Everyone saw Miiro—hands held behind his back as they walked down the road, a polite distance between him and Nsuuta, smiling at her like a flower just bloomed. The villages marvelled: “Maama, don’t they match just—she beautiful and he handsome, she light-skinned, he dark-skinned? Kiyitirivu, she will bring the much-needed light skin to the children … Are they not the perfect age—he much much older, she just ripe?” And the way Nsuuta bloomed under Miiro’s gaze, the way she was shy but proud. When the two walked down that rutted track across the villages, clearly dying of love, people agreed that Nsuuta and Miiro were inevitable: “You cannot suppress love: look how it hauled Miiro to Kamuli despite all the city women.” Young girls daydreamed.
•
On that first walk, Miiro started with, “I hope your family is well.”
“They are.”
“I guess by now everyone from Kamuli to Nazigo knows you have eaten my heart.”
“Nazigo? Say Bukolooto. You know how words travel.”
“How do your parents feel about it?”
“They have allowed me to walk with you.”
“I can see. I am happy they understand.”
Silence.
“You know I am studying farming.”
“Yes, but I did not know you need to go to school for that.”
Miiro laughed, because a lot of people said that. “We study modern farming, where you make decisions according to the type of crops you want and the type of soil on your land. I am not talking about swampy, gravelly, or poor soils. It is more complicated than that. It is science. We also study how to use pesticides and weedkillers instead of manual labour. They teach us how to use a very small piece of land for maximum yield.”
“Oh.”
“Do you think we should farm both cash crops and animals? My father’s ranch is katogo—this, that, and everything. Whatever he sees he brings to the farm, but I think it is best to specialise.”
“What does your heart say?”
“Coffee and cotton for cash crops. Then exotic cattle, and chickens for eggs.”
“I agree, best to start small.”
“I am going to borrow money from the growers’ cooperative. There is one in Mukono. My father will be my guarantor. If more farmers start to do modern farming in these villages, we should start our own growers’ cooperative. It gives farmers more powers. You borrow money, improve your farm, and pay back slowly.” He paused. “I was thinking, if we agree to come together, we should not build our house close to my parents.”
“Yes, let’s go further away.”
Miiro frowned. “But you are agreeing with everything I say. I heard you were talkative, that you knew your own mind.”
Nsuuta grinned. Even a chatterbox would be tongue-tied during walkabouts with Miiro, who was much older and more knowledgeable. “It is because I am not used to you.”
“I am a bit quiet,” Miiro said. “I would like to marry someone talkative. So our house does not fill with silence.”
“I will talk.”
“Then next time, I shall take you to see the land where we could build our house.”
•
One day on one of their walkabouts, because she had been encouraged to speak her mind, Nsuuta asked, “Would you marry a second wife?”
Miiro stopped, then laughed. He glanced back at Nsuuta’s aunt, who had stopped too. “No, of course not. We Christians don’t do that.” He was even indignant that Nsuuta, whose father had three wives, whose grandfather’s harem was biblical, would ask him that.
“Even when Luutu is no longer with us?”
“Let me tell you about us men. We only marry a second wife when the first one is struggling, when she is good at this but hopeless at that. But look at you, what could a second wife bring to our marriage?”
“Hmm.”
Miiro misunderstood Nsuuta’s “Hmm” and stopped walking again. “You don’t believe me?”
“I do, I am not worried about it.” Nsuuta glanced at her aunt. “I am just thinking that … what if I became a nurse?”
Miiro frowned. He had not made the connection between him getting a second wife and Nsuuta becoming a nurse.
“Why would you do that?”
“I got the scholarship to Gayaza.”
“But girls go to Gayaza to become homemakers. You already have a marriage proposal.”
“I would like to become a nurse.”
“For that you will have to do more studying after Gayaza.”
“I know. But what if I said I would like to do more studying like you and become a nurse for myself and then return and open a dispensary at the parish? On top of the mobile clinic, the villages will have a resident nurse.”
“Then when will we marry, hmm? When will you have our children? Time is edging past you. You women are not like us men. We can have children even after our brains are mouldy with age, but not women. Let’s say you become a nurse and we marry, then who will look after our home and children while you work? Only Europeans and Indians use servants to bring up their children. Look, you have never stepped outside these villages, but let me tell you: there is a reason why most Ganda nurses are men. When women go out in public to work, stupid men imagine that it is because they have failed to secure a marriage, and they make passes at them as they please.” Now he pleaded. “Nsuuta, you are beautiful. You deserve a man to look after you while you preside over your home. You deserve to be given the respect of a married woman. Besides, only ugly girls carry on to become nurses and teachers.”
Nsuuta sighed. She did not doubt what Miiro had said. She had been told over and over that with her beauty, she did not need education. Education was for ugly girls—to give them value. Further studies were also a shield to hide behind. You said to a girl, But you, what are you waiting for? Time is going, and she replied, I am still studying—kumbe wapi, it is because she cannot find a man.
