by Jessica Yu
“My neighbor is growing passionfruit,” Gladys commented.
“There is a lot of money in passionfruit.”
“Ah-hah. But I now can’t start copying my neighbor.”
Mike blinked, incredulous. “Who tells you you can’t grow passionfruit? You are not copying!”
“Is it okay?”
“Yes,” Esther assured her with a smile. “It is not copying.”
A slight incline led them to a section of maize. The stalks had grown, but like many of Gladys’s children, they were small and thin for their age.
“I think the soil is not so good for maize,” Gladys observed.
“No, it’s not the soil,” Mike said, tapping at the ground with a toe of his oxford, which somehow remained shiny despite the dirt. “As long as you put fertilizer in every single hole you are planting in.”
“In every hole?”
“Yes. When you plant maize, put fertilizer with the seed.”
Gladys sighed. “Ah, I haven’t applied any fertilizer.”
There was so much she did not know. So much she did not even know to ask. Digging in her grandparents’ garden was very different from planning three acres of her own.
A figure came jogging up the path toward them.
“Eh, Mommy!”
“Eh, Zam-u!”
The women greeted each other warmly, and Gladys introduced Zam to Mike. “Zam was pregnant when I met her. And now she has a one-year-old. So this is our baby!”
Zam swiveled around to display the child on her hip. Baby Maria was a serious, long-faced child. Her hair sprouted in wild tufts above her scalp, and her forehead dimpled at the inner ends of her eyebrows. The effect was an air of perpetual consternation. In contrast, her mother radiated self-assurance. At twenty-three, Zam was full of an energy that was youthful but not giddy; she could stand perfectly erect even with twenty pounds of baby on one arm. Hers was an earthy attractiveness; she had full lips, strong teeth, and a smattering of bumps on her cheeks. Her best feature was her eyes, with their sleepy lids and subtle feline slant. A rose-colored knit cap covered her hair; a small stud decorated her nose. Her words flowed out in bright, measured bursts, like the songs of birds that have already claimed their territory.
“I have no problem working in the gardens,” she said. With her free arm, she squeezed Gladys to her side. “Because my mother Gladys is here. I did not imagine that I would be in this position, but God has got his own ways. He has got his miracles.”
Disengaging from each other, the women wasted no time in turning to the business of the day. Zam presented her needs with the orderliness of an accountant.
Baby Maria was sick. She was suffering from fever and diarrhea; Zam needed money for antimalarial medicine. In terms of the garden work, her progress on the bean planting had been slowed by the thorny bushes. She only had plastic slippers; she needed boots. Her panga was too dull to slash the weeds; she needed a file for sharpening the blade. The second panga was missing, and Kiviri had not delivered the two hoes he had promised.
Then there was the issue of the matoke planting. Gladys had sent Kiviri money to purchase and plant 140 of the banana seedlings. Zam claimed the lot was short by two dozen.
“Did you count them?” Esther demanded to know.
“I counted them. This man is not doing the right thing.” Since Zam had arrived, she had reported many problems with the landlord: unfinished work, undelivered supplies, and pilferage.
“But as I tell you, that is what you must expect when you are not around,” Gladys said with a sigh.
Mike nodded. “And that’s when you have to weigh the balance of, do you raise hell?”
“Also, look there.” Zam pointed out a section of field where there were ragged holes interrupting neat rows of crops. “The rain was very heavy and loosened the soil around the cassava, so people could come and just pluck them out.”
Gladys gasped. With the cassava still a year from harvest, thieves had stolen entire plants.
“There is one I suspect of stealing the cassava,” Zam declared. She had followed a trail of muddy footsteps to a neighbor’s door. “I will deal with them. But I am really praying that the house will be quickly finished so I can start sleeping here. Then I can keep an eye on things, and they will never again be able to trespass.”
“Ah-hahh . . .” Gladys seconded.
“They watch me,” Zam said, annoyance tightening her mouth. “I leave at eleven a.m. to go and cater for the child, and by the time I come back they’ve already slipped in here and raided the maize.”
