Nothing to See Here

By Hilda Twongyeirwe

In Nothing to See Here, sixteen African women writers ably deal with the politics of nationhood and identity, and the burden and beauty of womanity. From the serious, to the absurd to the seriously absurd, these stories will leave you pondering, crying and laughing as you travel from East Africa to Southern Africa through to West Africa. A beautiful collection with 16 well-written, well-plotted stories from 16 amazing African female storytellers. - Zukiswa Warnner

• Language: English
• Publisher: Femrite Publications
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9789970480067

Hilda Twongyeirwe

Hilda grew up in Kacerere village, in Kabale district. She has co-edited two publications aimed at making heard voices of marginalized women; Farming Ashes (2008) and Beyond the Dance (2009). She has also contributed short stories and poems in different anthologies including; A Woman’s Voice (1998), Words From a Granary (2001), Tears of Hope (2003), Pumpkin Seeds and Other Stories (2009), Talking Tales (2009), Painted Voices (2008 & 2009) and Butterfly Dance (2010). She has published children’s books in Runyankore- Rukiga courtesy of Longhorn publishers. In 2008 she was awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the National Book Trust of Uganda for outstanding contribution to children’s literature for her book Fina the Dancer (2007). Fina the Dancer is used as a Reader in Primary Schools in Rwanda. Hilda holds a Diploma in Education, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Social Sciences and an MA in Public Administration and Management from Makerere University. She is currently the Coordinator of FEMRITE – Uganda Women Writers Association.

Book preview

Authors

ALWAYS THE HEAD

Melissa Kiguwa

We chew over every piece of small talk until it sits like stale curd at the back of our mouths. Through our ruminations, we stumble upon my father’s name (father defined as the one who gave sperm and five years). Stretched on the bed, I put the telephone on the pillow and place my ear on top of it so that I do not have to hold it anymore. I think, mostly, the name Ngenyo is useless to me at this point in my life, I say into the mouthpiece. I do not know what it means or where it comes from. And I get so embarrassed when the questions, ‘Where is your name from? What does your name mean?’ come and I have no answers. I cannot be this old and still be dealing with identity shame.

I can hear her smile. You could try and find out, she tells me. Then we both laugh. What hadn’t we done to try and reach out to my father’s side? Results had yielded stalkers masquerading as cousins, clan meetings convened without me to begin the process of resuming a long-standing ritual, and truths about my own grandfather who had long ago disowned everybody in his family and refused to give me any information. She speaks after our laughter has subsided: at least Facebook brought about some interesting results.

About two years ago I found a Ruth Ngenyo on Facebook and we began communicating. She was feminist and radical and we took to one another right away. At that same time I had just received acceptance for a fellowship at the University of Witwatersrand and she was one of the fellowship instructors. We figured it fate and chatted on and off about school, romance, finding one’s place, and this lost tribe of people called the Ngenyos. Even she had no linkages to our people, and I accepted that perhaps my people were like that: brilliant and the most clichéd type of isolationist.

My mother visited South Africa that same year and took along baby clothes as a present for Ruth’s expectant sister. I remember her nervousness before she set off on the trip. Solo, I know she is having a boy, but I bought a yellow baby suit . . . I just know how you feminists are. I figured if I got the baby something blue, Ruth and her sister may think I am trying to socialise the baby into mainstream masculinity. I laughed at her words until the credit on the phone ran out.

Ahh, Ngenyo, Ngenyo, my mother interrupts my thoughts. We have tried and tried and tried to get your grandfather to give us more information. To give us a link, a name, even a number—anything that would give you an anchor. I sigh into the phone.

