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 sympathising 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… (TO BE CONTINUED)
***
Well, well, that was another jaribu (tasting) picked from the unputdownable
novel ‘TEARS OF MY MOTHER; The Success Story of Nyamishana, the First Female
President of Uganda’ (a book popularly known as #Nyamishana), authored
by ROBERT BAKE TUMUHAISE. A copy goes for Shs 20,000. Call Bake directly on
0704666851 / 0712868424 or Winnie on 0774107287 to have your copy of this
amazing inspirational book delivered to you TODAY! Yes, in Kampala delivery is
free of charge! You can also physically come and get your copy from WORLD OF
INSPIRATION office at MM Plaza T33. Stay inspired.
