Some girls crowded around the American. “Are you Mimi, Afrina’s sister?” The girl smiled. “Kdto,” Kirabo clicked. That girl is full of confidence.
“You.” Kirabo jumped. A girl stood below her bed. “Yes, you, Dark Tan.” She was talking to her. “Was that your brother I saw you with upstairs?” For a moment Kirabo was blank. Then she realised that “upstairs” was up the hill at the car park.
“No, my dad.”
“Your dad? How dare. Your dad is a dude; what is his name?”
“Tom. I mean, Tomusange.”
“How come he is your dad?”
“I am an early one.”
“So your dad was a bad boy. Is he married?”
“Yes.”
“Look at this face, Bunsen, I said look at me. I am going to kill your mother and bang your dad until that Afro falls off his head.”
“She is not my mother.”
The dorm applauded as if Kirabo had given permission. The girl walked away punching the air: “He is mine, mine, mine.” Kirabo wiped the tears away and stole a look at the other new girls. Apart from Mimi, who was being admired, each Bunsen sat shrunken, trying not to attract attention to herself. Kirabo started to suspect that St. Theresa’s was a school for girls with the original state. Nsuuta must have had a hand in this.
“Hi.” Kirabo gripped her bed. Another girl. She was petite. She had the roundest, flattest moon-face you have ever seen. “I am Kuteesa; this is my bed.” She pointed at the bed below. “Welcome to Muhumuza, House of Rest.” Before Kirabo nodded, the girl launched into a speech: “We are the best house in the whole school, we win most competitions—sports, quiz, modelling, drama, music. Sister Ambrose, the headmistress, is our House Mistress. We have no Muhumuza Day.” Kirabo had no idea who Muhumuza was, but she did not ask. “Our arch-enemy is Yaa Asantewaa House; they are thugs, always looking for a fight. Don’t make friends there or you will become a traitor.” Meanwhile, she had pulled off her blouse to reveal no bra, pulled on a T-shirt, kicked off her shoes, and stepped into slippers. She put the shirt on a hanger and hung it on a hook. Then she picked up a Bible that lay on top of her suitcase and took a breath. “What is your name?”
“Kirabo.”
“Let me guess, your parents were not expecting you, or you are the firstborn.”
“Both.”
A moon smile. “Oh, by the way, this is your locker.” She opened the wooden cupboard. “Put all your snacks in here. Place your wooden trunk on top, then your suitcase on top. Come.” Kirabo climbed down and Kuteesa helped her heave the wooden trunk on to the locker. “I am going to the chapel, you must join the Christian club, it is the best club in school, we host and visit Christian clubs in other Catholic schools, I think I am going to like you, even though you are not Catholic.” As she made to leave, she pointed. “You can take off your uniform. Did you bring any hangers?”
Kirabo shook her head.
“You can use one of mine. Listen, between four and five thirty o’clock is clubs, then bathtime; supper is at six. Oh, useful tips: we Muhumuzans are not just queens; we are anti-colonialist, freedom fighters, Nyabingi. If anyone calls you a witch, say, ‘We are queens, we are warriors.’ Girls from Nakayima House are sluts. Nakayima slept with both Muteesa I and Kabaleega.” Kirabo nodded, as if it was a fact taught in history. “The Nzingies from Nzinga House are back-breakers—that always shuts them up. The Asantes, from Yaa Asantewaa, are militant, and if a Tubmanese gives you trouble just say, ‘Go get some sleep.’” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, the Nehandians from Nehanda House are the real witches. See you in one and a half hours.”
Kirabo climbed back on to her bunk; she did not take off her uniform. She did not remember the tips Kuteesa had given her. Continuing students still came, stared, commented, and went.
Just then, a big girl in a straight black skirt walked in. Mimi flew to her. They whispered in their American English. She took Mimi’s hand, plus one of her suitcases, and they left. Kirabo found out later that the big sister, Afrina, was a Higher—an A-level student. Though the sisters were American, their parents had sent them to Uganda to learn proper history, Luganda, and their culture. Like the girls from Europe, the school van picked them up at the airport at the beginning of term and dropped them at the end of term.
