a glance at the dangerous path before you, while you cautiously navigated that grotesquely uneven terrain. The stiffness in your neck had to face off against the weight of those slippery, heavy, unstable plastic containers as you ransomed your balance. Of course you could cheat and a few kids probably did at first but soon found there was just no fun in that. The victory had to be earned.
“Look at this one go,” I chide as Hawa shuffles past me, eyes to the sky, lips tightened around the involuntary chortle she’s holding back. “Eh- woah- careful-”
“Shut up!” she finally cracks, nearly tipping over and is only a few steps from the finish line when she dunks her left foot into a scummy pond of disappointment, and surrenders the challenge with a loud thud and enough curse words to awake sleeping ghosts.
Or at least one of them.
“Of course it’s you two!” J.J. Bwanika startles us from around the corner, wearing the same scowl he’d favoured every time he spotted Hawa and I slipping each other notes during those laborious (and ultimately inconsequential) confirmation classes we’d all attended together. Inconsequential because it turned out that Mzee Ssembatya, who’d volunteered to offer these classes to his neighbours’ kids for a nominal fee, was neither a licensed teacher nor technically Christian.
“Owf!” Hawa’s eyes bulge as she claps her own hand over her mouth in embarrassment. “Could they hear us?”
“I heard you,” Bwanika scolds, nevertheless rolling up his sleeves and pants, choosing to discard shoes and socks, before he looks up smiling, “Now, what’s the score?”
I pat our old friend heartily on the back, welcoming him to the field, as I make my way over to where Hawa is still frozen to the spot, and carefully measure how many feet she had yet to cover before crossing the line into the shed. “I count 7.”
“Eeeeh, eeeeh, seven?” Bwanika presses.
“Our feet are bigger now, J.J.,” I rationalise.
“Not that big,” Hawa volleys as she rinses off her soiled foot.
“Hoooooo!”
“What do you know about my feet?” I whisper to Hawa on the sidelines.
“I’ve heard enough,” she teases.
“Okay, but silence guys,” Bwanika readies himself. “I need to concentrate.”
We mime our compliance and watch him line up his take-off. Over time, each kid seemed to develop their own sporting rituals; little rhythms and superstitions that became almost religious to the individual as you relied on those rituals to carry you safely though the obstacle course. Bwanika takes in a quick succession of short, stiff breaths before one long inhalation, a quick glance over at us to reinforce his need for silence which we wordlessly confirm, then knees bent and he’s off.
“EH J.J. YOU’VE DROPPED YOUR KEYS-”
“J.J. LUNCHTIME-”
“GWE, J.J., YOUR HAIRCUT IS FALLING-”
We break our promise of silence pretty quickly; Bwanika only makes it a few feet before he feels that dreaded splash of failure at his ankles!
“Ah ah, you guys, no,” he pleads, resting the jerrycans. “At least let me go once more. I hadn’t even stretched properly!”
But we’re both steadfastly shaking our heads at him as I prod Hawa forward. “Katima, go count.”
“Stop calling me that,” she shoots over her shoulder. “And stop bossing me around.”
“Gwe, Katima, measure properly,” Bwanika hunches over her, hawk-eyed, and yells over at me. “Is it even fair? Her feet are smaller than yours.”
Hawa slaps Bwanika’s objecting hand away. “J.J. stop trying to cheat.”
“J.J. let the official do her job unimpeded.”
“Who’s impeding? Who?” Bwanika throws his hands up, flustered. “Cross-checking is not impeding!”
The side gate to the main house behind us creaks open and three more ghosts of our childhood saunter through; Enoth Kakeeto, who went from threatening local wildlife with his rubber catapult to being plastered on election posters for Sub County Chairperson; Gladys Nabatanzi, now Mrs Gladys Kasigazi, with a few little Kasigazi’s running around somewhere; and Bushy, who we called Bushy because he couldn’t go a single meal without insisting on a cup of busheera to go with it.
“I told you I heard people back here,” Enoth affirms, greeting me in familiar embrace.
“Neera it had to be these ones,” Gladys points accusingly, “forever ‘Katima and Kasayi’.”