During my childhood, my mother and I talked constantly about Joseph Ngenyo. I have memories of him before their separation, a quiet man with glasses that remind me of pictures of Patrice Lumumba. Then there are the memories of him after their separation; these are patchy. Was it really him, flighty and hostile, banging at our door in London with police officers behind him? I visited him about five times after they separated, each time meeting him in a new residence. Once in someone’s garage, another time in a friend’s guest room, and the other three places are silhouettes I cannot place. At the time, I tried to understand him and why he left. And when I wanted to move back to London many years later, I remember his letter, a rejection of the daughter who has his eyes. My mother would tell me all kinds of stories trying to convince me I was still loved and appreciated and wanted by this Houdini of a man she had married.

The pictures of my mother during this time show a shell. Her cheeks sunken, legs the size of twigs. She laughs when she sees I still carry those pictures in my wallet. You surely are a weird child, Solo. Why you would want to keep pictures of such an ugly woman! Look, you can even see the bones under my eyes! And she laughs again, probably because these days her cheeks are full and his name rarely comes up.

I do not know when we stopped referring to Joseph Ngenyo outside of family reunions with aunties who had not seen me in years. I suppose his name became scarce because we had other things to do. Full-time jobs, cousins giving birth, friends whose families were disintegrating. We had little time to ruminate over people who leave. I learnt, first from my mother, to fill the memory of emptiness through one-way tickets to places further and further away from the cradle of betrayal.

As though hearing my thoughts straying, my mother asks whether I will change both of my names to make Solome into something more traditional and African-y. I laugh. No, seriously Solo, she says, I know it’s what’s hip with the pan-Africanists. I’m just waiting to read a poem somewhere by Olumide Ngenyo formerly known as Solome. I laugh again, this time from somewhere deep.

Olumide is so far from my reality, Mama! If you ever read a poem by Olumide Ngenyo formerly known as Solome, please give me a nice big mscheeew slap over the phone. She giggles.

But, like many lessons learnt from my mother, I understand that simply because someone is attached to you does not mean they want all the details. I wonder about telling her of my intention to hyphenate my name. Well, I start shyly, I know it is about ten years overdue, but I’ve been thinking about hyphenating my last name.

Really? she asks. Well, yeah. Everyone knows me as Ngenyo, but again, it is just a sound. Consonants and vowels strung together, no meaning. But Chindama, well, that is the name of the man who raised me. Who played dad and who has seen me grow. While it is still too patrilineal for my liking, I would like to take dad’s name (dad defined as the one who raised me).

Wow, she says. I don’t know if I ever thought those words would come from your mouth. She chuckles: the both of you gave me hell you know. The way you would fight each other . . . and now come to find out you’re really the same person. Stubborn and hard-headed. I laugh and ask, that is not such a bad thing, is it? She says, I suppose not. It has gotten us this far, right? I nod as though she can see me. It has gotten us far . . . Ngenyo-Chindama. I say, it all seems so ceremonial, changing my name. It seems like a lot of work. I was thinking of just getting rid of the Ngenyo altogether. Maybe taking on your name. Mayanja-Chindama.

I hear her nodding. Yeah, she says, your younger cousin did that. We all know her dad is useless, so when she decided to take our family name no one said anything. Now she is Agnes Rurangirwa. But she had that insight quite young. The problem in your case is people have known you as Ngenyo since you were a child. You know in school no one knew my name was Peace, they called me Sarah Mulungi. When I left school I went by Peace Mayanja, and after I got married to your father I became Peace Ngenyo. And then I got married to dad and now I am Peace Chindama. I’ve lost a lot of connections and contacts simply because people cannot find me. They do not know my name.

I want to process through the depth of what she has just said. Constantly changing identities. Not knowing one’s name. Loss. But she prompts me to continue speaking to my naming process and I put my questions on the backburner for a later conversation. What of Solome? she asks. Are you going to keep Solome?

I have definitely thought about changing Solome, especially when I first began attending Pan-African events. She laughs. Seriously, mom! The way they Malcolm X us into believing anything that seems relatively mainstream is somehow a false consciousness. But, really . . . I pause, trying to collect my thoughts, and then shift positions on the bed before continuing, I think some things are a bit deeper than that. When you named me Solome, you did so with intention. The skin of sound is sometimes thick and melanin-rich. And I have fallen into the sound, or rather the skin.