Because December was coming to an end, the walkabouts were interrupted by Ssekukkulu, the Christian day when Luutu made a feast for all the villages and then another one, Lusooka, to mark the beginning of the European year. The residents knew that Luutu made feasts on these days to impose the Christian calendar, but they made merry with him and then promptly forgot about the European year afterwards. Miiro planned that after New Year’s Day, their parents would take over the marriage processes. Discussions between their families would start while he was at college. However, the first ritual—kukyala, a secret visit to Nsuuta’s aunt who would inform Nsuuta’s father that Luutu’s family wished to unite with their family through marriage—would be done in April during his holidays. And if they liked the message, Nsuuta’s family would research Miiro’s ancestry. Hopefully no problem would arise, and they would give Luutu’s family a date to come to kwanjula. Meanwhile Nsuuta would start her kufumbirwa, learning about marriage, being groomed. The kwanjula—when Miiro, his brothers, and cousins would take presents to her family and ask to officially marry her—would be done in August when Miiro was home. The church wedding would be in December. Thus, when they parted before Ssekukkulu, Nsuuta promised to have her answer when they met in the New Year.
8
While the villages were oblivious to European time, Nsuuta watched 1940 arrive. Right away, it was an impatient year. The day to go to Gayaza High was coming at full speed. And Miiro needed an answer to get the marriage rites rolling. Nsuuta looked at the two options facing her, Gayaza High School or marrying Miiro, and wished she could split herself in two and have both. There was no doubt Miiro was the man for her. So much older, but not too old, he was the perfect age, since women were rendered threadbare after childbirth. She even saw a happy marriage with him. He was the kind of man who came by once in a girl’s lifetime. But Gayaza was also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Secretly, she suspected there would be more men like Miiro out in the city. You never know what her beauty plus education would fetch in the big wide world. Besides, in the city, she felt that she would not be bound by the pact. But as thin
gs stood, she did not see room for Alikisa in this marriage with Miiro.
The solution occurred to her one night. The following day, she hurried to Alikisa and told her, “I am going to pass Miiro on: it is up to you to grab him.”
“Why would you pass him on? And how do I grab him?”
“He said he would not marry two wives.”
“But you cannot, Nsuuta; do you see how he is dying to have you?”
“Yes. That is why I am passing him on. I know he will always love me no matter what.”
“Then let us be patient. Marry him and enjoy it while it lasts. No matter how much a man loves you in the beginning, it grows old. I have heard women discussing it in the Mother’s Union. He will get used to you, and when he does, he will marry me.”
“By then you will already be married.”
“I have talked to my father; I am going to do midwifery. You don’t need secondary education to do midwifery. You marry Miiro now. By the time I finish studying in two years and come back, I will be a city girl, full of airs and English, and Miiro will be attracted.”
“Yii, Alikisa.” Nsuuta was perturbed. “I am the one who chose nursing. You chose marriage. You hate hospitals. If I pass Miiro over, he might come to you. Look around these villages; which other girl is educated enough for him? But if I marry him first, you will not have a chance, even with nursing plus English. But if Miiro marries you first, I can wiggle myself into your marriage.”
Alikisa kept quiet. Nsuuta had just told her that even with the added value of education Miiro would never find her attractive. She kept quite still for a while. Then she exploded. “What if you come back after he has married me and he does not want you because you are overeducated and old?”
“Then I have lost him,” Nsuuta said flatly. “But I am not getting married yet.”
Alikisa realised then that Nsuuta was determined to go to Gayaza no matter what. But instead of saying so, she was pretending that she was giving up Miiro for her, because of their pact. She did not know how to counter this. Instead she said, “Forgive me for saying this, Nsuuta. But you know that too much reading is killing your eyes. You said yourself that sometimes you don’t see properly when you look in your books.”
“It is not the reading which causes that.”
“What will you do when the shadows in your sight come back, or words on the blackboard disappear, and I am not there to read them for you?”
“That happened a long time ago. I will read less.”
“Read less in Gayaza?” Alikisa snorted. “I guess you would speak less Lungeleza in Bungeleza.”
•
When Nsuuta told Miiro that she had decided to explore studying at Gayaza High first, he was dumbfounded. He did not understand why she had not said so from the start and had instead led him on while he had made a fool of himself across the villages. He decided Nsuuta was playing hard to get.
“Nsuuta, don’t make me beg just because you are beautiful and it makes you feel big. There are girls who would marry me before I even asked.”
“Go on then, pick one of them. After all, you can pick good women off a tree like guavas.”
“I did not say that.”
“But if you are still studying to be a farmer, why should I not study to be a nurse?”
“Because you are the woman; you don’t need more education. I do. Because a home does not need both husband and wife to work.”
“But your sister Nsangi, who is older than me, is still at Gayaza.”
“Am I asking my sister to marry me?”
“Then you have refused to understand.” Nsuuta stormed off.
The aunt was stunned. But instead of hurrying after her niece, she rushed to Miiro. “What is happening, son? I thought everything was moving very well.”
“Ask your niece. I asked for her final decision and she gave me Gayaza.”