“Don’t call us that!” Hawa and I shoot back in unison, then can’t help but laugh at our own predictability. It was a nickname Taata Chali had teased us with that spread to every little pair of grubby feet that vied for dominance filling that water shed. I suppose all of Kabowa assumed Hawa and I would wind up together and even though we never talked about it, I don’t think I ever loved anyone as honestly and effortlessly as I loved her, a lifetime ago.
“I’m on 12. I think Katima miscounted,” Bwanika informs the new arrivals who are now prepping for their rounds.
“She’s on-… Bushy wait!.. Katima’s on seven… Bushy WAIT!… Katima’s on seven and Kasayi… gwe, Kasayi, have you lifted yet?”
I can’t believe we’re all back in these hills, gathered around this same soggy yard, a few decades older but standing in the same spots, chucking most of the same insults we exchanged as kids, mud and sweat mixed into clothes clinging heroically to the skin. Enoth ambitiously charges to the finish line and surprises no one with an early exit; Gladys, seemingly able to tap back into the visual layout of the course she memorised as a teen, comes closest to crossing the finish line fully dry; Bushy haphazardly tears up the course with Bwanika vehemently insisting he stick to protocol.
And I pull back to witness this nearly miraculous reunion from the dry sanctuary of high ground in the surrounding bushes.
7/7: Write your stories, dust your manuscripts and submit them here…
https://boscafelife.wordpress.com
Last week I promised to compile some opportunities that you as a writer should be interested in. Here they are:
1. The Writivism Short Story Prize is for emerging African writers. The first prize is worth $400 and each of the four shortlisted writers who do not win the prize receives a cash prize of $100. All the five shortlisted writers travel to Kampala from June 16 to June 22 for The Writivism Festival. Entrants must be unpublished writers, resident in an African country. Entries must be submitted online, by emailing them to info@writivism.com as attachments (not in the body email), clearly labeled in the subject: Writivism Competition 2015. All entries must be in English, and 2,500 – 3,500 words long.
2. If you are in Kampala, Ugandan writer, Jackee Budesta Batanda will be teaching a one-day novel writing masterclass on April 18, 2015 for Shs200,000 only. The class will focus on how to plot and structure your novel. Below is the poster for details:
3. The theme for The 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize is Water. Submit to water@shortstorydayafrica.org. Stories must be between 3000 and 5000 words in length and submitted in English.
4. Omenana,a monthly speculative fiction e-magazine, is open to submissions from writers from Africa and the African Diaspora. Stories and art must be speculative fiction (fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror or Magical Realism) and must involve characters, settings or themes directly related to the African continent. All work must be submitted by e-mail to sevenhills.media@yahoo.com .
5. Commonwealth Writers are inviting writers from Commonwealth African countries to submit proposals for a piece of creative non-fiction. Stories should be in the form of creative non-fiction, including memoir, life-writing, literary reportage and essays. The stories will be part of an anthology edited by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey. There are no subject restrictions, but your proposal/work must be written in English. No previously published work will be considered, including work published in anthologies, chapbooks or online. Send your proposals to writers@commonwealth.int with the subject heading: ‘NON FICTION ANTHOLOGY’.
6. The Sylt Foundation calls all writers of contemporary African literature to apply for the two months African Writer´s Award, offered as part of the Sylt Foundation Residency Programme. The African Writer´s Residency offers an Award of a two months residency to writers of African literature, whose work engages with contemporary themes related to Africa and the African diaspora. The Award is open to published (not self-published) writers of poetry, prose, plays and novels by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language or translated into the English language. The contemporary African writer who wins the award is expected to work on or complete a writing project he/she proposed in her/his application.
7. The inaugural FT/OppenheimerFunds Fiction Award will be presented to the author of a published work of fiction in English or published in English translation. The book must be a minimum of 20,000 words long and be written by a national or passport holder of one of the eligible countries of Africa and the Middle East. Submissions are invited from all publishers worldwide. A selection of short stories or poems is not eligible. Self-published works will not be accepted for entry. The works must be published for the first time in the English language, or English translation between 1 January, 2014 and 30 September 2015. Books may be in print or digital form, or both.
