CD 14, Siberia Vodka, and The Boy Who Brought Moscow to Namwezi Hill: The Full Juicy Version, With The Search For Alowo
Don't see me now and think I have just been in a circular mode. Don't look at this grey hair, this slow walk, and think I started yesterday.
No. In 1983, I was very young, but with a big brain and big dreams. A village boy with a city mind. A boy who carried firewood on his shoulder and Moscow in his heart.
Listen to me well. This is how destiny found me on the road.
SATURDAY MORNING: THE ROAD TO LIVING BREAD
It was a Saturday morning. I remember vividly. The air in Nyenga was still cold. The birds had not yet finished their first song.
I was going to fetch water and firewood for Jjaajja Livingstone Naidoo Mukasa's family bakery, the bakery that was manufacturing LIVING BREAD. That was not just bread. That was the family business that taught me hard work. Bread does not wait for a lazy man. Fire must burn at 3 a.m. Water must come before the sun. If you sleep, the village sleeps hungry.
Jjaajja had given me a 404 Peugeot pickup to carry firewood and water. I was the driver, the loader, the boy for everything. My hands were rough. My heart was big.
Near Bulumagi–Nyenga Road, I saw it.
A car. Parked. Dead. Silent. A Nissan Laurel. Shining like a mirror, but dead like a stone. Number plate CD 14.
The village boy in me didn't know that CD 14 was a Russian diplomatic Uganda number plate. For me, it was just a big, shiny car that had refused to start. I thought, "Eh, who leaves such a car here?"
I approached them slowly. A lady and a man. Sitting calmly, like they owned the morning. Drinking Siberia Vodka. Very early morning! The sun had not even warmed the road!
Me, I had tested Waragi and Tonto. Those ones burn your throat like fire; they make you cough like a drunk goat. This one? This one was very smooth. Like cold water with fire inside. Like silk. They gave me a sip from their bottle. I had never dreamt of that. My throat said, "Thank you." My head said, "What is this?"
We spoke for a while. Small English. Big smiles. They told me their names: Mr. Poklad and his wife, Yuri Shevenko.
They told me their vehicle was down because of the battery and no one could push them since it was very early. Everybody was still sleeping. The road was empty. Only me and destiny.
Me? I jump-started them. I knew the 404. I knew wires. I knew how to make a dead car breathe again. Click! Vroom! The Laurel roared like a lion waking up.
They were very happy. Very happy. The woman clapped. The man laughed. They gave me a note, a small paper to visit them at the Kololo Russian Embassy.
I went there on a Monday. Monday! And we became very close. Like family. Like blood.
THE BOY WHO BROUGHT DIPLOMATS TO THE VILLAGE
During my friendship with them, I had a crazy idea. A big idea. A Kifuuta idea that only a mad boy can think.
I asked them, "Can you come and play football at our home village in Namwezi Hill and Nakibizi, Mbiko?"
They laughed. They looked at each other. Then they said YES.
Banange! They brought an 18-man Kampala Diplomatic Football Team to play with our local village team. Sincerely, naava da nga siwenna. I came from far with swagger; I was not a joke. During that period of Abayekera, to bring such a high-profile team to play was not a mean achievement. It was like bringing the moon to the village.
The whole village came. I tell you, the whole village! From as far as Nyenga, Buikwe, Nazigo, Kangulumira, Wakisi, Naminya, and Njeru. All came. Mothers left their gardens with hoes in their hands. Old men left their ajono pots. Children climbed trees, climbed hills, climbed roofs to see.
Namwezi Hill was full to capacity. Full! No space to put a foot. The dust was rising. The drums were beating. The women were ululating, eeeeh!
The game was 1–1 after the final whistle. 1–1! Our village boys, barefoot boys, boys who eat cassava, held the Russians and the diplomats. The hill shook. The earth shook. My chest shook.
