Ssenga: Not a Title, a Throne

The Fatty Truth They Fear to Tell You, but the Kifuuta Oracle Tells You

Listen properly, my people, because many people have lost the meaning, and they are losing their marriages with it.

A Ssenga is not a woman you hire for a wedding day. A Ssenga is not a costume you wear for photos. A Ssenga is not a dancer you pay to ululate and disappear.

A Ssenga is someone who sits at the same level as your Taata. In Buganda, that is no small chair. When Taata speaks, the home goes quiet. When Ssenga speaks, the home also goes quiet. She carries the weight of your father in the home. When she blesses, heaven listens. When she curses, the earth shakes. That is her social status. She is a mother, a judge, a keeper of secrets, a keeper of the family blood.

That is why you do not pick a Ssenga by clan. You do not pick her because she is from your Empya. You do not pick her because she is loud, or because she is known mu kilabo kye mpuuta, or because she has many in Kyampisi.

You pick a Ssenga who understands you. Who gives you genuine attention. Who loves you always. Who will never talk behind your back.

Because listen, many of them pretend to love you, yet they hold spears to kill your father. They smile in front of you and sharpen knives behind you. They enter your house as family and leave with your secrets in their baskets. They eat your food, drink your soda, hug your children, then go and sell your story in the next home like roasted groundnuts.

Let me educate you small. Learn to know a true Ssenga by her fruits, not by her mouth.

A true Ssenga will correct you in private and defend you in public. A fake Ssenga will praise you in public and destroy you in private.

A true Ssenga will teach you how to keep a home, how to cook, how to respect your husband, how to respect your mother-in-law, how to keep money, and how to keep quiet when anger is burning your chest.
A fake Ssenga will teach you how to hide money from your husband, how to answer your mother-in-law with a sharp tongue, how to record your husband in bed, how to trap a man on Friday and leave him on Monday.

A true Ssenga keeps secrets like she keeps firewood: close to the heart and far from the mouth. A fake Ssenga keeps your secrets like she keeps airtime, to be used when she needs it.

Tell me, who was the Ssenga of Kawa, of Eva?

Eva had no Ssenga to run to when she fell. She had no one to whisper to, no one to cook the story for her. Yet she stayed. She cooked for Adam even in sin. She stayed with her husband even when paradise had closed its doors and the garden had become a bush. Her marriage did not survive because of a Ssenga. It survived because of loyalty. Because when the world ended, she did not end her marriage.

Tell me, who was the Ssenga of Sarah?

Sarah had no Ssenga to advise her when her womb delayed and years were passing like wind. Yet she allowed Abraham to father a child with a maid, Hagar, because she wanted the home to continue. She swallowed her own pain, her own jealousy, her own tears, for the sake of the family. Who advised her? Her own heart. Her own faith. Not a hired voice. Not a woman who came to collect an envelope.

If those great women survived without a Ssenga, then what are we doing today? Why are we paying women to destroy what God built?

Look at my own blood, and learn.

My great Jjaajja, the father to my Jjaajja Naidoo, came from India, from Goa. He crossed the sea with no clan behind him, no Empya behind him, no Ssenga to disturb them. And my Jjaajja, Livingstone Naidoo Mukasa and Deborah, also did not have a Ssenga standing between them. No mediator. No third voice in their bedroom. No woman coming to tell Deborah how to treat her husband. They stayed together for 67 years in marriage. Sixty-seven years. Through poverty, through sickness, through children, through old age, through funerals, through famine. They held each other until death learned their names and finally separated them.

My Maama did not have a Ssenga either. Yet she has been in marriage for over 58 years. Fifty-eight years of waking up and choosing the same man, every single morning. Fifty-eight years of cooking, forgiving, praying, enduring. Tell me, which modern Ssenga can teach that? Which one can buy that kind of love in the market? You cannot buy patience in a shop. You cannot hire loyalty for a day.

My true Ssenga, Julianne Birabwa, died, and she went with all her roles on me. She was the last of the real ones. When she died, the throne remained empty. I felt it in my chest. The woman who would have covered me, corrected me, prayed for me, she left, and she took her wisdom with her. Since then, I have been watching with open eyes.

