OH LOVE, DRY MY TEARS

By Robert Bake Tumuhaise

Three years down the road, Nyamishana was getting mad at Uganda’s education system. It had not taught her to create her own job; it had instead prepared her to look for a job, which she wasn’t finding. To her surprise, two of the girls she had completed with, who were even poor performers in class, had secured juicy jobs a month after campus.

Puzzled at the magic those girls had used, Kay furnished her with an explanation. They had accepted to sleep with their bosses. As Nyamishana continued to dig deeper, she discovered this was a common practice both in the public offices and in the private sector. Ladies were using their bodies while men were bribing to get and maintain their jobs.

“Even if everyone is doing it, that doesn’t make it right,” Nyamishana kept reasoning and because of this attitude, which she believed was the only right attitude, she never got a serious job. Those who hired her often did so for a small amount of money that could not sustain her in the city, and even then, most of them would later demand for sex or else she would have to quit the job. As expected, she always chose the latter.

As life became tougher and rougher, Nyamishana opted out of the single room she had co-rented with a friend.

As a graduate, she felt ashamed of going to the village to ask her old mother for money. “Abomination!” she thought. “The only remaining option is going to stay at Uncle Gerald’s home temporarily as I continue to hunt for a stable job.”

Gerald received her warmly and life went on until one fateful night when she felt a hand groping for her breast. She thought she was dreaming but on opening her eyes she saw a figure next to her.

“Someone help. Someone help me, please,” she alarmed at the top of her voice.

“There’s no one here to help you,” whispered a familiar voice.

“Your auntie hasn’t returned from the village. It’s only you and I in the game.”

“Uncle Gerald, so it’s you doing this to me?”

Switching on the light he assured her: “We either do it here and now, or tomorrow first thing in the morning you pack your things and get out of my house.”

Nyamishana found herself taking the absurd option – seeking Ruth’s help. Against her advice, Ruth had married Timothy, a wealthy widower who was now in his late sixties. He had built her a mansion.

After sympathizing with her over her situation, Ruth gave her a boys-quarter where she would stay as she “looked for her own husband to look after her,” as Ruth put it.

The four years after school were beginning to feel like decades. Wrinkles dug through Nyamishana’s beautiful face. No matter how hard she tried to devise means of changing her situation, she felt like someone fighting with a wall.

“But, Nyamishana, can’t you find a rich husband to end this misery?” Ruth kept nagging. Once Ruth started complaining you would understand why King Solomon said it’s better to live on the rooftop than to live in the same house with a nagging woman. You could think she was using your ear as her microphone.

Nyamishana began to feel the need for a husband, though not for the money as Ruth believed. She needed a man’s love to wash away the painful tears off her heart. That’s how Ben managed to snake his way into her life. Ben had watched her closely at the university, but she looked too good for him. Her character made her look like a ripe fruit on a tree that’s too high for anyone to climb.

After hearing of her situation, Ben connived with Ruth who introduced him to Nyamishana as “a distant relative coming from a humble and God-fearing family.”

At the advice of Ruth, Ben started accompanying Nyamishana to weekly prayer meetings at Christ The king Church. Soon, the two were becoming close friends.

When it came to the point of revealing his intention to Nyamishana, Ruth reminded Ben: “The secret to her heart is humor and poetry. If you can befriend Kay, the-Rib-Cracker, then you will be in the game.”

Ben went out looking for Kay until he found him at the bus park, working with Fly Coaches. Though Ben could see Kay was a drunkard, he could also see that he was undoubtedly a very intelligent man.

After buying him a glass of wine, Ben shot in the first question: “What’s the secret of winning a woman’s heart?”

“My newly-found friend, I advise you to stop trying to understand a woman’s heart if you want to remain sane.”

“I am already insane; there’s one woman driving me crazy, who happens to be your friend, Nyamishana.”

“Nyamishana? Are you sure you want to try this? She is a very principled and prayerful woman. I doubt that you will measure up to the task.”

“Look, we are already friends. All I need is to know which words to use as I propose a relationship with her.”

