Kabebi's Christmas dress

I remember the days back in Kiboga when I was still in primary, around p5 or so. One weekend, I and by sister [Grace] and other kid brothers were going to fetch water for home use from a community pipe water source called Kawondogolo (or name like that). Being the source where most of the towns dwellers fetced water, it was always full of people including water vendors (magged guys who used to fetch about 6-8 jerry of water on their bicycles for sale in kiboga town).
So the kids, esp us, had little chance of getting water until these guys and other more desperate kids were done. It was a pure survival for the strongest to get water from that source.

Anyway, on this day, we met a few other kids on the way who had an interesting game. They had a 'ride' which 1 person would sit in and another one pull the rope attached to it, gaining speed as one fastened into a run.
To make it even easier to pull, the way to Kawondogolo a slope, which got even steeper as you descended into the valley towards the well.

We took turns in the ride and the pulling. Grace had gotten a new dress in the run up to christmas and couldnt help trying it on when we went to the well that day...
It was her turn in the ride, she sat in it confortably as the boys pulled the
damn thing at rocket speed on the steepest part of the slope. I have not told you that the so called ride was just an old jerrycan cut

When she got out of it, the lower edges of her new dress was literary shredded pieces, small holes like ants and termites had eaten it up.

A long the way back hope we cooked some lies to explain this phenomenon.
When we got home, we shocked our parents by telling them that Kabebi had fallen down on the slope and her dress got that torn.

I will not mention that our dad got us to lie down and he got out his electric cable wire...and promised to cain us until some one told the truth.
I remember it must have been Annet who broke the truce and told them that we rode her in a jerrycan and when she got up the dress had been shredded by it. The rest is history

Okuziika Erinest

Nyomwabazyo ebiro 11/12/2007 ribeeri riri izooba rihango omu magara gangye. Tugiire Burunga (kabogore) kuziika omugurusi Ruteitakantu (Late Erinest Ryogooza) haza mpuriireyo ebigambo bikuru munonga munonga. Abasingo bakuru beimukire bagambaga aha mugyenzi Erinest. Omwe (iziina rye ryanyeba) agizire ati omusheija ori omushanduukye omu niwe misingo orikuhererikayo! Noshisha oti abeire n'amanyisa omubasingo biyanyetsire nabo. Ebyagambire ebindi ninyija kubyongyeraho bwanyima...

Samwiri nawe agambire ahari history ya Ryogooza na beishebo. Akagambo kakuru kabeire kari ngu "kuyabeire aizhayo, ashanga irembo ryigwiire, kuyabeire ashishora, bataho akahingo kakye".

Ondiizho muntu ondirize abeire ari kyasimire, omwe ahabahara b'omugyenzi Erinest hati oshweirwe Omw. Ruboya.
Agambire ahari 'Taata' okuyabeire n'amukunda, yasiima omukeikuru
Kakyapa Joyce, obeiri ori mukeishebo ahabw'okushendekyereza gye 'taata'.
Agambire okw'iba yamukunzire nawe akamukundisa ishe, kandi kwo eka egy ekozire omurimo muhango omuka y'omugyenzi Erinest.

Mutatiina (omutabani) nawe asiimirwe munonga, abantu beingi ab'eimukire kugamba nawe babeire nibamwimutsya nibamusiima okwombekyera ishe enju, kakyapa we agizire ati 'yebare kunyombekyera ekinaabiro omunju ngu nt'ogyera aheru, nanye nyogize sho...' Bamusiimira okukwatanisa nabandi kureberera ishebo kuhitsya obuyaafa.

Ebintu ebyo byoona bindeteire okutiina, okushemererwa hamwe n'okurira...

Obwo kandi nashangayo abeitu beingi beingi haza orufu rwahinduka nk'obugyenyi. Omuntu nka Vangiriini nka muhererikire ira, omuntu nka Hope n'abaana be kansiime, Alex na nyabukazi nshemereirwe munonga kubashangayo, ba kirabo, kasinga, abaana ba Kyasiimire Lorna na Assa, ab'Abaho n'omukazi we, Moses, Byabwera, mbwenu ngamb'oha ndeky'oha? Izooba eryo, ribeiri riri ery'obussasi buturaniire n'okushemererwa!

Memories Growing Up

" sitting in a green place at my Hall of residence, a mind drift is taking me back to the things that have happened in my life."

Growing up happens in a heartbeat.One day you're in diapers; the next day you're gone, in a whirlwind you become a full a man with beards and woman breasts. Its a bit scary knowing you'll never be young and mindless again. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I know they do for me.

I remember myself a young small boy who didn't listen much and now am I'm sitting here!
I remember so many past experiences, some come on so very clearly and others a fuzzy blur. Often these memories bring me some tears.