My Jjaajja Livingstone Naidoo was amazed by my acumen. How could this small boy bring such a team to his home at my age? They all stopped there to buy hot bread and greet my Jjaajja Livingstone and Deborah. Jjaajja, being a Goa, made them butter nuni bread, roasted potatoes, and cheese. Hot, soft, golden, smelling like heaven.
They gave him many presents, and they left. But my name was already made in Buddu, and my Taata was all over the place. From that day, I was no longer just the boy who fetches firewood. I was the boy who brought Moscow to Namwezi.
MOSCOW IN ONE WEEK: AEROFLOT, THE GIANT BIRD OF RUSSIA
One day, Poklad and his wife invited me to travel to Moscow.
Passport in one week! One week! In 1983, when getting a passport was like getting gold from a river, they got me one in one week. I didn't sleep that week. I was dreaming in Russian.
It was the first time I entered a plane. But not just any plane. It was Aeroflot Russian Airlines (Russian: ПАО «Аэрофло́т — Росси́йские авиали́нии»), the USSR's national state airline. The giant bird of Russia. The wings that carried the whole Soviet Union.
When I saw that plane, my legs shook. Big. White. With red and blue on its tail. Like a monster that had come to swallow the sky. I had only seen planes in pictures; now I was entering one with my own feet.
And what a journey! A very long journey that taught me the world is big. Aeroflot took us through Tanzania, Zaire, Cameroon, Togo, Ghana, and Zambia, then to Moscow, at Patrice Lumumba University. Six countries in the air! I was looking through the window like a child. Clouds below. Rivers like snakes. My heart beating boom, boom, boom.
Inside that Aeroflot, the air hostesses spoke Russian. The food was Russian. The smell was Russian. I was a boy from Namwezi Hill sitting inside Russia itself while still in the sky.
One month later, I came back, but I was a different person. A different walk. A different talk. A different skin.
When I came back, I walked like Okwonko! Eh! My toe heel would not touch the ground! I was walking on my toes like a big man, like a chief, like a man who had seen the world. My chest was out. My head was high. The dust of Namwezi Hill feared my feet. People were looking at me and whispering, "That boy has come back with Moscow on his back!"
I was holding a Russian roulette and T-shirts of the Russian bear and tigers. The bear: big, strong, the symbol of Russia. The tiger: fierce, proud. I wore them like a uniform of honour. I carried them like trophies. In Mbiko, in Nakibizi, in Nyenga, everybody wanted to touch that T-shirt. Everybody wanted to see that Russian thing in my hand. I was not just Joseph Immanuel anymore. I was Moscow Boy.
All the village girls were lining up for my skin. Lining up! 1983 was a year the gods of Kifuuta, Kyotera, and Buddu, banange, made wonderful. I will always have memories. That is how I became addicted to Russian people. Not just vodka. But friendship. Boldness. Thinking big. Thinking beyond Nyenga Road. Thinking beyond Aeroflot's wings.
THE NIGHT IN MBIKO: 03:25, THE WINDOW, THE SHIRT
But my friends, every sweet story has a bitter night. Every sugar has a sting.
One of those nights, in my Peugeot, I was taken by some big girls in Mbiko. I ended up sleeping at the home of the Kirumira family. Eeh, maama, temunjogeza ebinalumila. Don't add me the problems.
I ended up at Alowo's house in Mbiko, just near Musisi's Friends Pub. Music was playing. The night was sweet. I slept.
Then BOOM! I woke up at 03:25 hours in the morning. Late night. Early morning. The husband of Alowo came back from working at the Nytil cloth factory. NIGHT SHIFT! My heart left my body! My soul ran before my legs!
I jumped out of the window in only my shirt. Only my shirt! Cold wind on my skin. Dogs barking. My legs running like a thief in Mbiko at 3 a.m. I had left Jjaajja's vehicle in Nakibizi at my friend Milimu's house. I was naked in the wind, in the dark, in the shame.
It was Fred Ssebale, a musician now in Matendo, who saved me with a pair of trousers. Fred! If you are reading this, you are my brother forever. He threw me a pair of trousers in the dark and said, "Run, my brother, run!" And I ran.