My God, she interrupts, where did you learn to be so melodramatic? I ignore her and continue, from me, Solome, to you, Peace, whose mother named you a Biblical skin, to your mother, Juliet, who was grafted a skin of Latin derivatives. Three generations bound in a grip so tight only we can see a reflection of something other than oppressed. I see it: the whiteness, the syllables that pray difficult on kinsmen’s lips. I continue, how can I change my name? As though I am ashamed of your decisions? She interrupts me, but it was Malcolm X who said he does not know his name because it was a slave name, hence the X. That his father did not know his name either and his father’s father because they were given names of the white man. There’s that story too, Solo, the story of erasure. I tell her, my story lies in you naming me. While it may not speak to nativity the way some would like to romanticise it, it does speak to our reality. Of passage, movement, inspiration, and yes, of too much luzungu in our mouths. But that, too, is part of the story.

She is quiet and I wonder if the international package I bought on my SIM card has run out. She begins so softly I hardly hear her at first. That is interesting. You know I was just reading about a tribe, I do not remember which, but they have a practice that is so interesting . . . She stops talking and I smile. I know her well enough to understand her need for affirmative prodding, a reminder her words are being listened to. How so? I ask softly. She pauses and sucks in air before she continues. Well, before a mother gives birth she goes to a tree. I am not sure how this tree is picked, but it is picked and it is her duty to put her ear up to the tree and listen. Inside the tree is her child’s song, and as she listens to the song she begins singing and memorising it. When the baby is born, she sings her child’s song. And that is how it is that, anytime the child achieves a milestone or any rite of passage, his or her song is sung. I read that and I said, my goodness! I would have loved to have had such a song. If only . . . well, anyway, even when the child messes up, you know, maybe becomes a thief or is just doing things that go against the codes of the family, the entire family calls the child home and they sing the song to the child. It is then the child’s choice as to whether she or he wants to leave the path he or she is on and return to goodness . . .

She finishes her story and I sigh, that is so beautiful.

Yeah, I thought so too. I remembered it when you told me the reason you wanted to keep the name Solome. I smile into the phone, well, mama, can I sing you a song? I may not have heard it in a tree, but can I sing you a song? Please, she says. I begin singing the chorus to Mahalia Jackson’s ‘Precious Lord Take My Hand,’ one of her favourites. She hums the harmony. Thanks, Solo. Well, you know it is getting quite late this side and I know your credit is about to finish. Love you. I love you too, Mama, I say. We get off the phone, her more than three thousand miles away and me here in someone else’s bed. I climb off the bed with a great sigh and stretch a bit. Downstairs, I hear the television on and I debate going to sleep or checking on Moses. I decide on going downstairs.

Moses is asleep on the couch and is not disturbed when I switch off the television. I watch him sprawled like an unending question and try to figure out where I can squeeze myself in. I settle down next to him, now the both of us curled into a pair. These are my favourite moments, my head on his chest, the peace. I feel the slow rise and fall of his chest, the deep rumble of his snore. Skin to skin, the only thing clearly distinct between us are the rhythms of our heartbeats and even that harmonises after some time. With his mouth open, I imagine a darkhollowed tunnel where steam engines get lost. Engines chug and puff their way to his lungs. I hear the choo-choo all the way down to his stomach. I imagine us catching a red-eye flight. Destination: beyond the limitation of boundaries and borders. But even I know it is never that simple. He shifts and sighs while pulling me closer, babe, I can hear you thinking.

We have sleeping rules. Rule one: When asleep, politics is suspended. To be more specific, my part-time sociologist is supposed to go on vacation. Sometimes it works, but Moses and I are babies of Diaspora and migration, so, to me, our moments of suspended debating are really moments of building home with each other, through each other. He calls it primal connectedness. I think of it as some form of catharsis in exodus.