“Gayaza? Gayaza nabaki? Leave her to me.” She made to hurry after Nsuuta, then stopped and laughed nervously. “She is only joking; don’t you know girls? They do that to test your love.”
Nsuuta told her father that it was not that she did not want to get married—“I would like to put marriage on hold and go into nursing. When I finish, I will be able to help people in this region. That is also good.” Her father was disappointed, but times were changing. A daughter studying at Gayaza, maybe even going on to become a nurse, was becoming as prestigious as having a daughter married into money. Besides, all that cleverness, all the learning Nsuuta had acquired, going to waste in Miiro’s kitchen while his sister was still at Gayaza, was not fair. Three of the boys Nsuuta used to help in class were about to join Mmengo High. Moreover, with Nsuuta’s beauty, there would always be a man dying to marry her. The Muluka indulged his daughter once again.
But not her mother. When she found out, Nsuuta’s mother let off an ear-shattering cry. “Nfudde nze! What is this you have done to us?” She oscillated between the idea that someone jealous, probably a co-wife, was standing in the way of her daughter’s marriage, and the possibility of Nsuuta being mad. Whichever it was, it could have only been achieved by sorcery. “How will I show my face in public again? The villages are laughing. We are thoroughly humiliated. Why are you doing this to us? Listen, child, men are scarce; rich men are rare, good rich men are a miracle. We women are as abundant as tomatoes at harvest. Most of us are beautiful and well groomed. But once on the market—groomed or not, beautiful or not—time is against us.”
“Then I will be a second or third wife.”
“Now listen to this child. Someone help me make her see sense! Why eat yesterday’s matooke, hardened and tasteless, when you can have fresh and soft hot matooke every day?”
Nsuuta kept quiet. In her mind, there was a third option. She would be a mistress and a nurse. Best of both worlds.
•
News that Nsuuta had turned Miiro down gripped the villages. First, there was disbelief: “It is not true; these villages are full of lies!” Then denial: “It is Miiro who changed his mind. Which girl walks away from such a marriage proposal?” Then derision: “She has chosen Gayaza over marriage? He heee, let me laugh, tsk. That is what comes out of educating girls. What a waste of brains!” Eventually, public opinion blamed Nsuuta’s looks. “She thinks she is too beautiful. Her parents indulged her; who did not see it? Now look what has happened. Kdto, Miiro has escaped: beautiful women make terrible wives.”
Overnight, Nsuuta became the fabled pretty but haughty girl in the folk tale whose beauty so went to her head she turned down all sensible suitors until a stranger, implausibly handsome, fantastically rich, and charming to the ends of the earth, came along. Even though he had come out of nowhere, the girl was determined to marry him. He is the one, she said. He is what I have been waiting for. She shrugged all caution to wait until research into the stranger’s background had been done. Guess what happened? He took her far, far away. On the way, he started to change. First the legs, then the torso, and within a month he had transformed into an ogre. When they got home to the small dark cave he called home, he began to eat her, piece by piece, until only the head was left. If it had not been for her aunt, who came to check on the state of their marriage, the girl would have been fully consumed.
Everywhere in the villages, at story time, this was the story told. Little girls, especially pretty ones, were given sharp looks.
Old folks, now vindicated, were quick to boast: “What did I tell you?” Nothing good came out of such public displays of courtship. “Love is private, between two people: why show us?” The old folk were unforgiving: “It is kopa this kopa that—do you see Europeans copying anything from us?” Now the late Kabaka Chwa’s caution about the growing trend, especially among educated Ganda, of looking down on their culture in favour of Zungucisation, resonated in the villages. When Chwa had launched his campaign of plays, songs, and poetry decrying the stupidity of looking down on one’s culture, young and rural villages like Nazigo, Nattetta, Bugiri, and Kamuli had laughed. That cau
tion was for immoral places like Entebbe and Kampala, which had no anchor in culture. But lo and behold, Zungucisation was spreading from Luutu’s house into the villages. Luckily, by the time the rumour intensified, Nsuuta had started at Gayaza High and Miiro was back at Bukalasa.
9
Gayaza High School
P.O. Box 7029
Kampala
31st Janwari 1940
Dear Alikisa,
How are you? Me, I am fine. I have been here two weeks trying to get used. This Gayaza High is so strange I don’t even know. There are all sorts of girls from all kinds of tribes you have never heard of. But firstly, tell me, how are the villages blazing with gossip about me? I even fear to come home for holidays.
Alikisa, I have never known such hunger. They give us such small portions of food we are all starving. You go to bed hungry. Girls say they want to skinny us. But how can they when we are sticks already? Apparently, in the beginning, girls used to sneak to a woman who sells cassava, but now she comes to the fence. For just one waafu she gives you so much. We sit in the dark and feast. I said, yii, this cassava we feed to the pigs at home is now the best food in the world? Then in the morning, they make us run around the field and skip rope to make us wiry and ropy—ayi. Girls complain, Who will marry us? Who has ever heard of running around in the morning? Girls say we shall get used but I doubt. I have never known this amount of hunger. My stomach has caved in.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 28