When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; you don't mind anything. Thats what I miss. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time. 


Have you ever tried to remember the places you've been... the towns you've settled... the houses you've slept... the neighbourhoods...the streets... ohmigod!

But at the end of it,. I'm back in the present, making lots of new friends in my course, my IT prowess back in full swing, I feel energised and I am happy with the direction my life is taking.

The man I am today is so much more aware, wiser than the young boy; thats perharps the major difference there is.

Kaaka, The legend.

The person we all call Kaaka [real names Kakatooma Janet] is the second oldest living legend, after Mzee Ryogooza. She worked hard, long and thats something constantly admired when two or three of her children get together. In effect, she was the foundation on which the families we're living in today build their momentum. This makes her outstanding in a family of crowded marriages.

It is therefore important to quote kaaka's own words on family subjects to reflect what she might have felt putting together a family with little input but more hostility from the muliple marriage relationship family was.

Infura z'abahima n'abatutsi!

Our family is blessed with a classic cultural-mix of two of the most photographic cultures in the East and Central Africa. The Hima, Abahima and the Tutsi, Abatutsi people. This is because my father married from both cultures.

Famous for their physical appearances and elaborate characteristics, such as being among the tallest people in Africa--and their aristocratic demeanor, this cultural mix is a combinations of strenghths, in my opinon. I'm a muhima for example, but I have batutsi half brothers and half sisters from another mother who is Tutsi.

So here is how this cultural mix come about. Some members of the Kanyorozi family, which is described on this blog  in detail in the article title "The Kanyorozi Subclan", who are native Bahima, married outside their tribal confines into the Batutsi. To begin with, Mugyenyi Samuel, my dad, married Joyce Gahongaire from the Kyereti family, an arm of the Gatondwes, a big extended family of Tutsis whom I cant trace the time they first came into Uganda but who lived in many parts of Uganda, at some point in the same village with us. But some of this family has since been relocating to Rwanda after 1994.

Another example is aunt Busingye Juliet, who married Magyezi, whose history I will feature later on. The mix has given rise to stunners, especially girls who are, in my opinion, the most photographic creatures in the family history.

At this rate, the number of mixed siblings is about to overtake the unmixed ones, looking from the extended family scale. This is a unique development to this generations.

(under construction)

Tribute To Uncle George W. Katongore

Uncle George,

You departed from us on the 13th July 2000. Our world has never been the same. You are greatly missed by your mom (Kaaka), for whom you were a constant provider, by your children and wife, for whom you made all the difference in the world, by your brothers and sisters, for whom you were a great inspiration, by your numerous friends, for whom were an encouragement, and by your nephews & nieces, for whom you were a constant admiration. We'll always reflect on your life with fond memories. May your soul rest in eternal peace.

Family Quotes

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. ~Desmond Tutu
Blood's thicker than water, and when one's in troubleBest to seek out a relative's open arms.~Author Unknown
When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. ~George Bernard Shaw
Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. ~Jane Howard
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. ~Thomas JeffersonThe family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to. ~Dodie Smith
The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you. ~Kendall Hailey, The Day I Became an Autodidact
If you don't believe in ghosts, you've never been to a family reunion. ~Ashleigh Brilliant
Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. ~Gail Lumet Buckley

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.~Erma Bombeck.
Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960.
Family is just accident.... They don't mean to get on your nerves. They don't even mean to be your family, they just are. ~Marsha Norman
The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works is the family. ~Lee Iacocca
Friends are God's apology for relations. ~Hugh Kingsmill
They... threw themselves into the interests of the rest, but each plowed his or her own furrow. Their thoughts, their little passions and hopes and desires, all ran along separate lines. Family life is like this - animated, but collateral. ~Rose Macaulay
The lack of emotional security of our young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to him/herself by an indissoluble bond which s/he cannot break if s/he could, for nature has welded him/her into it before s/he was born. ~Pearl S. Buck

Various Pictures

What took you so long?

Second Genaration

Rasto Karagire [Karayegire] (Rubanonzya) family

First Generation

James Baranga family

Barange was born in [], Évêché de Nantes, Bretagne, Uganda.
He married [] (Anne) LeRoux (LaRou) in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA, bef 1656.⁽¹⁾ (Alix (Anne) LeRoux (LaRou) is #32767.)
[Married] was born in [], Évêché de Nantes, Bretagne, Uganda.
Barange (Prenier) and [Wife] had the following children:

1. [] was born in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA by 12 Mar 1656. He was baptized in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA, 12 Mar 1656.
2. []  was born by 14 Nov 1660.
3. []  (#32769) was born in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA by 11 May 1664.He was baptized in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA, 11 May 1664.
4. [] (#32770) was born in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA by 27 Sep 1665. He was baptized in Malzeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, FRA, 27 Sep 1665.