I fall asleep snuggled next to him and dream that a leopard with a baby’s face is running towards me. I am mesmerised by her face, both childlike and hideous. One eye in the middle of her forehead, a snake’s tongue protruding from her mouth, and whiskers curled at her chin. I know she is not bad, but I know she will kill me. As she reaches close enough to pounce on me I hear her purring a lullaby. With her claws she rips into my stomach and pulls out my intestines in the shape of a wedding ring. Moses’ phone rings and I wake up with a start. I pick up the phone and see the letter T. It’s a name I frequently see calling and getting rejected. Moses takes the phone from me, turns down the ringer, and puts the phone in his pocket. Why don’t you pick it? I ask. Ah, it will be a long call and I’m tired, he says, stroking my cheek.

When I awake in the morning, Moses has already left for work. He usually makes us breakfast and I find a covered plate on the kitchen table with a note. Baby, got called into a surprise early-morning meeting at the office and didn’t want to wake you. Wish I could have had breakfast with you! Love you! M. I smile at my sheer luck of having met someone as much a shameless romantic as I, and then, grabbing a slice of bread from my plate, I hurry upstairs to get ready.

On my desk at the office, I find my copy of Dr. Sylvia Tamale’s reader, African Sexualities, which I had lent to a colleague. Morning, Solome! Thank God it’s a Friday. And thanks so much for letting me have the book. I got the information I needed, my colleague says, lingering by the door. I know he did not read anything in the book; he often asks to borrow my things to somehow see if I will give him more attention than I do. There is one other person seated in the room and she makes deliberate coughing noises at him. He, aloof and persistent, does not leave until I say, I’m glad you got what you needed. Have a good day.

I look down at the reader, dog-eared and highlighted all over. I flip through the book again and land on a short story by Chimamanda Adichie that I always seem to keep coming back to. There is a line in the story on how she wonders whether Yale taught her white American lover to speak authoritatively on things he does not know. The line always makes me pause. It always makes me think of the US indoctrination of fake it ‘til you make it, which sort of forces one to claim space even if they are not entitled to it. I think of how being indoctrinated into such an empire has affected me. But, mostly, I wonder if Moses has ever asked himself such questions of me.

At lunch, I meet with a friend who analyses my current relationship in a detached, clinical way, as if she has forgotten I have feelings and personal insecurities. Moses is really a catch, she says. Handsome, educated, successful. I mean, every educated Ugandan woman is trying to meet such a guy. Perhaps if we all had that American accent of yours we would stand a chance. I stare at my plate. You really believe the only reason Moses is attracted to me is because of my accent? She looks at me incredulously. Honestly the only reason you were able to meet him is because of your Diaspora privilege!

I look at my friend, feeling at the same time offended and amused. Offended because I never know what weight to give to such comments and amused because, to this friend, all things I do and say are viewed within the lens of Diaspora privilege. But the nuances within desire and power are too complex for me to examine during lunch on a Friday, so instead I joke, honey with this face and booty, regardless of what country I’m in, I’ll never have a problem getting successful, handsome dates. She smiles at me stiffly.

Moses has a particular facial expression when I bring up such interactions. It is as though I have squeezed pili-pili into his mouth. We are home from work but are both feeling too lazy to go out. He is seated on the sofa and my head is on his lap. Miles Davis is playing on the stereo and Moses uses his index finger to tap elongated rhythms on my forehead. I know he wants to watch MSNBC. He has a crush on Rachel Maddow that grows stronger whenever he hears her dissecting Republican rhetoric and Obama’s budget. I am not invested enough in US policy to consider it a fair competition.

He looks at me and stops tapping. Privilege is a heavy word, he says. I think these things have more depth than whatever she is jealous about. I think the real underlying point to take away from the conversation is that you need new friends. I remind him it is not just this friend. That we are immersed in a global culture that values some bodies more than others. Valued bodies, if not white, tend to speak a certain kind of English. They tend to be groomed bourgeoisie in a certain kind of way. And