Kay sipped on his drink and warned: “A woman is like a rose flower, when you touch the wrong side you get pierced. She is also like a mobile telephone; when you touch the right button, you are connected, but when you touch the wrong button you get disconnected.”

“But now that I am with Kay, the Rib-Cracker, I am sure I will not touch the wrong button.”

“I will tell you how to pull the right strings and Nyamishana’s heart will dance to the melody of your music.”

Kay was added another glass of wine. “Now that you know her well, tell me some of the best lines I should use,” Ben asked. And for the next one hour, in between sips of wine, Kay gave Ben several pick-up lines and some useful information about Nyamishana.

Ben was not a bad student.

In a few days’ time he was already blowing her mind with sweet nothings: “Nyamishana, your other name must be Google because you have everything I’ve been searching for. You make me grow wings that fly me to another world. You make my heart dance angelic strokes. And I have a feeling that left by yourself on a day of load-shedding you can cause the room to shine since your face is like the noon-day sun.”

Ben’s humor rang bells of love that were too loud for her heart to ignore. For each joke he was gaining more ground in her life. Jokes seemed to have the power to evict all sadness from her heart. Perhaps she had never felt like this before. His voice seemed to open a door into a whole new world where she could reach the moon without moving and count stars with her eyes closed.

Love is like the smell of mukene fish; it’s not easy to hide it. Nyamishana now looked as happy as a campus girl carrying a paper-bag full of chips and chicken. The writing was clear on the wall. She herself admitted to Ruth: “At long last this is it. I am falling in love. Falling so fast that nothing can hold me back.” This was the best time for Ben to propose marriage.

“If I had the ability to fly into the sky, I’d take you along so I could watch you sit on the cloud and I would add your name on the colours of the rainbow. Today, the Igwe in me bows before the Queen in you. I wanna be your Jack Bauer when you are in trouble, your Bill Gates when you have bills to clear and your Salvador Cerinza when you need to be loved. Let me be your doctor, your pillow and your blanket. Nyamishana, marry me.”

With these words, a rare vibration ran through her spinal cord. Before she knew it, she had already surrendered her most treasured possession – the heart. By this time she had made up her mind or her mind had been made up for her. She accepted Ben’s proposal and soon marriage arrangements were in a high gear.

From the very start, Nyamishana’s mother, Hannah, was against this relationship, but things were happening so fast. Six months later, Benedict Bakirwa and Nyamishana wedded at St. Augustine Catholic Chapel, Makerere. The guests proceeded to Livingstone Gardens for a reception that was marked by great eating, drinking, and jubilation.

While Hannah and the other guests were still fascinated by the entertainers from an acrobatic group who were dancing as if they either had no bones or their bones were made of rubber band, Kay, the Rib-Cracker showed up. He startled everybody as he recited ‘You are my World’, a poem he had composed to honor the occasion.

You are my World.
In loneliness I yawned,
Weeping for the missing love,
East to West, North to South my heart loomed,
My puzzle remained incomplete,
I wasted away in the anguish of sorrow.

Panting, I soared through the violent skies,
Deathly valleys I descended,
Bleeding rivers I crossed,
Looking for my missing rib,
My love, my heartbeat.

In the silence of the night I poured out my heart,
Prostrate on the ground, I prayed to my God,
And in the freshness of the morning breeze,
My eyes were opened, and behold, Gertrude stood!
Bone of my bone, flesh from my flesh.

In you, Flower of Beauty, I saw God’s art displayed,
Beholding your beauty and wisdom I trembled,
A sensation of gladness saturated my soul,
It tickled me deep, deep inside,
Touching where no one else has ever touched.

In all human treasures, what can melt your heart?
Shall I get us wings and we fly to the sky?
Shall I take you to the mountains, far away?
And whisper a word into your ear?
Yes! That word is ‘You are my World’.

This excerpt was picked from my new wowlicious and unputdownable inspirational novel that every African MUST read - 'TEARS OF MY MOTHER: The Success Story of Nyamishana, the First Female President of Uganda'. A copy goes for 20,000/= only. If you are in Kampala, delivery is free. Outside Kampala, we send your copy by bus, Post Office, EMS or any other preferred method.

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