7/7 is Sooo Many Stories’ way of helping you beat the Monday blues (sometimes they spill into our Tuesdays). 7 things that are making me happy in the literary world that will make you happy too!
Book Review: The Essential Handbook for African Creative Writers by Goretti Kyomuhendo
Goretti Kyomuhendo has also written novels: Waiting, Secrets No More and The First Daughter.
After reading the title of that book, you’re probably thinking it is a huge book that professors use for their Creative Writing classes. Far from it. Yes, it can be used in a classroom setting but this 111-page handbook can be used by anybody that would like to know how to start writing or how to write better.
Goretti Kyomuhendo is a Ugandan writer, a founding member of Femrite and currently, the Director of African Writers Trust. One of the things that make this book easier to read than your typical hand book is that Kyomuhendo opens by writing about her own journey as a writer and her experience getting published.
While growing up in Hoima in Western Uganda, Kyomuhendo chanced upon a copy of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Prior to that, like many of us, she had been lost in the wonderful but alien word of foreign literature by Enid Blyton, Barbara Cartland, James Hardley Chase and of course, Mills & Boon. Reading Achebe’s Things Fall Apart felt so real and so at home that she was convinced that Umuofia was not fiction. Realising the importance of our own stories, Kyomuhendo was then inspired to write. In 1994, she began what was to be a frustrating and often hopeless two year journey to get her first book, The First Daughter, published.
Publishing in Africa isn’t yet where we want it to be but reading Kyomuhendo’s account of getting published made me very thankful to be writing now when there are many more opportunities than there were then.
Against that background, Kyomuhendo delves into questions that are often asked by young writers. How do you start writing? What techniques do you use? How do you sustain your writing? How do you get ideas for writing? How do you even find time to write? After you have written your first draft, where do you go from there? How do you deal with rejection from publishers and later, with criticism and critics?
She then delves into questions that are more often asked by writers who have finally decided to commit to “this writing thing”. Is writer’s block a real thing? Why do you write? What jobs are available to writers? As an African writer, what does language have to do with it and an international favourite, what is your moral obligation as an African writer?
Kyomuhendo then devotes a chapter to getting your manuscript published, listing some publishing houses in and outside Africa. She talks about self-publishing, online publishing and how literary agents fit into the publishing process. In another chapter she talks about how to market your work and in the last chapter, resources such as associations, residencies, prizes, grants, fellowships and writer-in-residence positions that are available to writers.
I often receive emails seeking answers on one thing or another about writing and for those people that have seemed serious about putting in the work, I have recommended and continue to recommend this book. But I also find myself reaching out to read it for myself, because by reading about her experiences and how she got where she is, I am able to appreciate the opportunities I have now and that alone gives me hope. And so this book is not just for new writers but also, writers who may need to remind themselves of the basics. For a country that is not teaching creative writing formally, this is one of the best gifts any budding writer could receive and perhaps even, a wonderful donation to your former school’s writer’s club. To show that writing and getting published can be done and to offer some guidance on how it can be done.
To be called a writer is not by mere wish, nor is it a title you can simply acquire by earning an academic qualification, or attending a certain course. Even a PhD in creative writing will not earn you the title of ‘writer’ unless you actually write. You can only earn this designation by actual writing.
Speaking of opportunities for improving your craft, if you are in Kampala, you may be happy to learn that Ugandan writer, Jackee Budesta Batanda will be teaching a one-day novel writing masterclass on April 18, 2015 for Shs200,000 only. Batanda has many writing-related achievements under her belt but one of the things I like most about her is how muchshe takes writing seriously. It would be so inspiring to learn from her.
In our next 7 out of 7, I’ll list some new writing opportunities that you (writers) should absolutely be interested in.
Thanks a lot for reading! Have a wonderful April!