Kirabo realised that time had passed when the dormitory started filling with girls again, this time in all stages of undress. No inhibitions whatsoever. Some were down to the slightest of briefs, others nude. Kuteesa rushed in. “You had better get your bath stuff and run to the bathroom. It will soon be supper time.” Kirabo looked through the window at the sky. Kuteesa explained, “It is five thirty.”
Kirabo fumbled with her clothes, peeling, wiggling from under the towel. By the time she finished, only the Bunsens were left in the dormitory. They walked out huddling together like a litter of puppies. Water splashing and the smell of bath soap led them to the smallest block. The first bathroom had at least ten girls bathing in the open room. The new girls lined up at the tap to fill their basins. Instead of spreading out to all four bathrooms, they huddled at the door of the first one and waited.
“Psssss.”
They turned.
Behind them a very tall, bespectacled girl breathed, “Excuse me, Bunsens.”
The new girls parted like the Red Sea.
The girl had not fastened her towel above her breasts like some girls, not around her waist like the amorous ones, but around her neck like a scarf. The rest of her was naked. She glided past the dazed Bunsens and breathed, “Hi.” Her voice was deeper than Grandmother’s. She had the longest straightest legs south of the Sahara. Not a suggestion of hips.
“Hi, Kana.” The elders slid their basins along the slab to make space for her. Kana put her basin down. When she hung her towel on the bathroom door, her face was level with it. Back at her station, she wetted her toilet soap and rubbed it ferociously between her palms until she made a thick lather. She stepped back to make room and lifted one leg, put a foot upon the slab, and slapped the lather in her hands on to her ruins. The new girls winced and looked away. Not Kirabo.
“Kana,” an elder nudged her, “a Bunsen is watching.”
Kana stopped washing and put down her leg. She adjusted her glasses and looked down at Kirabo. Through the thick lenses, Kana’s eyes seemed very small.
“Poor girl, she has never seen her beautiful.” Then she sang, “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small …” but then she left her bath station and came to the door where the Bunsens stood. Kirabo’s heart tried to jump into her mouth. She was taller than the other Bunsens. Kana scrutinised Kirabo’s face like a doctor looking at a rash. “Handicap,” she said eventually, like it was a diagnosis. “This girl grew up in that deep, deep patriarchy which trembles in the presence of the Mighty Vagina.” The Bunsens caught their breaths at the V word, but Kana did not pause. “A patriarchy that cannot make up its mind whether to fall on its knees in worship of the gateway into the world or to flee the crisis, the orgasmic paroxysms.”
“Watch it, Kana, that kind of mwenkanonkano is radical.”
“Any mwenkanonkano is radical. Talk about equality and men, fall in epileptic fits.” As Kana walked back to her station, the new girls stole glances at Kirabo that said You must stop attracting attention to us. The bathroom was empty by the time Kana finished, but the new girls still cowered at the door. She towelled herself, wound the towel around her neck, and walked out, her buttocks rising and falling brazenly.
The new girls rushed to place their basins on the slab. They talked at once; none listened to the others. Kirabo did not even shudder at the sting of cold water. The hooter went off again. She finished scrubbing, lifted the basin of water, and flung it on top of her head. She barely covered her body as she ran out of the bathroom. A handful of elders remained in the dorm. As the last one dashed out of the dorm, she shouted, “The warning hooter has gone. Mess doors close in ten minutes and Sister Monica is coming to
lock the doors.” Kirabo pulled on a pair of knickers and flung both the towel and her inhibitions on to the bed. She oiled her skin and dressed. Thank God there was no hair to comb. She ran out of the dorm in the same direction as every running girl.
Supper was the national school cuisine—posho and beans. By the time the dishes got to the bottom of the table where the Bunsens sat, they were almost empty. There were no beans in the soup. After supper, the Teacher on Duty, a middle-aged woman with a quiet voice and a thick waist, announced that while the rest of the school would go to preps, the S.1s should go to the main hall to meet Sister Ambrose, the headmistress.
