A recount-recite of an untold story in my
village Is my TV getting old? It blurs and gets me quite upset.
I have never thought about the lifespan of TVs. Is a 10yrs TV too old? When I switch it on, it breeds some irksome noise for three minutes or so, and then normalizes. Sometimes I have to give it a little bang on the left and right hips to call it to order. This isn’t always reliable though! I''m used to opening machines and this one hasn''t been any exceptional. A few days ago, I opened it, looked inside but noticed that it has thousands of wires which I felt hesitant to alter. I have messed up my brothers’ radios and bicycles when I was young and now wouldn’t want a repeat of the, “this goes here, that goes there….oh no, it must be there and here!” Fascinating what a memory this recited. “A tale of two sons of my
village”.
This is a TRUEEEE story!
Tumusiime was one of those most enterprising, creative and brave men that Kirehe village has ever produced. By village standards … at the time.., he was a wizard. He could play all sorts of local-music instruments, entertain people and repeatedly drinks free booze in local bars as he watches his peers plead for credit. All the bars competed offering him Tonto (a local brew) to attract customers. Needless to mention was his charm and accomplishment with women. His valiancy cut across most life-spheres. There was this other son of the land -
Kabananura whose watch was older than most of us at the time. It developed a fault and went dysfunctional. Not anywhere in Kirehe village would he have found a watch-repairer. Not to mention the scarcity of money to foot the bill. It was important for him to maintain his status as one of the very few village bourgeoisies whose watches bore witness of their “middle class” in this locality. Roughly, less than 5% of the population in Kirehe owned a watch. Nonetheless, the then communities had commonly-held modes of anticipating time. I remember the four major ones. Some would tell Mid-day by seeing herds of cattle taken for water at the streams. Others; by the positioning of the sun or their shadow and lastly, by the roaring of a rooster. To be able to wake up early (5-6am), a rooster was an integral household asset. Early mornings and late afternoons were warranted by the sunrise and sunset respectively. Well, the story goes that Kabananura was apprehensive of the fate of his treasured watch. Upon sharing his despair with his bar-fellows, Tumusiime pledged to help fix the watch. In this village, no one wants to interfere with the technology of the west. Anything western was a no-go zone. In fact, to learn riding a bicycle, some of us sneaked from our routine day-duties and rode on them in the bedrooms…. The reason why I have scars on both hands! On a lucky day, parents and elder brothers would be off for a party thus surrendering the sovereignty of the house to you. You definitely want to use this time and ride as much as you can despite forfeiting the instructions of work they left you with. Who doesn’t take risks anyway? But Tumusiime is making such an enormous risk opening this watch. It could explode in his hands and take his life or worse still, injure the innocent onlookers. His keenness became news-catching at Kirehe trading center! A son of Kirehe village that could repairs watches was getting everyone stunned with conjecture and bewilderment. The news of his valiancy would be heard from all corners of the village, neighboring villages and neighbors of the neighboring villages. Tumusiime''s name would be heard by the young and old, tall and short, fat and skinny, etc. Maybe, his newly assumed popularity would enable him contest a Local Council Chairmanship in Kirehe and emerge unopposed! He suddenly pulled out a star-like-screw driver from his bag and employed itsurrect the watch. I can envision him shouting… "Be heeeealed" …..like what born-again pastors say when performing healing miracles on brethren. One-by-one, he removed the spare-parts at the helm of unsurpassed motivation from onlookers. Pronouncements like, "he is a hero" emerged from some voices in the crowd. The pace of diagnosing the fault gained ultra momentum. Some of the onlookers turned the instance into an opportunity to see the inside of a watch. For those of us that were small, casting an eye to the scene was thorny. We stood on our toes to steal a glimpse. Dissembling would soon be complete and the fault identified. My curiosity drew to the moment of putting the bric-a-brac parts to fix the watch. Tumusiime started the “this goes here, that goes there….oh no, it must be there and here!” Seeming, only the lucky spares were finding room in the stadium of a watch. Some sort of first-come first-serve scenario! Not enough space was left to suck up all the plastic and metal pins, nuts, screws, dry cells, front cover, back-cover, blah, blah blah. Clearly, the watch befell full leaving a plentiful of spares parts redundant. The confidence he drew from the crowd started hanging in balance. Well, once smart, then always one! Tumusiime wrapped the left-overs in a polythene bag (kaveera) and lamented that those were responsible for the fault. He advised kabananura to always look out for Japanese watches. His was a “made in China” watch. He handed the polythene bag to Kabananura, and drew his hands to a guitar. This point on, our attention was diverted to music.
By: Akankunda Bwesigye Denis - UGANDA
akankunda.denis@gmail.com