The Prophecy of Apostle Bret Channing Part II | L.A. Lutara
“Maybe she was still holding out hope that God would work some miracle and that you would shed the skin you currently wore and reveal to her her real son.” Photo by Edward Echwalu https://echwaluphotography.wordpress.com
Part II
You never saw Apostle Bret Channing again after that one evening but he left you and your mother and every other person that was in attendance at Mrs Preston’s that evening with audio cassette tapes of that night. For seven dollars a piece each of you could relive the experience of feeling God’s presence so closely, so intimately. Only seven dollars for that? Who was going to say no to that? Yours was white and written on in red marker. It was a 90 minute tape, 45 minutes on each side. Apostle Bret Channing’s prophecy over your life (that is what your mother decided to call it and therefore so did you) was near the end of Side B. You played it and replayed it back to yourself over and over again as a reminder of God’s plan for your life. With plans not to hurt but to prosper. Especially when things were hard and looked as if God didn’t care at all. That cassette tape was a beacon of light in the darkest of nights, a life raft in the icy waters of the antarctic, a morsel of food when on the brink of starvation. But as much as it helped, it also hurt. It was boon and bane both.
For years afterwards you felt like your life was a series of failed attempts to chase down the very same prophecies that had kept your faith afloat for such a long time. Once the inertia of simply waiting finally severed your patience clean through you tried all sorts of things. You tried sneaking up on them and putting them in a choke hold and suffocating them into submission with the sheer brute strength of will and action and you tried pulling a gun on them and threatening them with killing them dead and blood splattered walls but for some reason or another they always seemed to elude you. And so you decided to try something else; completely ignoring them, scrubbing them from the surface of your consciousness like a blood stain on a white carpet but even when you weren’t thinking about them, you were still thinking about them. They sat at the back of your mind like a teacher at the back of a classroom while their worst student read out an assignment to the rest of the class, outwardly supportive but silently mocking.
With his prayer Apostle Bret Channing had pointed out constellations of twinkling stars for you to silently wish upon but one by one they began to blink out and disappear into the inky night sky of your life until almost none remained. Very few of the threads that he said God would weave into the quilt of your future ever came to pass. Your faith was never anything to envy but came in fits and starts, farting along like an old jalopy on its very last wheel, a great man of God you were not. As for father figures, pah, that was almost laughable. If God ever really sent you any they must have gotten lost or detoured along the way. Maybe they got married or knocked up some poor woman enroute and so no longer had any need to fill some ambiguously son-shaped hole in their heart. Whatever it was, they never made their way to you. And even those men that were around and could have been of some use to you in that regard (uncles and such like) never really seemed all that interested in you. They were either still chasing big butts in little skirts or busy raising their own disappointing sons.
And then there was school. Nobody ever thought to tell you back then that the boys in your family (cousins, uncles and the half brothers you didn’t even know you had until almost a lifetime later) had a truly atrocious track record with finishing school. Not that you were really old enough to hold onto such information at the time. And back then it was really just you and your mother, even if she had told you there were not any living examples she could point out to you to illustrate her point poignantly. Some of the women in your family called it a ‘spirit’, others even a ‘curse’ but you came to recognise it for the thing that you really thought it was: temperament. You belonged to a family of big dreamers, great thinkers and outliers but the educational system that they were all thrown into, coupled with the familial pressure to become one thing while they wanted to become another, plus their refusal to bend to any will but their own often derailed their education and often times they never got back on track. You were no different.
You managed to finish high school with no problems except for being pulled out a couple of times because there was no money to pay the school fees (you were back in Uganda by that time which meant boarding schools where you had to pay school fees) but university was another matter altogether. You think the fact that your mom wasn’t working by the time university rolled around and that she couldn’t pay tuition and that you had to instead get a job while you waited for things to fix themselves into something better killed the momentum you had and once school finally was a viable option again, you didn’t want it as one. And so just like your faith, your university education came in fits and starts and you tried out three different majors before you finally found one that stuck. And even then it didn’t stick because you liked it but because you were tired of your family being on your back about it, how important it was, how it was going and when you were finishing (being back in Uganda had meant that you and your mother were no longer isolated but were surrounded by her brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles which meant that you virtually had an entire village of people up in your business virtually all the time). All the major points and clauses in Apostle Bret Channing’s memorandum turned out to be nothing but puffs of white smoke used to screen you from the truth; that he was nothing more than another door-to-door salesman peddling the world’s oldest wonder drug- God.
