1976

Prologue

In September 1994 I turned up with my fiancé for premarital counselling at St Francis Chapel, Makerere University, Kampala. We were joined by eight more couples before the Chaplain came to address us. He told us that premarital counselling would start the following day. That afternoon, he said, was an afternoon of confession. Not confession to God. Each person had to confess to his fiancé /fiancée.

“We all have secrets but unless you are willing to share your secret with the person you are going to marry, you are not ready for marriage.” The Chaplain said. He prayed for us and then asked us to find a private place and speak openly about our past. The Chaplain warned that if we did not confess, our past would come to haunt us.

I did not just have secrets; they were big secrets. But I had buried them. I had deleted an entire year in my life and all the things that took place in that year. That year was 1976. I was twelve years old and madly in love with a girl of 15. That, in itself, can be a painful experience. To love the same girl with your best friend, 6 months older than you would be strange in the very least. For both of you to sincerely believe that you will share her as your wife when you have grown up would be insane. To have the girl snatched away from you by a 35 year old man would be devastating. To find out that she willingly gave herself would be traumatizing. How do you cope when that girl then dies? But more than all these, what do you do with yourself when you know you caused her death? How do you live with yourself? Yet all these things happened to me in 1976; the year I joined a new school. It was the year I was to have my second attempt at the national Primary Leaving Exams (PLE) to join secondary school. It was also the year when Amin’s excesses had brought the country down to its knees and famine was still ravaging the hills of Bulucheke, at the foothills of Mount Elgon in eastern Uganda. At just 12 I joined hundreds of people who smuggled coffee across Mount Elgon and in the process I almost lost my life. But it was also the year I went through a betrothal and got engaged to be married to a 6 year old girl, much to my embarrassment and utter helplessness. It was the year I had just come back from Malandu after two very traumatic years.

1976 was a very bad year. I would not wish such a year on anyone at all. Did other people have their own 1976s? Later I was to learn that such years exist and are called annus horribilis. 1976 was my annus horribilis.

How do you deal with the memory of events that happen in your annus horribilis? I chose to bury them. I buried those memories so deep that they would never hurt me again. I made sure the wounds would never be reopened.

Sitting in the back pews of St Francis Chapel in September 1994 when my fiancé asked me “if I had anything to declare” I smiled warmly and told her that I did not. And all was well until June of 2014.

In June 2014 my wife and I went for a Rotary Convention in Sydney, Australia. We had signed for a preconvention tour and together with other Rotarians from Uganda, had a wonderful time. We drove across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, stopped over at Milson’s point to admire Darling Harbour and the Opera House and had then headed out to Arabanoo Lookout and Manly Beach. It had been a dream tour so far. And then, suddenly, on the beach, I walked into a ghost of 1976. In my excitement I did not look where I was going and collided with a lady.

“Excuse me!” she said angrily.

“I am so sorry,” I said.

I released my wife’s hand and turned to her. She was a tall, slender built black lady. She was dressed in a black blouse and immaculately pressed white trousers. She held a pair of open shoes in her left hand. Her right hand, which was outstretched towards me, was empty. In a flash I noticed a handbag in the sand. It must have dropped when we collided.

“Excuse me madam. I did not see you.” I apologised again.

I bent down to pick the bag for her. Reacting instinctively, she also stooped to pick the bag. In the process, we collided again. The second collision set her off balance and she fell down. She let go of the shoes in her left hand and wanted to use it to cushion the fall but it was too late. She fell awkwardly, splashing sand over her clothes and into her hair. Meanwhile I now had the handbag in my hands. The lady recovered quickly and turned to confront me. I was in the meantime moving towards her and wondering whether I could give her a hand to get up and then give her the handbag. I do not think she understood my gesture.

“Give it back!” she shouted as soon as she got on her feet.

She had a grimacing look when she turned towards me, her hand outstretched. She seemed like she was going to shout at me but when she looked at my face she froze. At just about the same time the apology drained from my mouth when I looked at her face. I was looking at a face of a ghost! There was something haunting about her. She was in her early fifties and looked to be a lady with means but there was no mistaking that this was a person from the dead. A strong chill went down my entire body. I could sense that I was shaking uncontrollably. A white gentleman and probably her husband, who was a short distance from her, ran to her alarmed, shouting something I did not understand. It seemed to me that everyone around was shouting and gesticulating. They probably assumed that I had knocked her intentionally and wanted to grab her handbag and run off with it. I tried to explain that it was an accident but the words could not come out.

