Flame and Song

Flame and Song

Flame and Song

Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

Flame and Song

Text © Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

ISBN (Print): 9781928215219

ISBN (Digital download): 9781928215226

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording, or any other information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

Lighting the Ashes

Today

I picked up

that instrument

that I had strung and unstrung

for so long,

threw it into the fire,

opened my mouth

and

sang.

My voice

rang out

loud and clear.

Becoming one with the fire.

The flames of my belly-heart

shaped the song

that danced out on my voice

rekindling the ashes.

Today I sang

the song I had come

to sing.

And my fire burns again.

Dedication

To my parents, Fayce and Henry Barlow, whose love, strength, courage, resilience and generosity shaped who I am in the world today. To my sister Fay and brother Chris, whose cerebral palsy was a blessing in disguise. Thank you for teaching me to listen with my heart, to see with my eyes and my body, for teaching me courage and wisdom, and for helping me understand from an early age that we are more than our bodies. To my sisters Maliza and Estella, who were there from the start.

To my husband Victor, who has travelled more than half my life with me, and who has lived in parts of this landscape, with his own story to tell.

To my children: Faye, who is my greatest supporter and critic, thank you for listening to my stories and for your inspiration and insight. Senteza, whose big heart and quick temper keep me grounded and on my toes. And Chris, who keeps me young. I hope this gives you some insight into the experiences that have shaped me.

To all Ugandans who have lived through the first 50 years of independence: those who have loved Uganda deeply, and are proud of being Ugandan, and those who, over the years, have felt anger, shame, fear and frustration at being called Ugandan. As a generation, we have a story to tell, about the impact of war, about starting over at home or in foreign lands, and about who and what has kept us alive and hoping.

The history books tell us about explorers, despotic leaders, economic war, HIV and foreign policy, but they omit the voices of the people who lived through it. We are the keepers of these stories; they are ours to tell.

It is my hope that my story will inspire others to tell theirs, too, so they will not be forgotten.

Contents

Prologue

1. The hearth

2. Stoking the fire

3. Snuffing out the fire

4. Smouldering embers

5. New fires

6. And there are ashes

7. Rekindled

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the author

Prologue

We burn up with flames – of love, hope, fear, rage – and then burn out. And always an ember still glows.

My father always called us ‘Love’. There was something in the way he said it. Love. It was his special name for us. There were five of us children – Maliza, Estella, Fay, Chris and me. But his heart was big enough to love many, so many.

In a letter he wrote to me when I was at boarding school, he told me how he had looked outside that morning at the glistening grass and called Maama to show her the thousands of diamonds he would have bought her, had he had the money. My mother’s response was, ‘It’s only dew, Harry!’ She also loved and took care of many, but she was more pragmatic in her love.

In July of 2006 my father fell and broke his hip. The operation to replace it should have been easy, but he spent six weeks in Mulago Hospital in Kampala and died with his hip still untouched. My parents had always been like a solid dam wall, holding everything together, and now, as they aged, as they were reaching the point of passing on, who was going to do it? Would we be able to contain the waters? What would happen if we could not? I’d had a nagging feeling for months that a dam was about to burst and the flood would overwhelm us.

But as I reflected on that last week in the hospital, and all the years growing up, as I watched people come in and out of the hospital offering help and comfort, I realised that although I thought my parents did everything on their own, they didn’t. Not even my mother, who seemed so self-contained. When she trusted you to take care of things, and when she saw you could manage, she would let go. They were able to because they were part of a family and community that they loved and cared for. And they were cared for in return. I realised that if we held steady, we would be fine.

I spent that last week of my father’s life with him and my mother in the hospital, nursing him, together with Estella and our extended family and friends. Maliza, had who struggled with depression for most of her life, had checked herself in to another hospital a couple of weeks before Daddy’s fall and the family split up to care for them both. She came home the day before he died.

We had so much support and love it made his passing bittersweet. Ensconced in the community that I belonged to, I drew strength, I felt love, I found a sense of centredness. I was at home. We cared for my father, mother and sister, and when he died we mourned our loss together. When the time came for me to leave Kampala and come back to Cape Town it was numbing because there were few things here that reminded me of my father. I felt, keenly, the sense of uprootedness, of not belonging.

I listened to my mother’s rage at the system that had taken her husband and felt helpless living so far away. All these years I had wanted to interview my mother and write about her. She had lived through the colonial era in Uganda, been one of the first women to go to university, celebrated independence, survived Milton Obote’s first regime, Idi Amin, Obote II and Yoweri Museveni’s reign. She had taken care of her five children, including two who were disabled and one who battled mental illness, and many other children. She’d completed her BEd degree, almost completed her Master’s, and been married for close to 50 years.

Now I felt the urge to write about my life.

In Limbo …

I picked them up

the broken notes

and sang them

back together,

crooning in a low voice.

And I marvelled

at the beauty

of such brokenness.

And then …

BOOM.

The song splintered

again.

The notes scattered into the ether

and for a while

I tried

to piece the melody together

find the chords that bound it …

But somehow

the centre

kept straying

and a sense of

emptiness seeped

in.

Now each note is

tentative

again.

