The Physics Teacher Who Failed His Own Formula
Kichwamba - Kibale - Mubende - Mityana - Buloba - Busega - Mulago - Mawanda Road. 1989. One Road, One Woman, One Bottle.
Young man, sit down. Put down your phone with 128GB. I saw hell with a cassette tape that could only hold 90 minutes.
THE TEACHER: KICHWAMBA
I was not a boy loitering in Kabarole.
I had gone to Kichwamba Technical College for a lecturing interview to teach Geometry and Physics. To stand in front of young Ugandans and teach them about angles, forces, gravity, velocity, and equilibrium.
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” I spoke about Pythagoras: “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”
I passed the interview. I was happy. Clean shirt. Engineer hands.
On my way back to Kampala, in my beige Toyota DX Corolla, Afrigo Volume 8, “Jim, Jim, Jim, ensi yajja kuwoma...” was playing, the tape wobbling. I was going to teach the world.
But life said, “Teacher, before you teach others, let me teach you.”
As Chinua Achebe wrote in Things Fall Apart: “When a man says yes, his chi says yes also.” My chi said yes to teaching. But my flesh said yes to another lesson.
THE CALCULATION THAT FAILED: KIBALE FOREST
Approaching Kibale National Park, the forest was thick, the mist thick, like the lungs of Uganda. Two young ladies waved by the roadside.
One, aged 18–20, got off at the Kyegegwa T-junction on Hoima Road. The elder, 23, remained. Banange, she was extra beautiful. Not this chicken-and-chips beauty. Real beauty: bongo-fed, shabwe-fed, smoked-meat-fed. Body next to figure 8. Eyes that had never seen Kampala lights.
Young ones, here is yours.
In Kifuuta Buddu, we say: “Enju y'omulirwana ewoma, naye sijosula.” Your neighbour's house is sweet, but you don't sleep there.
I forgot that proverb. I, the geometry teacher, miscalculated the angle of temptation. The shortest distance between Kichwamba and a broken home is not a straight line; it is a beautiful stranger in your co-driver's seat.
From Naluyima Hotel in Mubende, the only hotel then with proper boiled goat, to Kolping Hotel in Mityana, we made strategic decisions. I called it chemistry. My elders would call it “Okwebaka mu nju y'omuliro ng'olina ekibiliti.” Sleeping in a burning house with a matchstick.
THE EXPERIMENT: BULOBA, 10 PM
We said, “One for the road.”
She: Bell. Me: my cognac, which I always move with.
Up to 10 p.m., Buloba trading centre. Lagers talking.
By Busega, she was gone. Walking like a giraffe running from a lion. Dead asleep. Snoring. Talking in tongues. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't ask.
This is what our literature calls “Amaziga g'omusajja omugayaavu.” The tears of a careless man start as laughter.
I, the man who teaches about friction, brakes, and momentum, failed to brake. At 140–170 km/h on Enargo's smooth tarmac, I thought I controlled velocity. But velocity controlled me.
I drove her to College Inn, Makerere. To take her upstairs, I needed a crane truck. The beauty had drowned in a crate.
Write this on your blackboard:
You can teach a whole class how to calculate the angle of a falling body, but if you don't know the angle at which YOU fall, you are still in Senior One.
As Okot p'Bitek wrote in Song of Lawino: “My husband's mind is like the white man's kitchen, full of instruments that don't cook.” My mind was full of Newton, but it couldn't cook common sense.
THE REACTION: MULAGO WARD
I wanted to drop her off and run.
An askari shouted, “Stop! The lady you have dropped is dying!”
Hotel management forced me to Mulago Hospital. We carried her to the ward.
And who was there, administering medicine to her patients, on midnight duty?
Dr. Madame. My wife.
She didn't shout. She didn't throw the tray. She just looked at me. Continued her routine.
Young man, if you have ever been looked at by a good woman who trusted you, that look has no sound, but it breaks all your bones.
That was Newton's Law in real life. Action: Bell lager in Buloba. Reaction: Silence in Mulago.
For 2 days, Kichoncho was unconscious. For 3 days, I was locked at Mulago, prisoner of my own practical experiment gone wrong.
I went to teach Physics. I became the practical.
As Wole Soyinka wrote: “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.” I kept silent when my own lust became a tyrant over me. So the man in me died.
THE DUST: MAWANDA ROAD
After 3 days, I drove to Mawanda Road, home.
Doors wide open. Windows wide open. House empty as a church on Monday. Only dust remained.
As in Things Fall Apart:
“The white man came and put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”
I was the white man in my own home. I put the knife.
I drove to Nakawa, to her parents. She was not there. I got caught up in riots at MUBS Nakawa. My car windows were shattered, and the car was almost burnt. I ran for dear life.
I went back to College Inn. Kichoncho had vanished. No contact. No location. Like smoke after roasted meat.
I lost both: the wife I had and the sweetness I chased.
Left with a beige Corolla and Afrigo still playing, but no one to dance with.
FINAL LESSON ON THE BLACKBOARD FOR ALL TEACHERS OF GEOMETRY AND PHYSICS
The Formula of the Empty House:
Married Man + Lonely Road + Beautiful Stranger + Bell + Night + “One for the Road” = Doors Open, Windows Open, Only Dust.
Memorize it. It never fails.
The Law of Real Figure 8:
Figure 8 on the road is flesh that sleeps in your car and makes you sleep in Mulago. Real Figure 8 is a wife who goes round and round, holding your home together when you are not there.
The Law of Brakes:
If you teach brakes, use brakes. Lust has no brakes. It only has Mulago and Mawanda Road.
The Law of the Interview:
The interview is not the test. The road back home is the test. Many pass on the blackboard and fail on the tarmac.
Young man in 2026 with a Harrier and YouTube, you are not wiser than the man in 1989 with a cassette. The road is still the same: Kibale, Kyegegwa, Mubende, Mityana, Buloba, Busega, Mulago, Mawanda.
If you have a good woman building your home, don't park in Buloba for chemistry.
Because one day, you will drive home very fast and find what I found: dust.
And Afrigo will still be playing.
Banange, by the time you grow up, you have seen a lot, if you survive to grow up.
Oracle of Kifuuta
Katooke, Kyotera, Buddu.
