Glowing Embers!: A Tale a Tale of Two Worlds

By Louise P N Kibuuka

Glowing Embers
A war scared country of ravaged infrastructure, eroded moral values and lost hope. The only hope is a close family member to go abroad and fend for the family and the village community left behind.Nakayima a young woman vows to carry the burden, bury the scars of war; develop herself, family and share her fortune with the entire village. She has no idea what it would take her to accomplish the mission! It is a treacherous adventure only kept afloat by a tale of traditional proverbs; that only not change the lives of the community left behind but also the attitudes of those she met abroad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491800508

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1

Setting Off For The Greener Pastures

Chapter 2

The Strange World Of Difference

Chapter 3

The Permission To Stay

Chapter 4

Nakayima Finds New Friends

Chapter 5

Nakayima’s Dairies

Chapter 6

The Silver Line

Chapter 7

To

My lovely children and Mum

And

In sweet memory of my loving Dad! You will always be there with us!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My greatest appreciation goes to Michael Apollo Kitonsa, my son, the greatest graphic designer of all times, who designed the book cover. My daughters, Victoria who added beauty on the front cover! And Dr. Nattembo Cecilia thanks for the supervision!

A lot of thanks to Elizabeth Kaggwa, who helped, edit some chapters in this novel.

Thank you all, for your valuable time and talents!

Louise P.N. Kibuuka

PREFACE

International societies need to take a person-centred approach towards migration problems for the victims to have rights of existence and live in a fairer world. Migration could be a symptom and a sign of underdevelopment in home countries seeking help from host countries. If the host countries worked together with both the victims and their home countries; migrants would become potential economic and social benefits to both countries. The strategy would develop a sustainable future for the migrants and perhaps there would be no more need for migration!

CHAPTER 1

SETTING OFF FOR THE GREENER PASTURES

To travel is to see and to return is to tell!

It was a year after the civil war which toppled the tyrant military ruler, but things were still in ruins; there were no paying jobs, even government workers had to stay several months waiting to be paid. Most of the city buildings were in shambles still bearing the scars of the past war, there was no running water; the water pipes had been punctured most of them were rusty. There was no electricity; in most areas it was total darkness at night, except for local artisan candles and paraffin lanterns. People lined for rations of sugar and salt. In the hospitals there was hardly any medicine even aspirin was a rare commodity. The roads were rough, dusty, patched with deep potholes. These potholes turned into muddy ponds in the middle of roads when it rained.

People watched their backs as they walked on the streets in fear of remnants of enemy soldiers who were still at large.

The defeated soldiers who had escaped hid in the forests during the day and at night they would emerge, steal food from people’s gardens. In the morning farmers would find uprooted cassava stems, dug up empty sweet potatoes vines and sometimes an empty banana stem standing upright staring at them. The traditional grass thatched kitchens, where grandparents sat and told tales to their grandchildren as they cooked their evening meals on firewood were no longer safe. The hungry defeated soldiers would wait in ambush to steal the steaming pots of food made of bananas and ground peanut source. Even the local free-range chicken that traditionally wandered and leisured a nap in the coffee plantations during the hot sunny afternoons did not risk the venture, in case the unlawful guests snatched them for a meal. They instead kept close to their masters sometimes preferring to remain locked up in the bans.

As Nakayima and her mother in-law shopped for second hand clothing for the children in the popular ‘Owino’ open market, a drunken ex-soldier dressed in the former army uniform of the ousted regime, emerged, reached and pulled Nakayima’s headscarf off. Bring that! You woman! he cerebrally insulted her as he staggered with a bottle of waragi, a local spirit that was clenched in his right armpit. In his left hand he held a long riffle. Nakayima aimed to snatch the headscarf from him but her mother in-law reproached her…

Let go! Leave him alone. Don’t you see he is drunk and has a gun? Just leave him. His days are gone! her mother in law snapped.

As the pair retreated from the busy crowded market to the public Kampala tax park, a roughly dressed boy appeared, pretended to be picking something from the ground, as Nakayima watched him another boy appeared from behind her, snatched one of her bags. Hey! You! Nakayima’s mother in-law shouted over the receding boy. Both boys quickly disappeared through the crowd. A group of boys who were standing by shouted, He’s gone that way! No! That way! to each other pointing into different directions confusing those who tried to chase the boy thieves. In the confusion, all the boys disappeared including those who pretended to help Nakayima.

Let’s get out of here, Mum. It is no place to shop! she cried to her mother-in-law as she quickly picked and bundled the rest of their luggage sought a safe way out of the public car park.

To get to the nearest stage for their transport home, they had to go over a bridge. The bridge was a narrow strip of three logs of old Cyprus timber that bore scars from the missiles of the past war. With difficulty they managed to cross over to a rugged dusty street leading to the next public car park.

Ewu! Nakayima’s mother-in law heaved a sigh a relief. But what is stinking here? she asked holding her nose.

Mother, it is the river below the bridge, the Nakivubo River, people bath in there, they drop food, faeces, all kinds of litter, you never know, may be there are dead bodies in there too!

Let’s go Mum. This is no place to talk! Let’s get out of here!

Nakayima advised her mother-in law as they aimed to jump over the rugged bridge.

Nakayima pulled her mother-in-law across to the other side of the road. It was still hot, and the dusty air whirled flushing grains of brown grit make up patches across her sweating face.

As they rounded a corner that lead