That night, I learnt: Never sleep at a woman's house. It's a deadly nightmare. The bed may be sweet, but the window at 3:25 a.m. is bitter. Even if you walked like Okwonko in the day, at night you can run like a rabbit in only a shirt.
ALOWO, I'M LOOKING FOR YOU, 43 YEARS LATER
Now listen to me, Alowo. I am looking for you.
Forty-three years. Forty-three years have passed since that night in Mbiko, and I still have a question sitting on my chest like a stone.
Alowo, why didn't you tell me 43 years ago that you were married? Why? Why did you let me enter a house with a husband working at Nytil? Why did you let a young boy jump out of a window at 03:25 in only his shirt?
I am not looking for you to fight. I am looking for you to sit down, to talk, to laugh, to close this old book. We discuss. We laugh about our foolish youth. We ask, "Eh, what were we doing?"
I tried to look for you. I did not forget you.
I went to Tororo, in Kirewa, where you told me you were from. I asked at Muzei Ofwono's place. They told me you were far. Far! I walked, I asked, I waited. You were far.
I tried to look for my friends, the Kirumira family. I wanted to hear their laughter again. I wanted to know where life took them. And they told me Ssebunya died in an accident near Kiyindi. Ssebunya! The boy who used to laugh loudest. Gone. Just like that. Life is short, my friends.
And Bwette? They told me Bwette is now a professor in Bonn, Germany. Professor! In Bonn! Imagine! The boy from Mbiko who used to run with us in the dust, now he is teaching in Germany. Life! Life is a funny teacher.
Kale, life in youth is sweet. Sweet like Living Bread fresh from the oven. Bitter like a window jump at 3 a.m. But sweet.
So, Alowo, if you hear this, if your children hear this, tell them the old man from Namwezi Hill is looking for you. Not for trouble. For closure. For that talk we never had.
Forty-three years is too long to carry a question without an answer.
VVAKUBINO EBYA LEE RO: THE YOUTH OF TODAY
And to the youth of today, Vvakubino ebya leero, mutambula mwebise kabuti mu musana! You walk carrying an umbrella in the sunshine! You fear the sun that made us strong!
We walked in the sun. We walked in the rain. We fetched firewood. We pushed cars. We jumped windows. We flew Aeroflot to Moscow without a phone. We had no umbrella. We had courage.
You have phones, you have umbrellas, you have everything, but you fear to ask, you fear to knock, you fear to dream.
Don't be soft. Be like 1983 boys. Ask the diplomat to come to your village. Jump-start the dead car. Take the risk. Learn the lesson.
THE LESSON THE ORACLE LEAVES YOU
So, when you see me today, don't lecture me about adventure in nightlife. Please. I have seen it. The Kifuuta Oracle has seen it all. I have jumped windows. I have flown Aeroflot to Moscow. I have drunk Siberia Vodka at 6 a.m. I have played football with diplomats. I have searched for Alowo in Tororo and found only wind.
What did 1983 teach me?
Hard work opens doors: Fetching water and firewood for Living Bread put me on the road where I met destiny. If I had slept, I would have missed CD 14. Your destiny is on the road you are avoiding.
Boldness is a passport: A village boy asked diplomats to come to Namwezi Hill. They came. Ask. The worst they can say is no. The best they can say will change your life.
Know how to fix things: I knew how to jump-start a car. That small skill gave me Moscow. Learn a skill. A small skill can carry you across six countries on Aeroflot.
Respect the night: The same road that brings you Moscow can bring you a window jump at 3:25 a.m. in Mbiko. Know when to go home. Know when to say, "I am going."
Close your old books: If you have an Alowo in your past, look for her. Not to reopen the wound, but to ask the question and let it go. Forty-three years is too long to carry a question.
1983, you were a wonderful year. You made me. You broke me. You built me.
OH, the Kifuuta Oracle has seen it all.