You realised that it was like getting a peak behind Oz’s curtain. Bret Channing was no apostle, he was a gypsy who sang and danced and put one hell of a show in hopes of rousting a few coins out of the pockets of some well meaning strangers that could get him a hot meal and maybe a soft surface for the night. God didn’t speak to him, Bret Channing saw a black pre-teen boy with a single mother and deduced just what they would likely want to hear. Adding in a few choice Apostolic phrases and he had you, both of you; hook, line and sinker.
Prophecies of any sort didn’t mean all that much to you after that. In fact, you remember the very day it happened, the very hour. The day was baking hot, the kind of hot day that only the dry season can produce. It was about a week before your twenty fourth birthday. You were on the phone with your mother on one of those rare occasions where you actually picked up. By this time, life had clearly not turned out according to Apostle Bret Channing’s gospel but for some reason your mother still felt the need to bring him up, telling you to remember all the blessings he had prayed over your life, the plans that God had revealed to you through him. The truth was, you hadn’t thought about him in years. You had no reason to. Sure, you still believed in God’s promises for the most part but you preferred getting them straight from the Bible and not some guy who was looking to make a quick buck. God still spoke through people and circumstances of course, you were pretty sure of that, but they were a lot rarer than people made them out to be.
The realisation was sudden and jolting, and like ripping off of a band-aid it hurt for a smidgen of a second but after that moment passed, it was all you could do not to laugh. You and your mother had been conned and as smart a woman as she was, maybe the smartest woman you knew, she was still letting herself get conned. You sobered up pretty quick though. Maybe it was deliberate. Maybe she knew better but preferred the con. Liked the idea of this phantom son she had been promised rather than the one she eventually got. Maybe she was still holding out hope that God would work some miracle and that you would shed the skin you currently wore and reveal to her her real son. Not some disappointment masquerading as hers. The sole carrier of her DNA was not meant to be as mediocre as this creature before her had turned out to be. No, she had expected, had been promised better. Maybe that was the place where she was coming from. Maybe. You didn’t really know. But then, you didn’t really care either. Death by apathy was just around the corner but you didn’t really care about that either. If you didn’t really care about anything, if you didn’t expect anything of anyone, especially yourself, then there was no way to get disappointed. Heck, considering where you were, that sounded pretty damn good. It worked for a while too. Ultimately though, it only worked for so long.
The End
L.A. Lutara is a Ugandan writer who is a journalist by profession. His fiction has been published in The East African, Kalahari Review, Uganda Modern Literary Digest, Daily Monitor & Reader’s Cafe Africa as well as several other online magazines. He has penned a number of short films with one being turned into a student film at The New York Film Academy. He is currently working on a television sitcom and his first novel.
The Prophecy of Apostle Bret Channing Part I | L.A. Lutara
Photo by Edward Echwalu
There was this one time when you were 11, maybe 12 years old and you and your mother went for this prayer meeting and it felt as if the Lord God Himself stretched out His hand from Heaven and placing it gently on your shoulder, told you that everything was going to be alright. It was a Thursday evening at one of those prayer meetings where a believer, usually a woman, opened up their homes and hosted other believers and they prayed and shared the Word of God along with tea and snacks with one another. The chocolate covered pretzels that Mrs Preston always served were by far your favourite. A part of you still suspects that she may have gotten them because she knew that you loved them so much.
Such meetings were usually led by a pastor or a ‘Man of God’ of some kind, the kind that went from town to town preaching the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ trying to win as many souls for Christ as he could. Much like the apostles of the New Testament had done after Jesus had commissioned them and then ascended into Heaven.
Most of them were crooks, of course but back then you didn’t know that. You believed because your mother believed and back then that was more than enough to go on. It never occurred to you that someone out there would actually try to profit from people’s blind, often ignorant, faith in God and His ability to speak and communicate His will through men and women that called themselves prophets and prophetesses and apostles and who wrote epistles of their own and handed them out in the form of pamphlets for just four dollars a piece. Like Apostle Bret Channing’s Epistle to the People of Pennsylvania for example. This was back when you were still living in the States, a time that has since faded into something of a half-forgotten dream. Almost nothing remains of that time except for maybe your taste in music and the inkling of the suggestion of the possibility of the American Dream.