I heard my wife and the Rotarians run towards us, asking in chorus what was going on. The white gentleman ran to the lady and one look at her face sent him into shock. Only a while back the beach had been peaceful and everyone was having a great time. Within a few minutes there was, now, chaos all over the place. Some of the people were running away while others were running towards us. I saw security men run from different directions and within seconds they had grabbed me. One of them kicked my legs and I saw myself as if in slow motion fall down. Everything happened so quickly? I felt my hands being pulled towards my back. Someone pulled the handbag from me, and I was handcuffed... Everything happened so, so quickly!

Did these people think I was a thief? Did they think that I had wanted to grab this lady’s handbag and run? Would they descend upon me in mob justice like most of our people do in Uganda? Surely they must have seen that it was an accident. But who was this lady? Why didn’t someone say something? This was not a dream, was it? What a humiliation! What were the Ugandan Rotarians thinking? Did they also think that I could have wanted to grab a lady’s handbag?

I raised my face to see what was going on. I saw the white gentleman walk to the lady and hold her hand tenderly.

“What is happening here, honey?”

The security men pulled me up turned me to face the lady. A thin smile broke from the edge of her mouth.

“Samusoni” She said as if to herself. “Samusoni...” She repeated, a little louder, the smile gentling broader as she relaxed.

No one called me Samusoni. That is the Lugisu translation of my name Samson. It is a name I shortened to Sam many, many years ago. Hardly do I answer to Samson except on official documents. As for Samusoni, only the old folk back in Bulucheke, in Bugisu, Eastern Uganda ever refer to me as Samusoni.

“What are you saying, Honey”? Pleaded the lady’s companion.

“He was my classmate”, she replied.

Classmate? What is she talking about? Who are these people?

“Many years ago. 1976 to be exact. It is such a shock finding him here.” Her voice was now almost a whisper.

“Madam, do you want to file a complaint?” asked one security man.

“No thanks,” she replied. “It was an accident”

“Are you sure?” Asked the security man.

“Yes, I am sure.” The lady confirmed.

The security men handed her the handbag and uncapped the handcuffs.

“Okay honey. Let us go now.” Said her companion. “Let’s get away from here.”

He put his arm around her and guided her away. The security men released me. I was totally disoriented and still in deep shock and unable to take in what had just happened. A few steps later, the lady turned, looked at me and said in Lugisu, my native language and Bulucheke dialect; “Isese Jennifer”, meaning “I am Jennifer.”

There was a look of triumph on her face when she said those words. She was not introducing herself; she was driving a dagger into a vanquished enemy. I am Jennifer; she said. That is all she said to me. She expected rather than hoped I would understand the weight of those words. As she turned to walk away it seemed to me that she carried herself with poise, gaiety and pride of someone who had just realised the impact of a big victory, a victory that finally settled so many scores.

Indeed, I immediately felt the weight of the punch that she had thrown. Here, on the beautiful Manly Beach in Australia, thousands of miles away from home, and a very big contrast from the rugged hills of Bulucheke where I grew up, I confronted a ghost of my past. The excitement that had built up and the expectations I had had for coming to Australia all came crushing down. Before my wife and the entire Rotary team from Uganda, I had been humiliated by the impression given that I was a petty thief but this did not come anywhere close to the impact of those two words; Isese Jennifer.

It couldn’t be! Jennifer died!

Jennifer died!

Jennifer died! And I was responsible for her death!

I was immediately transported back some thirty eight years to 1976 and to a world I had worked so hard to obliterate from my memory and pretended it was just a bad dream. Living with the knowledge that I was responsible for the death of a youthful life, that my selfishness, stupidity and lack of consideration led to Jennifer’s death, was the biggest burden that I had carried since 1976. Many a time I wished I could change back the clock and un-write what had been written. I have cried. I have repented. But that did not diminish my guilt. Eventually, I dug a big pit, threw that guilt in it and buried it deep. But that pit walked with me. Wherever I went it followed me. It tormented me. It reminded me of things I desperately wanted to forget. Nearly forty years later I was convinced that it would never hurt me again. I had run away from it all; it was a long time ago and in a faraway place. In Australia, just when I was celebrating the happiest moments of my life, the past caught up with me.

That evening, my wife asked again if I had anything to declare.

“Yes,” I replied. “1976.”

“What is that?”

“There are things that happened in 1976 that I need to tell you.” I said soberly.