My grandfather’s lovers

Representative photo

Earlier in the week, listening to CBS FM radio’s Kalisoliso programme, I was carried away with stories from the 1970s and 1980s.

This show is supposed to be a sports update, but if one is not laughing, they are going down memory lane. There is a segment called* “Wali luddawa?”* something like “where were you then?” where the hosts, Abby Mukiibi, Diana Bagala and Abu Kawenja take us down memory lane, mentioning items that were trendy then: in fashion, entertainment, politics or sports.

Suzanna Night Club. Dingos Cinema. Majid Musisi. Jackson “Mia-Mia” Mayanja, Eli Wamala, among others. It was during this show that I returned to my memories of the life in Mulunji-omu, a small village in Mukono North.

When the World Bank and IMF visited my father and closed Nyanza Textiles, where he had worked for 21 years, we ended up in the Mukono countryside. Mulunji-omu was good to us. It was here that I became a ‘professional’ at climbing the branchless pawpaw trees.

With one other friend, we would eat about eight papayas in one single sitting before returning home for lunch. Those were the good old days. No one cared about owning square miles of land, and there were no landgrabbers either.

My grandfather lived in Mulunji-omu, too. Jaja Bumbakali – so was his name, a Luganda corruption of the Arabic, Abubakri – was, by local standards, a fairly wealthy and powerful man.

In his days, he had been a Parish Chief before becoming chairman of the village under the Movement government. He owned over 100 heads of cattle, and had ethnic Rwandan herders for his animals.

He owned a large coffee plantation, where traders riding their bicycles came from far and beyond to buy his produce. The coffee was mixed-farmed with bananas. He had surplus matoke for sale.

In all fairness, Jaja Bumbakali lived a good life. His children, all of them men and women of good standing, lived in Kampala and often visited him on weekends. But a time came when Jaja Bumbakali was always in and out of hospital.

His children often made sure he received the best healthcare. But the man was ever unwell. There was a strange pattern to his illness: when he stayed with them in Kampala, he was all healthy and well.

But after a small stay in his palatial home in the countryside, he would be frail and sickly. His wife on the other hand – an 80-something-year-old woman – remained healthy and happy. But not the old man.

This bothered them for a long while. They would not keep him in the city for he hated city life. But the village made him unwell. The maids in his home cooked the best food and treated him with a lot of care.

In fact, one of the servants was a professional nurse who had been specially hired to help with his medicines and care. Old age comes with immense complications, of course, but something seemed off with this man’s condition.

Then one day, the pin dropped. The old man was suffering from good treatment. His attendants had taken their jobs even more seriously. They were not just helping him with his medicines and meals, but they also doubled as his lovers.

They say, what will kill a man begins as an appetite. Indeed, despite Bumbakali’s advanced age, the man still loved the middle kingdom. The maids – all of them including the nurse – made sure he never missed out on his most cherished kingdom.

Rumour had it that just looking at the middle kingdom made him even more cheerful. Or just being on top of his nurse. It signified power – even if he did nothing with it. He would say things like, “I am on top,” even when this ended up messing up his health.

To the maids, it was a window to making money. Indeed, they cashed in. When I first heard the story, I was not sure about whose fault it was: the old man or his servants. If the servants’ job was to take care of this man, would they be disobedient if he demanded a little indulgence since it also came with a sumptuous bonus?!

Even if they initiated the entire thing, it began with the old man being interested. How about my grandfather who had refused to retire from the earthly pleasures? But the urge for male pleasure is often involuntary, one would say.

When the children confirmed the cause of the man’s endless illness they went into a rage with the maids. But then quickly, their mother, our grandmother, supported her husband. She was happy that her husband had found a solution to something she was required to give as a wife.

“I told you, your father was still active, but you refused to listen!” she chastised them.

Why expect a man to retire when he still feels the energy in his bones! Because of a little illness that comes with it?!Either way, they ignored their mother, and fired all the female maids.

A couple of months later, the old man fell sick again – from almost the same way. The only female allowed into the man’s home were his children and grandchildren. Why was the man still falling sick – almost the same way?

You would see their faces when they discovered that one of the female holidaymakers, a 20-year-old buxom Muzukulu, had started buying land in the nearby villages. She had no job as she was waiting to join university.

Having been charged with entertaining the old man, and having learned about the generosity of his appetite, she was even more aggressive than the nurses and maids.

She only sang for him, but also danced for him, and in return, he put her in charge of the coffee business.

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The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University

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