My ears prick up

listening for alarm

bells,

anticipating

another

interruption

from the choirmaster’s baton,

afraid to open up

in full voice

in case

this triggers the next

discordant mess.

I am

in limbo

in the nothingness

between notes.

1 The Hearth

The hearth am I … the deep heart of the dwelling.

A pleasant nook for ease and storytelling,

Where friendship’s flame shall find a glad renewal

While mirth and kindly chat supply the fuel. Author unknown

Maliza, my eldest sister, was named after my father’s mother. Seven years older than me, she is clever, gentle and adventurous in her cooking. She invented a special method of roasting peanuts that became a family treat on special occasions. Estella, the second eldest, was daring as a child – a tomboy and an artist. She was named after my mother’s mother. She taught me how to ride a bicycle and climb trees, made beautiful clothes for my paper dolls and made me do many things that I was scared to do. Fay, named after my mother, came next. She was three years older than me and beautiful. She had the thickest, longest, kinkiest hair, a great sense of humour and the most expressive fingers. And when she laughed, we all laughed. Chris, who had my father’s first name, came after her. He had the softest, curliest hair that we girls all wished we had. Chris was a charmer and he loved music and dancing. He could find any music station on the radio and knew how to operate the record player.

Last of all there was me. My names are Philippa Anne Namutebi Naluwooza Nalowga Nambuya Mutuwa Muyama Mwihaki – a long story for another time. I was born on the 21st of August 1964 on the sixth floor of New Mulago Hospital. My name was chosen long before I was born. Maama said that one Sunday, when she was a few months pregnant, the preacher had spoken about Philip being love. Something moved within her so if it was a boy, he would be called Philip, and if a girl, Philippa. I was to be their last child. The name Mutuwa is the name given to all last borns, in Lumasaba, my mother’s language. The name, Namutebi, identifies me as a member of the Mamba clan of Buganda. Jajja Nuwa Sematimba, my paternal grandfather, gave it to me. Daddy made a card to welcome me into the family and to congratulate Maama. In it he wrote:

Welcome home – Mummy and Philippa

Congratulations

It has been a hard fought battle

And goodbye to

Early morning health exercises

Being an extra strong double carrier!

The delights of backache.

Such delightful sleepless nights.

Balloon dances too.

I was definitely the last.

My father, Henry Barlow, was a civil servant and a poet. He was the eldest son of John and Maliza Barlow and had eight siblings. The name Barlow? My grandfather was the son of a British soldier and a Ugandan woman who we suspect died during childbirth. Unfortunately not much is known about her, as is the case of many women. Jajja John was brought by a missionary, Rev. Walker, to Micah Sematimba, his friend. Sematimba was a prominent Muganda chief who facilitated the safe travel of missionaries across East Africa. Walker carried a letter with him from Cuthbert Lambert Barlow, asking him to care for his son until he was 18, promising to send money for his upkeep and education. At 18 he was to be sent to Cuthbert’s brother in Ceylon. For a while after that he sent money and letters.

He never returned and after a while the letters and money stopped coming. Micah and Elizabeth Sematimba loved Jajja John and brought him up as one of their sons, together with Jajja Nuwa, Jajja Drumond and their sisters. They were Jajja John’s true family. So we are descendants of Micah Sematimba and Cuthbert Lambert Barlow. While his identity, and that of his progeny, was Baganda, and he was considered a son of Micah Sematimba, he carried his biological father’s name, Barlow, because the Baganda are patrilineal. Years after Jajja John died, my Uncle Dennis, Daddy’s youngest brother, found out that Cuthbert Lambert Barlow had died in Flanders, Belgium in the First World War. His name is on the war memorial.

My father had a great sense of humour – and a big laugh. He had an incredible ability to laugh at himself – something he tried, with little luck, to teach me to do. I was an earnest child. When he sneezed, he would say a loud ‘Bushei!’ and Fay would burst into uncontrollable laughter. Daddy always made time for us. He would play high jump in the garden or take us swimming at his friend’s house. On our way there, we would stop at the petrol station to pump up the tyre tubes we used to help us float. We would return home, hair kinky and dry, skin grey. Daddy loved gardening, particularly planting flowers. Maama told us that when they were at university he planted flowers outside the window of his room. When she had to do the flower arrangement in chapel, she would go there and get flowers. When we were small, I remember helping create flower beds to plant seedlings. One of my favourite things was going for rides in his car. We would sing and if it was dark and there was a full moon, he would try and race with the moon as we shrieked in the back: ‘Faster Daddy, faster!’

My mother, Fayce, was a teacher by profession, a fighter for justice, a wonderful cook, a seamstress and a narrator of stories. She was the eldest daughter of Yokana and Esteri Kutosi, and second eldest child in her family. She too had eight siblings, two of whom died when they were children. Her father was an orphan. His father had left him an inheritance of cattle to use as a dowry when the time was right. He wanted to go to school so he sold them to pay for his education, much to the dismay of his elder half-brother.

Maama was the matriarch and held the family together in her special way. She enjoyed entertaining and both sides of the family remember her family teas and large, delicious lunches. When I was about five, Daddy bought Maama a Kenwood Chef for her birthday. She looked in the recipe