In fact, it was Apostle Bret Channing who was leading the prayer meeting that night. He was a tall, burly man who looked like he may have played American football in his younger days. His voice sounded like the tyres of a Toyota 4×4 spitting up gravel. He prayed and laid hands and turned red with emotion when he went on about God’s goodness and everlasting devotion and the blessings He bestows if only one knew how to tap into His singular goodness. He encouraged with uplifting words and quoted scripture that promised blessings from on high and all of God’s people said Amen! And Amen! And Amen!
“I want us to pray for the spirit of the Lord to descend upon this place. I can feel him knocking, knocking on the door of my your heart asking if he can come in. Do you?”
There was a chorus of Amens. There were about 10 or 12 of you all standing in Mrs Preston’s sitting room with the old but sturdy furniture pushed back against the walls, your eyes closed and your hands raised towards the ceiling. Apostle Bret Channing was walking amongst you like a drill sergeant among a platoon of fresh recruits. You were the only child. You and your mother were the only black people.
“Lorrrrrrrrd, we want to invite you into this place today, this evening. We come before you humbled, our souls lying prostrate before you in abject humility…and we ask for your mercy. Aaaaaall have fallen short of your glory, there is not one that is righteous, not a one, not unless you make him righteous oh Lorrrrrrrrd. And so we ask that you pour out your righteousness, oh Heavenly Father, and cleanse us of all our iniquities, and oh how numerous they are oh Precious Lamb of God and we ask you to come down…come down…come down…come down…”
You cracked open an eye to see why the good Apostle sounded like a skipping CD and saw him standing over one of the ladies; small, in her forties, her clothes conservative, neat and expensive-looking but worn. Miss Patty. She was divorced and was struggling to raise her two children with no help at all from her ex husband. Apostle Channing had one massive palm on Miss Patty’s forehead and the other on the small of her back. Every time he boomed the words, come down, the palm on her forehead nudged her a little bit and every single time Miss Patty would teeter a little bit, would totter a little bit but would remain on her feet. After the fifth or sixth nudge though, Miss Patty finally seemed to get the point and allowed herself to be tipped over, the good Apostle easing her down gently with the hand he had on the small of her back. As if on cue, as soon as her body touched the carpet Miss Patty began to babble,
You never really considered what they called ‘speaking in tongues’ as anything all that unusual back then. It was just something that happened when someone was ‘prayed up’ and ‘the spirit took over’. It happened. Looking at that woman right then though, plastered to the ground as she was, as if a huge hand was holding her down, shaking her head from side to side, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth, gibberish spilling from her lips and down onto the front of her blouse like an unbroken string of spit, it suddenly struck you just how strange it all looked. Suddenly Miss Patty didn’t at all look like she was having an encounter with God, she looked like she was having some kind of epileptic seizure. She began to spaz and flop around on the carpet like a goldfish taken out of its tank by its little blond haired owner just to see what would happen to it while Apostle Channing stood over her and prayed in a voice that sounded like he was having an argument with God. A small bubble of worry formed in your throat. Miss Patty was a really nice lady, you hoped there was nothing wrong with her. The other women were slowly forming a circle and throwing prayers at her like darts at a board.
“Father God, I pray that you will release this woman from the bitterness she holds onto in her heart like a fiend to their needle. I pray that you will teach her how to forgive and to know that anger and resentment is a poison that eats away at the soul. I want to pray that she will let go and let God.”
As Apostle Bret Channing prayed Miss Patty became still and as stiff as a board. She still offered some mutterings from her lips but nothing like the gibberish she was a few moments before. Her eyes were squeezed shut to the point of tears forming at their crow-footed corners. Apostle Bret continued to pray.
“All the trouble she is encountering Oh Lord, all the struggles she is going through, if she would just let go I know; just as I know that it is you that raises the Sun every morning, that you will pave the road smooth for her, that you will weed the garden of her soul and that you will allow your blessings to grow. Do you believe this Patricia?”
Miss Patty managed a nod.
“I need to hear you say it. God needs to hear you say it. Do you believe this?”