That is the truth. The Ssenga of yesterday was a true bond with the bride and the groom. She was a mother before the wedding and a mother after the wedding. She would come and stay three days, seven days, cooking, teaching, praying, watching. She would sit with the bride and say, "My child, marriage is not sugar. Sometimes it is bitter like ekkubo. But you chew it slowly." She would sit with the groom and say, "My son, love this woman even when she is angry. Do not raise your hand. Raise your prayers."

But the Ssenga of today? Naye abalero bafele. Many are dead inside.

Today we have business Ssengas, hawker Ssengas. They sell advice like they sell tomatoes in the market. They weigh your marriage on a scale. They come for the introduction, eat pilao, take photos, take the envelope, and vanish. Some can even trade your husband. Yes, I say it openly. Some will take your husband's number, take your husband's money, and take your husband's heart, while calling you "my daughter."

They will sit in your sitting room and praise your marriage, then go to the next home and laugh at your tears. They will tell your mother-in-law what you said. They will tell your husband what you did not say. They will tell your friends that you are barren, that you are poor, that you are difficult. That is not a Ssenga. That is a spear dressed as love. That is a thief dressed as a mother.

And let me speak openly about these Ssengas of today. They hate me because they think I am luck. They hate me because I do not show them my anger. They think my silence is weakness. They do not know that a man who does not show anger is not a fool; he is a man who has mastered himself. They are evil, moving like a drowning hen, flapping, splashing, making noise, but already sinking. They flap in every home, stirring water that is not theirs.

Hear me well. If you do not love my immediate brother, you do not want me. You cannot love me and hate my blood. You cannot bless my children and curse my brother. You are only stirring confusion among the Lugya lwa Jjaajja Petero Wakulanume Musangogwantamu. You want to divide the house of Petero, to make brother fight brother, to make sister fight sister, so that you can sit in the middle and eat.

I cannot let you be near my children because your laughter is acid. You laugh with your mouth, but your heart is burning. Your laughter does not heal; it burns. It burns the skin of my children. I will not allow acid near my offspring.

You have killed the role of Ssengas with your wickedness and shallow souls. You have turned a throne into a market stall. You have turned a blessing into a business. What I have, I have worked for. It is not luck. It is sweat. It is sleepless nights. It is prayers. It is tears. Do not call my labour luck because you did not see me working.

The Oracle of Kifuuta, Katooke, Kyotera, Buddu, has seen abanaafusi, abananfusi, emitiima jibajudde empima, muzina obuzina obwekiloggo. I have seen the gossipers. I have seen the double-tongued. I have seen hearts filled with rumour, mouths filled with the gossip of the log, the gossip that never ends, that goes from mouth to mouth like a bad smell.

A true Ssenga does not gossip. A true Ssenga does not compete with the bride. A true Ssenga does not envy the home she is supposed to protect. A true Ssenga does not make herself the star of your wedding.

So I have made my choice, and I say it with a full chest.

I will not go looking in the clan. I will not go looking in the Empya. I will pick my sisters.

I will pick my sister Nairima. I will pick Nantale. I will pick Nawozantya. I will pick Batengeke. These are the Ssengas of my children.

Why? Because they wish me well, and they wish my offspring well. They love you genuinely. They treasure me as their big brother. They have seen my tears when I had nothing. They have seen my hunger when I was nkoba zambogo. They did not run. They stayed.

When my children cry, these women will not ask, "What will you pay me?" They will ask, "What is wrong, my child?" When my children marry, they will not sell secrets. They will cover them. When my home shakes, they will hold it with both hands, not push it to fall. When my children are wrong, they will correct them with love, not expose them with laughter.

And I give thanks where thanks is due. Ssenga wange Nakuya Idda of Butambala, webale. Ssenga wange Benedatte Ssemanobe, webale. You have kept the old fire burning. You have shown me that not all are dead inside. You have loved with a clean heart.

That is a Ssenga. Not a title. Not a business. Not a uniform for a wedding.

A Ssenga is a mother who remains when everyone else has left. A Ssenga is a shield. A Ssenga is a prayer that walks on two legs. A Ssenga is a woman who will fight for your home as if it is her own blood, because it is her own blood.

Choose well, Kifuuta Oracle tells you, my people. Because if you choose a spear and call it a Ssenga, do not cry when your own blood is spilled in your own house.

Kifuuta Oracle has seen it with naked eyes and heard it with ears on the ground. Believe me or kiss the devil and see if you will remain with your teeth.

Kanedile waffe Buddu.