3
The main hall was long and wide. At the side entrance, the wall was folding panels. Inside were tight rows of chairs. At one end was the stage, a wooden platform with steps on either side of the apron. It was draped with a maroon velvet curtain. Above the proscenium was a huge portrait of a woman. At first Kirabo thought it was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. But as she looked at it more closely, she realised that the woman had a Ganda nose. She looked like Grandmother with spectacles. Below her image was written:
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again.
—Sojourner Truth (1797–1883)
At the back of the room, a huge TV sat on a shelf up the wall and out of reach. Kirabo found an empty seat. With the new girls in their own clothes, they were individuals. They spoke over each other as if someone was coming to take away their tongues. They had names like Immaculate, Specioza, Concepta, Perpetua, Scholastica, Assumpta. They came from the posh schools of Kitante, Nakasero, and Buganda Road. They had achieved improbable grades by Nattetta standards—“I got 262 marks …” “Me, I got 280 …” “I did not do well, maths let me down …” “I got 250 …” “I got 272 …”
Kirabo’s heart sank. First grade was 210 out of 300. In Nattetta, a first grade made you the talk of the villages for years. She had passed with 230 points, 85 percent in both English and General Paper but 60 percent in maths. While 60 percent in a national exam was passing with flying colours in Nattetta, at St. Theresa’s it was inexcusable. No one seemed to be aware that there was a world outside Kololo or Nakasero or Bugoloobi. Kirabo realised that it was not yet time to say I come from Nattetta of Bugerere County.
“I am Atim, which means I was born in a foreign tribe. What is your name?” Kirabo was jolted. It was the girl from her dorm who had stared. Atim was making herself comfortable next to her. She flashed a wide-open smile.
“I am Kirabo, which means—”
“You are Muganda? How?” Atim did not hide her disappointment.
“I don’t know.”
“You are sure you are not Acholi or Lango, maybe Alur?”
Kirabo, enjoying Atim’s heartbreak, rubbed it in. “You should see my father, he is proper Joluo—tall, skinny, as dark as night, but we are Baganda—pure!”
Atim feigned being about to stand up and leave. “This is a waste of time.”
Kirabo held her back. “What did we do to you?”
“Apart from tribalism and name-calling? You are colonisers.”
“Noooo! We were good people before the British came.”
“Yeah …”
At that moment, the curtain parted and a multitude of chairs was revealed. Kirabo leaned in and whispered to Atim, “You are too much,” and they watched as women entered from the wings of the stage and sat down. Atim leaned towards Kirabo. “I am not enough yet: that is why I am here.” The hall was silent. The headmistress, Sister Ambrose, walked in last and went to the lectern, on the left side of the apron. She welcomed the girls and introduced the administrative staff, the teaching staff, and the supporting staff of cooks and porters, medical staff and drivers—all of them women, many of them nuns. Father Anatoli was absent. For Kirabo, being surrounded by women only felt like mischief.
Sister Ambrose talked about St. Theresa’s history. The first woman lawyer, doctor, the first woman minister, the first woman pilot in Uganda were old girls. When she said the school would produce the first woman president of Uganda, everyone laughed, including the teachers. Atim whispered, “That is me.” Sister Ambrose informed the girls that in terms of brains, they now belonged in the top 10 percent of the country. They were privileged. St. Theresa’s was a safe space for them to develop their talents without intimidation, interference, or interruption. They owed it to themselves, and to all other girls who did not have their privilege, to excel and to change the world. “Our job is to arm the girl child with tools so she can live a meaningful life, for herself and for the nation.” The school was strict on academic performance. The wrath of the rules when broken. Indulgence in nicotine and intoxication was suicide; French leave, fatal. Which Kirabo later found out meant to jump over the fences to escape. The exuberance the girls had shown moments before had evaporated. Even Atim sat frozen, awestruck.
