The Oracle of Kifuuta - A Lesson for Every Man Who Thinks Love is Automatic
This is not a complaint. This is a survival guide.
If you want to know the truth about your family, don't wait for judgment day. Just do this small test: Let you and your wife fall sick on the same day and be admitted in two different hospitals - you in Kalisizo, her in Kamengo. Watch where your children will go.
Most will camp at their mother's bedside.
Yet when they need fees, they call you. When the headmaster is shouting for school fees and there is no money, it is YOU who goes to kneel and beg for more time. When money is found, it is SHE who proudly carries it to the school and tells the children:
"My children, study hard. This money is from your mother. Your father only knows how to drink and chase Nankya and Nabweteme."
And you are the one who bled for that money.
This is the painful mathematics of fatherhood.
I see many fathers in Kifuuta, in Kalisizo, in Kyotera. They eat badly, dress badly, sleep badly - so that their children can eat well, dress well, and sleep well. They live with one belief: "I am suffering today, but my children will take care of me tomorrow."
My brother, that belief has killed more men than malaria.
Your duty was to RAISE them. Not to BUY their future love. Love cannot be bought with school fees.
And that is why we need to talk about two things the Baganda elders never taught us properly: A FILIAL LAW and SELF-PREPARATION.
THE LAW WE LACK - WHY UGANDA NEEDS A FILIAL LAW
In China, India, Germany, and 30 states in America, there is a law called Filial Responsibility Law. It says in simple language: If your father sold his land to educate you, you have a legal duty to feed him when he has no teeth.
In Uganda, we left it to "goodwill". Goodwill has taken a bus to Dubai. Goodwill doesn't pick your calls. Goodwill is busy with a woman he met at Nakawa MUBS.
Without a law, care for elders is charity. With a law, it is a duty.
But even as we demand Parliament to pass this law, you as a father must pass your OWN law in your house today. Don't wait for Kampala.
MY OWN DECISION - I WILL PREPARE WHILE I STILL CAN
I have decided: I will not reach 70 having done everything for my children and nothing for myself.
I have asked myself questions that every man from 40 to 65 must ask:
- If a stroke hits me tomorrow and I cannot even lift a cup, where will I sleep?
- If old age comes and my strength leaves me, will I still afford a piece of meat - Ssemutundu, village chicken, roasted lamb, steamed goat neck? Will I still afford a glass of Vintage wine or Cognac XO that I enjoy today?
- When my ideas sound foolish to my children, when they stop picking my calls because a woman has confused them at a crossroads, who will be there?
I think about this NOW, when I still have energy - not when I am already in an Omuzigo in Kyaliwajjala selling my land to buy medicine.
That is why my philosophy is this:
If my children give me, I thank them. If they don't, I leave it. I will not make my survival depend on their goodwill. Children change like the winds and waves of Lake Victoria Nalubaale; they stop picking your calls, etc.
Your job was to give them a chance in life. Their job as adults is to build their own lives. Anything they give you on top is a blessing, not your pension plan.
I have seen a young man spend 150 MILLION on one function - just to impress a girl from Namwendwa or Mbulamuti to sing "Obangaina" for him. At the end of the night, mountains of pilao, meat and matooke are thrown in the dustbin because people could not finish. I wanted to cry.
That 150M could have been a simple 2-bedroom retirement house in Kifuuta, with a small rental in front, and a compound full of mango, avocado and jackfruit trees.
Listen to the Oracle: Don't build a huge mansion with 8 empty bedrooms. That mansion will one day host ghosts that wait for you in the next room. Build a simple, beautiful, spacious, comfortable house with a big compound where you can breathe, plant, and sit.
And remember the wisdom of that old man in Naludugavu: Every man, even if you have a family house with your wife and business premises, must have his own small house somewhere - in Kifuuta, in Lumino Masafu, in Butambala. A place of peace.
If you quarrel with your wife, you go there and cool down instead of breaking the marriage. If your children and their mother unite against you - and they do, it happens in many homes - you have somewhere to lean.
Because in family, property and power, never be careless.
THE RELATIONSHIP IS THE REAL INSURANCE
Fathers, we must also accept our part of the failure.
The Beating. Your wife reports that the child stole sugar. You beat the child like a thief. The same wife who reported will go to the child at night and whisper, "My dear, forgive me. I didn't know your father would beat you like that. That man will one day kill you and me." You have just planted hatred that will grow for 40 years. Don't beat. Talk. Observe. Correct calmly. My Taata asked me to forgive him when he was 82 years old, when he was left only 6 years with me. My Taata would make us feel like refugees in our home on Magwa Cresent or Muvule Lane in Jinja. His Peugeot 504, hearing its entrance, would make us run to the bedroom. I feared my Taata so much that I had to run away and keep with Jjaajja Livingston M. Naidoo and Taata Kasekende in Kitezi Mpererwe.
In Wobulenzi, Luwero, a woman loved you deeply at 25. Don't be surprised at 60 when she is cold, when she trusts the Shamba boy or Saidi or the housemaid more than you. Maids and attendants have taken advantage of these broken homes to even speed up a man's death.
The Roses. Your partner is your life insurance. The Oracle says:
I have loved my Maama and Mummy because they miss someone closer. If my Maama wants a liver, I slaughter a bull for her. I send her Vintage wine. She drives to church and to garden. I am creating a bed of roses for them now,
You cannot force children to love you. You cannot force your wife to remain affectionate. But you can determine what you build while you still have your mind and your hands.
FINAL WORD FROM THE ORACLE OF KIFUUTA:
Provide for your children, but don't sacrifice your entire future on the altar of their gratitude.
- Build for yourself before 65. Small house, fruit trees around.
- Save for sickness. Health insurance, by keeping a lot of cattle.
- Protect your property, but don't neglect your family.
- Treat your wife and children with respect today - because the way you treat them at 40 is how they will treat you at 80.
A man who prepares is not selfish. He is wise. He refuses to die in a Omuzigo after building palaces for others.
Plant your roses now.
The Oracle of Kifuuta