At Gladys’s feet, the remaining cassava plants looked vulnerable, their broad, flat leaves reaching up like open, trusting hands.
“So your biggest problem is people who are stealing.”
“Yes. But I will deal with them,” Zam said again, almost cheerfully.
“If you know that thieves are after the maize, can you sell it before it is stolen?”
“What I think: we shouldn’t sell the raw maize,” Zam replied. “We should grind it into flour. We need to sell the processed flour, not just the maize itself.”
Listening a few paces away, Mike gave a grunt of approval.
Most of all, Zam went on, she really needed a bicycle, because her rented room was a long walk away from both the gardens and clean water, and she could not always borrow the neighbor’s bike.
“Can she ride a bicycle?” Mike asked Gladys, noting the girl’s long skirt.
“I hold the baby in front and carry the beans on my back,” Zam answered, her smile wide, almost cocky. She shrugged. “It is the only way to manage.”
Gladys absorbed Zam’s narrative without challenge or protest; the girl’s requests were reasonable, if beyond her employer’s current resources. As they moved back down the path, the ransacked fields behind them and the foundation of the house before them, Gladys paused.
“Now, Zam, I want you to know that your money will be made from here. You know I can’t look after this place from far away.” Gladys spoke deliberately, she and the young woman holding each other’s gaze. Even Maria stared unblinkingly at her big jjajja, this grandmother who had entered her young life. “So you are in charge here. I want you to be developmental. Be creative.”
Zam allowed a moment to show that she had absorbed this message, then launched into a series of proposals: the best path for the road was here; the sandy soil over there was good for potatoes. She pointed to an area with some spindly trees. “Those are of no use to the garden. You should cut them down for charcoal.”
Gladys agreed that the trees in question were unproductive, but added, “If we get rid of those trees, we have to make sure we plant other ones. You don’t just cut trees down without replacing them.”
“If you burn those trees for charcoal, the byproduct will provide nutrients for the soil. You can plant small eggplants,” Zam suggested. “The ones that bring a lot of money.”
“Yes,” Mike concurred. “It’s a good idea.”
Esther stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind her back, observing the conversation. Mike gave her an appraising glance, perhaps detecting in her some coolness toward Zam, a bit of skepticism that the girl could deliver on all she promised. Or perhaps just impatience to visit her own garden.
They paused by one of the trees slated for the ax; the garden, with its young plants, provided little shade. Gladys mopped at her face with a damp square of handkerchief.
“Mike, tell me what you think of this.” Although he was hired to assist on these journeys, he had become her friend, and she valued his wise and worldly counsel. “I didn’t make a mistake, coming out to Luwero?”
“Not at all.” Mike’s tone was emphatic. “Not at all. It’s a brilliant idea, and this girl, she’s a gem. I’m telling you. She’s knowledgeable, and she’s got a force. You know, the A she has got from me right away is when you asked her to sell the raw maize. But she said no, it’s best to make flour out of the maize. That is very brilliant. Because when y
ou make and sell flour, you get three times the price. I like her. She’ll be fantastic.”
Gladys glowed. “By the way, Mike, I am also happy that she loves what she’s doing.”
“It is rare,” he said admiringly. “It is rare to get a girl like that.”
“A girl from the city, too!”
Mike nodded, gesturing toward a large patch of earth bordered by uprooted weeds. “Do you know she dug all this place today?”
“She is a very hard-working woman,” said Gladys. “I want to encourage her to take responsibility, and make some money out of this place.”
THEY SOON REACHED their second destination, a couple of miles down the road. Esther went off to survey her gardens, which, being directly adjacent to decent neighbors, had not suffered significantly from theft. Gladys gazed wistfully at the neighbors’ compound, with its shady huts and plump red chickens and furry black-and-white goats and bougainvillea so pink and bright it made the eyes water. It was a vision of what she hoped for her own land.