“I do,” She croaked. “I do.” A lot clearer. “I do believe this. I believe with everything that I am.”
“Do you accept the blessings of your Heavenly Father? And his promise of healing if only you will let him?”
“I do!”
“Then arise a new creature my sister and leave all the pain and anger and heartbreak that the world has heaped upon your shoulders on the floor where you lay.”
Apostle Bret Channing looked up and discreetly but firmly nodded at Mrs. Preston and another big lady dressed in a K-mart looking skirt and blouse. The two women helped Apostle Bret bring Miss Patty to her feet. And so it went with every woman present, your mother included.
As you watched you honestly thought that you would be exempt from these proceedings; the professions of heavy blessings, bright futures and the outpourings of God’s spirit but you were not. You were standing next to your mother while Apostle Bret Channing prayed over her life, prophesying immense influence and jet-setting around the world in first class cabins; the former sort of coming true the latter not so much. He did not send your mother sprawling to the ground like some of the others but his prayers still charged past his lips and out of his mouth with a bullish intensity. You believed him, you believed every word. And then it was your turn. You felt the heel of his palm on your forehead and his fingers clasp your head like he was going to pull it off of your shoulders and use it as a basketball.
“Lorrrrrrd, we want to thank you for the life of this young man. We want to thank you that you have blessed him with health and life and a vigorous desire to serve you. We want to thank you for keeping him away from harm and from the talons of the evil one. We want to thank you that he has a mind that is sharp and that works and that pursues purity. I want to pray for this young man this evening. That you will speak to him. That you will reveal yourself to him. That you will open my eyes and open my mouth and that the plans that you have for your son will pour out hence forth…”
And here the Apostle Bret Channing fell silent. A stillness fell upon the room like the calm before a storm. It was tenuous and strained with expectation. You waited…and waited… and waited. And then Apostle Bret Channing opened his mouth and the words of God poured out. Every declaration, every word of thanks, every promise given was punctuated with a smattering of ‘Amens’ and ‘Yes Lords’ and ‘Thank You Jesus’.
I see this young man growing into a great man of God; standing before the multitudes and witnessing to them the power and the love of the Almighty. I see his feet walking roads seldom travelled, wrapped in the scrolls of the living Word of the Most High and that prosperity will follow him all the days of his life. I see father figures, Oh Lord. Men that will speak into his life, that will mentor him that will teach him what it means to be a man, Oh Father God. I thank you for College, Heavenly Father. That his education will not be halted for any reason; financial or otherwise Holy God. That he will be dedicated to his studies, that he will recognise the importance of an education, Oh Father God. I thank you that you will raise him up to be the head and not the tail, that the desire for excellence will follow him all the days of his life. I see great things, great great things. May this young man recognise that You have handpicked him for greatness and so therefore cleave to You with a passion unparalleled; declaring Your name with each breath he takes. I thank You for Your word, Oh Abba Father, for drawing back the curtains of Heaven and allowing us to peek into Your infinite majesty. May this young man heed the word that You have given him and see it for what it is; a blessing, a privilege. I pray all of this in the precious name of Your son Jesus Christ whom You sent to shed his blood and in thus doing so becoming the Saviour of the world. A debt that we could never repay. Amen.”
Apostle Bret Channing let go of your head. Placed his meaty hands on your shoulders.
“God loves you, son and he has great plans for you, never forget that.”
You nodded. Said that you would never forget, not ever. And unsurprisingly, at the time you meant it. With all the honesty that your eleven year old self could muster. You had a genuine encounter with the Most High, the Master of the Universe, He that is Able. Images of Miss Patty writhing on the carpet were completely white-washed from your mind and replaced with promises of greatness, promises of prosperity and promises of well being. Your soul was swollen with the outpouring of the Lord Almighty’s glorious majesty. You were happy and you were at peace and that night you slept like a baby.
L.A. Lutara is a Ugandan writer who is a journalist by profession. His fiction has been published in The East African, Kalahari Review, Uganda Modern Literary Digest, Daily Monitor & Reader’s Cafe Africa as well as several other online magazines. He has penned a number of short films with one being turned into a student film at The New York Film Academy. He is currently working on a television sitcom and his first novel.