Next, the girls were shown projected pictures of the school when it first started. A silent picture with static. Black-and-white images of white nuns and black girls walking mechanically, as if in fast-forward, flickered across the projector screen. There had been only a few buildings then. Only one house called Jennie Trout House. Kirabo was surprised to hear that the school had been built as a result of Sir Apollo Kaggwa’s assertion that Buganda’s second hand was broken without boarding schools for girls. Sister Ambrose was keen to emphasise that while the missionaries had the expertise to start schools, it was the people of Buganda who had contributed money and animals for sale, and the poor ones who had brought bricks and labour. She said it was important to know that what were called missionary schools, especially those built during the colonial era, had been built on local effort and money, and that missionaries were engineers and teachers.
By the end of Sister Ambrose’s address, Kirabo knew one thing: if her grades were consistently among the bottom five in her class at the end of term in the first two years, she would be “discontinued.” Sister Ambrose had explained that “slow” girls would be weeded out of St. Theresa’s, so they would not be overwhelmed. That it was fair that they were sent to schools where learning was at their pace. Kirabo knew that her scores had not made the cut-off mark for St. Theresa’s admission, which meant she was at the bottom of all the S.1s, and vulnerable to elimination.
The following morning after breakfast, all S.1s went to the noticeboard to see which stream they had been allocated to. There were five streams, from S.1.A for students with the highest scores, to S.1.E with the lowest scores. Kirabo was in S.1.E while Atim was S.1.A. Each stream had forty-five girls. The streams were not permanent; at the end of the first and second years all the scores would be thrown into a single basket and reshuffled. The highest marks, regardless of which stream they were in now, would go into stream A, the lowest into stream E. By the end of the first two years, after the purging of the sluggish girls, each stream would have forty girls.
Kirabo had moved from studying three subjects in primary school to fifteen. There were two other language subjects, French and German, on top of English and Luganda. The day was so packed with study and, after classes, with clubs, shows, competitions, sports, and scandals, that the world outside of St. Theresa’s rolled away. But not before Kirabo was put in her place.
•
It was on the second night after preps when an elder asked, “What is your name, Dark Tan?”
“Kirabo Nnamiiro.” Kirabo could not protest her black Kiwi Shoe Polish name yet.
The elder frowned. “I don’t remember seeing a Kirabo on the admission list on the noticeboard. I checked to see what scores each one of our Bunsens got.”
“Maybe the list has Kirabo Miiro.”
The girl shook her head. “How many points did you get?”
“230.”
A hush fell on the dorm until a girl said the obvious: “But the cut-off mark was 240. How did you get in here?”
&
nbsp; Kirabo looked down.
“Dad is a politician,” the elders speculated. “Or a mafuta mingi; he offered to repair the school pump every time it breaks down. Or to paint the main hall to compensate for the lack of brains in the family gene pool.”
“But ten marks below the cut-off point? That is too much.”
“Which school did you come from?”
“Nattetta Church of Uganda Primary Sch—”
“Oh dear.”
“Where is that?”
“Up the country’s arse.”
“We have a back door in our dorm? Told you Sister Ambrose is corrupt.”
After that, Kirabo settled down in her proper place, at the bottom of school society.
•
A month into the term, the S.1s were summoned, a stream at a time, to the Sanatorium. When Kirabo’s class was called, they queued up outside the San’s main entrance in alphabetical order for a medical check-up. It was the oldest building. The bricks were thick and bare, even inside. There was no plastering or paint, no pictures or ceiling. When Kirabo heard her name, she found two nurses, both nuns, in the room, and a bed. One sat at a desk with the class register, the other stood close to the bed. The one by the bed said, “Sit down here, Miiro, and untuck your shirt.”
The bizarreness of being called Miiro instead of Nnamiiro.
“Loosen your skirt, Miiro.”
The nurse began to touch and press and listen, saying, “Breathe in, breathe out,” and “Stick your tongue out, cough.” She peeled back Kirabo’s lower eyelids, knocked on her back as if Kirabo were jackfruit. When she was told to lie on the bed, the nurse pushed Kirabo’s skirt lower as her hand probed her lower abdomen. The pressure increased as she prodded her stomach. “Have you started your periods, Miiro?”
“No, I mean yes.”
“What do you mean, no or yes?”
“I have started, but they skip months.”
The nurse pressed again, as if she were kneading a mound of matooke, until Kirabo winced.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 17