The small building with Zam’s rented room stood nearby. How was her city girl getting along in this out-of-the-way place? With no family, no husband to help her with the child? Would she soon complain of exhaustion, of loneliness, of boredom?
“Zam-u!” Gladys called. “I want to see where you and the baby are sleeping. Show me.”
The girl led the way, setting Maria on the veranda before opening the door to her room. As Gladys stepped over the threshold, what she found there both touched and astonished her.
She explained the discovery to Mike as they waited at the car for Esther. “Zam is a serious girl, Mike,” Gladys said. “I gave her money to buy one mattress. But in that tiny room are two mattresses! I asked her, ‘Where did you get the second one?’
“She said, ‘Mommy, you said I need to get in partnership with you. You said we need to get serious about making money for the children. So when I went back home, I carried all of my belongings here. I am now a village girl! I no longer have anything in town, not even my mattress.’ I was left with no words.” Gladys shook her head, marveling. “I was speechless, you know? What do you say—‘the ball is in your hands’?”
“‘The ball is in your court,’” Mike corrected.
“It will be up to me to fail, is that what it means?”
“Yes. The ball is in your court.”
“So it is up to me to fail the project, as she has shown me that she is ready. My God. Do you know what it means for someone to . . .” She fumbled for words.
The room had been neatly furnished with mats and sheets and even a lacy white curtain. Gladys was accustomed to others looking to her for resources, not entrusting her with their own. This girl was investing in her as heavily as she had invested in the gardens. Even more so, as Zam had a child!
“Her last comment to me: ‘You see, I’ve come with everything! Just help me by completing that house, for me to be near.’ Oh my God. She has given me a challenge. Oof!”
“You have the right person,” Mike concluded. “You have the right person.”
AS THEY PUTTERED down the dirt path to the main road, Mike seemed as energized as if the gardens were his own project. Assisting Gladys was no ordinary job; he could not help but feel invested.
“Gladys, so, you have kids that need support, right? That means that whatever you put on that land must be so smartly done.”
“You mean like you were telling me to add fertilizer to every planting.”
“Yes. Whatever you put on an acre, make sure you get at least eighty percent full yield. Even from one acre you can get a good profit. You can get four million shillings a month from an acre in this place here.”
“What a great dream this sounds like.” Gladys sighed with delight.
“So the only task now is to cultivate smart,” said Mike, tapping the steering wheel for emphasis. “You must plan. A half an acre of this, half an acre of that. And all your problems about your children’s support will be history. Those kids will never lack.”
“That’s some good advice. I will be fierce—I must be focused!” Gladys thrust her jaw forward and snorted. “I will be the second person in Uganda with vision—as you know, we have only one person here with a vision.”
“Museveni.” For years the president’s supporters had promoted him as Uganda’s “man with a vision.”
“The only vision bearer. Until today!”
They giggled like primary school kids.
“Well now, Mike, you have seen Gladys’s project in Luwero. We will very soon be looking at a house there! Imagine when the house is completed. It will be celebrations!” Gladys sang. “Mike, we will sit and eat cassava, eat what-what.”
The Volvo sailed down the main road. What a good road it was, blacktop as smooth as a church pew.
“Finish the building quickly,” he urged, laughing. “Quickly!”
The Lost Smile
It was a Sunday, so the traffic on the way to Jinja, some fifty miles east of Kampala, had not been too bad. Still, in the towns the vehicles collectively slowed, as though weary of dodging potholes. Ferrying Gladys and Esther, Mike’s trusty Volvo rolled by chapati stands, a colorful army of dress-shop mannequins, and hand-painted wall advertisements for Fun All the Time soda. In front of a furniture shop, bored young men perched on a wooden bed frame like refugees stranded on a raft.
Abruptly a blast of sound shot through the car’s open windows. “He can’t find it!” screamed an amplified voice. “He is looking, but he can’t find what he is looking for!”