#SoooManyLanterns: You Ask Me | Angwech Faith Kirabo Wacha
You ask me what you mean to me
Day after day,oh so patronizingly!
I just never have the right words…
And when I do,
It’s the wrong perspective.
Magical times when I have both,
It’s the courage I lack.
But still you poke
Still you insist
Completely oblivious of these facts
Forging on relentlessly
Trying to find a place in my life
A habitat in my mind
…shelter in my heart
Still you have no idea!
Still you’re clueless!
That your very presence
Is enough to keep me centered.
It’s the one thing that still makes sense
Out of all this pandemonium and madness
This mangled, bubbling, heaped mess
That I call my life;
Concrete proof that my sanity’s intact
While you’re driving me insane;
That’s you.
The constant reminder that I’m a mortal;
That even though I act like it at times,
I’m not supernatural;
That’s you.
My emotional garbage-collector
Who never asks for payment
But keeps doing his job loyally
Lovingly,willingly
Never complaining
Always collecting…
That’s you.
The one person that waits for me
To come around
With patience that even Job would admire
That’s you.
Yet you have it,
Every ounce of patience you require
To unwrap me… to watch me unravel
Layer by thickening layer
And still be waiting
To piece me back together
After I’ve fallen apart and crumbled
That’s you.
You’re the only star I see in all the constellations
Constantly mirroring the sun’s reflections
The simplicities in my life…
That’s you;
Melting chocolate on my tongue
That’s you
My pink skies, my grey skies, my blue skies
That’s you
The John Legend song I can’t get out of my head
That stupid rom-com I can’t stop thinking about
That’s all you.
You’re my universe…my everything
Yet you aren’t my anything
You’re the opportunity that won’t last forever
The something that I should make my something
Rid myself of the what ifs and the maybes…
That’s what you are
That’s what you mean to me.
But please don’t ask me again.
This was hard.
This poem was written by Angwech Faith Kirabo Wacha, a student of Nabisunsa Girls School and a member of the Rhymers Poetry Club. At 18, her work is popular amongst her peers and some schools already use her work in their syllabi. She wrote this poem during her Senior Four vacation.
Noyijuka obu baasi erikuza Kampala yasigire Rutaro ahugyiire omu kweboneza? Haza nyowe mba mpugyiire omu kukurootaho.
Reero tindagambe aha eiraka ryaawe. Nibabasa kugyira ngu ondogyire.
Kyo katugambe aha mijwarire. Nooha owakwegyesize? Tori nkeitwe abarikusiiba omu birikwiragura ne bya mutare nk’ebikoona na za kanyamunyu. Iwe nooba noyengyengyeta.
If I do not number this, I won’t finish. So I will tell you ten reasons that sweat my heart.
Do you know that your smile wakes the sleeping?
Do you remember when the Kampala bus left Rutaro behind while he beautified himself? As for me, As for me, I get left behind because I be dreaming of you.
Then: I will not talk about your voice. They may say that you bewitched me.
Let’s talk about dressing. Who taught you? You are not like us who wear black and white, like crows and the pied wagtails. You…you glitter.
You are not just beautiful, sometimes I fear to say anything for fear of looking of looking clueless. Then you make me feel comfortable and I find myself talk-talking. How do you do it?
Tell me, how do you do it?
You remember when you told me off when my head was trying to swell? You showed me my level! Hm! I will never try again. Then, the next day, you sent me a message asking how I slept.
In tickling me, did you intend to explode my heart? Nowadays where I pass they see a frame. When you aren’t there, I am not there. The Rugo people deceived, unconditional, obsessive love doesn’t explain it all.
Again, how do you do it?
You see, I have started talk talking. I should have just said “Kyo!” and shut up.
Edited by Maximus Byamukama
(I have wanted for a while now to publish stories/poems/proverbs/riddles, myths and legends in our local languages but translating has been extremely difficult. I hope, with time, we’ll be able to figure it out. I want to thank my dear friend Maximus Byamukama for agreeing to proofread Bwesigye’s piece. Thank you, Max. Don’t know what I would have done without your help. -Nyana)
