My Homeland >Bwera bwa muntu

I cannot brush off as irrelevant, nor accurately measure the impact the concept of cultural geography, the place one holds a long history and a deep cultural association with — has on the individual. These may sound metaphorical but they're more real than we know.

Recently, a cousin and friend -Charlotte, gave me a song 'Abanya Bwera' by a choir done at a wedding in Bwera, which reminded me of where my identity began. 'Bwera bwa muntu', thats the complete praise name as it was. They were singing about places and names which are still fresh in my mind - it went something like;

Kwokunaga ameisho obuseeri oreeba Rutungu, eine Nyabubaare, oreeba Wakigando eyegamiirwe Obusheeka...

It simply connotes my origins. We used to go to school in Rutungu as small children. There is a primary school there which had a pink and black uniform, where I went for my first day in school. My late uncle George Katongore's farm is still there, in Nyabubaare. My dad's farm (before moving to Kyenkwanzi) used to be not far from Nyabubaare, in a place called Rwendahi. We used to graze our cattle in the plains and bulls used to fight at the water fronts on the lake when we took them to water. Hippos used to emerge from the lake at night and move up northwards following warm winds coming from our cows -and come home to eat salt with cows. When you came out of the house on a full moon night and gazed into the kraals, you certainly saw the shinny backs of Hippos among cows. It was a spectacle. There is an impeccable story of how a Hippo charged at uncle George on one such night, and chased him into thickets, where he spent the rest of the night.

My relatives, in fact my grand and grand-grand fathers are buried in this place. It is ancestral!

The people who have settled this place are some of our closest friends and kindred.

I have gone there on two occasions in the past 2 years, for cousins' weddings. It was was like home-coming. A deep sense of mixed anxiety and foreboding came over me as we rode through the tall trees among which I was born. I wondered if they still knew me -for I used to climb them and shake their tops. We used to play a dangerous game with these trees. You would identify a young-ish tree, about 6-10 meters high and climb it. Then you'd ask a friend to cut it down while you were up in its top shoots, so that you enjoy the thrill of falling with a tree, while its soft shrubs lessened to impact on the ground. I bet those trees remembered me.

But now, much of this land has been settled by a whole different kind of people. I noticed they have cleared much of the plains to make the land comfortable for Fresian cattle which produce a lot of milk. The long horned Ankore cows are scanty in this land, nearing extinction. That is how Capitalism has taken its toll upon my people...