A bibanda proprietor had positioned a speaker outside his video club, hoping to entice passersby to peek through the dark door. Gladys glanced over at the old wooden speaker, which vibrated with urgency and bursts of antiaircraft fire. “He found it! Rambo is firing!” the translator shouted in Luganda. “He has hit one! He has shot down one plane! Rambo! Rambo!”
“Rambo is still fighting,” Mike said, chuckling. Though it was the middle of the day, no doubt there were patrons inside the club. The towns offered a variety of escapes for young men with a few shillings: action movies; sports betting; waragi, the cheap, potent alcohol that could be bought in small plastic packets like children’s juice; and khat, the herb that was both stimulant and appetite suppressant. Chewed with a wad of Big G bubblegum, a handful of leaves could make a mealtime—indeed, half a day—pass with little notice.
Gladys paid scant attention to the ruckus of Rambo’s bad day. Her life contained too much excitement already. With all the dumped babies and defiled girls and hostile administrators and corrupt officials and kids with abusive parents and hydrocephalus and AIDS, there was no corner of her mind that required the arousal of exploding fighter jets. Life was not boring, if one did not shy away from the type of drama that lasted for longer than two hours.
With today’s case, the drama had started a year ago.
THE CHILDREN, two girls and a boy, had come to the New Vision offices in Kampala with their mother, Susan Nabugwere. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday. The family encountered only security personnel, who told Susan, “There is only one person who can help you. Her name is Gladys. But you will have to come back tomorrow.”
With one blanket and no money, mother and children spent the night outside, on the veranda of Club Silk, a nearby disco.
When Gladys arrived at the office, she was shocked to learn that the gaunt old woman waiting to meet her was only thirty-five. She looked closer to fifty-five. Between coughing fits, Susan explained that three weeks earlier her husband, a stone quarry worker, had died. She was acutely ill with TB and probably, as her husband had been, with AIDS.
After her husband’s coworkers buried him, they realized that if Susan died as well, three orphans would be left on their hands. They took up a collection to send her and the children back to her hometown of Njeru.
It had been almost two decades since Susan had lived in Njeru. For days she wandered and slept on the streets with her three kids, but she could locate no path to h
er past. Finally she found the widow of a witch doctor who had treated her when she was a teen. The widow took pity on the exhausted family and took them into her home.
As her condition worsened, Susan insisted on traveling to the New Vision offices in Kampala to plead for assistance for her children: her son, Alex, nine, and her daughters, Annet and Mercy, six and five.
What gave Susan Nabugwere the strength to make that last journey? She must have accepted that her time was running out. One week after telling her story to Gladys, she was dead.
OVER THE FOLLOWING YEAR, the three children remained with the witch doctor’s widow, and Gladys wrote about their plight. One day she received a call from Pastor Frederick Shimanya of Young Hearts Orphanage in Jinja District, not far from Njeru town. The pastor said he would take the girls, Annet and Mercy, but his home did not accept boys. He thought he might be able to find an American couple to adopt Alex.
Gladys demurred on the adoption point and requested that he take all three siblings. Pastor Frederick eventually agreed, on the understanding that he and Gladys would discuss the children’s future when she visited Young Hearts. Not knowing this pastor, she did not wish to conduct such an important conversation over the phone. One had to see what was what with one’s own eyes.
So here she, Esther, and Mike were now, branching from the highway onto sketchy back roads near Jinja. Gladys tossed her thoughts back and forth in the creaking car, musing over Pastor Frederick’s adoption suggestion. Many people seemed to feel that for a Ugandan orphan, securing a foreign adoption was the equivalent of winning the lottery. Pastor Frederick had said as much when she had not embraced his plan for Alex: “Don’t you think that you might be denying him a better life?”
Admittedly, Gladys’s opinions on adoption were colored by a recent case. Over the past two years she had repeatedly profiled a lost boy held at a government home. A boda driver had found the crying toddler near the Northern Bypass and taken him to Old Kampala Police Station. No one could get much out of him, not even a name. As with many lost children before him, the boy became Mukisa, for “lucky.”