2.

Good Friday, April 9, 2004

Kanani woke up tired. He had not yet recovered from the journey to Kiyiika. The uneven ground he had slept on did not help: every inch of his body ached. As he became conscious, he remembered that today was the beginning of the biggest crusade of his life yet Faisi, his indefatigable fighter, was not by his side. He sat up and knelt on his sleeping bag to pray. He asked God to abide by him all weekend as he clashed with the Devil in his clan.

He reached into his bag and retrieved his little wonder, a tiny camping radio/torch/alarm. It was sheathed in a brown leather wallet. He pulled the segmented antenna out to half a meter long and turned on the radio. After a few moments of static jarring as he searched the waves for a clear channel, the news in Luganda came on. There had been a massacre in Bwaise: four local councillors and six other residents had been murdered. Kanani sucked his teeth at how easy yet effective the Devil’s work was while he struggled to make even a tiny impact. This made him more determined than ever to save as many souls as he could this weekend. When the news ended, he turned off the radio, unzipped the entrance to his tent, bent his head, and stepped outside.

The morning was still cold because the sun took time to filter through the canopy. In the clearing nearby were four massive open tents. Further in the wooded area, numerous traditional tents made out of sticks and dried banana leaves hung around trees. Kanani guessed that there were at least two hundred cousins camping so far. Apparently, a large group had arrived from Tanzania and they spoke Luganda proper. Looking around, the clan was clearly deep in a spiritual jungle. Kanani saw himself at the forefront of clearing the bush to let “the light” in but fatigue overwhelmed him. There was so much work to do, too little time to do it, and too few people willing to join in. But then, if he failed, the Bible said that stones would preach, spreading the word of God. He dared not fail.

To his left, further clearing had been done up the hill. At the center of the new clearing, the construction of a shrine was underway. Kanani’s heart lurched. The elders had assured him that they would be constructing a house on the site: a hostel for descendants who would come in search of their roots. But this was no hostel; the circular architecture of the structure and thatch were suspicious. The framework, including the roof, was already in place. Some men weaved reeds between poles to create spaces that would be filled with the mud to form the walls. On one side of the structure, bales of hay lay ready for the roof. On the other, men kneaded mud-dough with their feet. Kanani turned away in repugnance.

He caught sight of Miisi and stopped. Though dressed traditionally, Cousin Miisi’s posture—the way he held his head, the unrelenting humility and friendliness—reminded Kanani of the British missionaries that came to Namirembe Cathedral from time to time. There was no English intrusion in Miisi’s speech, but the way he weaved his sentences and his gestures betrayed a distinct Western influence. It is this exoticism that has won him adulation in the clan, Kanani thought contemptuously. Yet if the Devil had taken human form, it was Miisi. To Kanani, despite his professed atheism, Miisi was a more potent weapon for evil than the openly heathen cousins. In the presence of Miisi, Kanani felt he was in the cold and calculating presence of Lucifer. For all his disbelief in the supernatural, Miisi was the so-called chosen one, the one whom the evil spirits spoke through. Yet he had constantly insisted, “My mind is overactive. I must have heard the story of Kintu Kidda as a child before my family died. It must have lain dormant somewhere in the back of my mind.”

As for the family curse, Miisi argued that it was a documented fact that in Buganda mental health problems such as depression, schizophrenia, and psychosis ran not only in families but in clans—the so-called ebyekika, clan ailings.

Looking at him now, Kanani decided that Miisi was disturbing. That seamless marriage of heathenism and intellectuality was unnatural. Westernisation erased heathenism in Africans; the humility that Miisi possessed came only with Christ’s saving grace. Only the Great Deceiver could combine the two. Kanani remembered the first elders’ council meeting where he had first met Miisi. Miisi had been hostile right from the start. Kanani had suggested that they open the meeting with a word of prayer when Miisi asked whether any of them knew a traditional prayer.

“We were rescued from our darkness. We now pray to God the Most High through Jesus Christ,” Kanani had answered.

“The Most High is a title for the god of the most powerful. Had we conquered Europe and taken our “light” to them, Europeans would be throwing themselves about in trances in the name of Ddunda. Christ would be a pagan god.”

“But the Romans—”

“Let’s start,” Kitooke had interrupted and prayer was abandoned.

Resistance to prayer was a pertinent sign that Cousin Miisi was not innocently misguided but intentionally satanic. Throughout that meeting, Kanani could not keep away the image of Europeans, with their intelligence and poise, throwing themselves about in trances. He had felt sick.

Kanani turned back to his tent. He squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush, picked up a mug of water, and went behind the tent to wash up. Then he set off down the hill toward the kitawuluzi where cars had been parked.

Paulo, who had slept in the car, was already awake. Despite instructions to keep non-clan members away from the campsite, Kanani asked Paulo to come with him to his tent and to help prepare a place of worship. They laid mats outside Kanani’s tent with Bibles and hymnals. By the time they finished, cousins working on the shrine had halted to have breakfast. Kanani asked Paulo to sit outside the tent while he went out to call people to prayer.

He approached a small group first. He greeted them and introduced himself as Kanani Kintu, an elder of the clan who was a Saved Christian. “If anyone cares to reflect on the death of Christ this Good Friday, they can come over there to my tent,” he pointed to where Paulo sat.

At first, Kanani’s invitations were met with polite smiles. No one accepted but no one refused outright until he came upon the group where Bweeza camped. Bweeza promptly launched at him. “What are you doing, Kanani?”

“Inviting my cousins to morning prayers and to vespers later.”

“If we wanted to pray to that god we would have invited a proper bishop. As it is, we hired a medium because we want to reach out to the ancestors.”

“We were set free, Magda. We now have a choice to either go to church or to the shrine. I am only offering an alternative.”

“Church-going cousins stayed at home. Cardinal Matia Kintu is a brother but he explained that his is a jealous god who can’t stand other gods.” Now Bweeza’s voice rose. “But some Christians are vultures. They stand by as you organize your party. The next thing you know they are waving Bibles at your crowd. Why don’t you organize your own reunion, invite the clan at Namirembe, and give us your version of salvation? As it is, Kanani, you are farting in our reunion.”

“The cardinal is a cousin?”

“Are you joking?” Bweeza turned to the voice. “We’ve been up and down this country looking for our blood. But if a whole cardinal did not pontificate, who are you, Kanani?”

“Kintu is my ancestor too. I came here to acknowledge that. But I am also a child of God. Today, I remember how he sacrificed his only Son for my sins.”

“Anyone else would be ashamed of human sacrifice, but not you, Kanani.”

“Christ was not human.”

Despite Bweeza’s attack, Kanani kept a cheerful face and carried on inviting cousins to prayer. Bweeza was tireless. She had so far attempted to usurp him on the elders’ council. Thankfully, not even heathens would make a woman an elder. Thwarted, Bweeza had lamented, “Our branch of the clan is headed by a fool just because he’s a man.”

Miisi had told her that he would sooner forget custom and install her as the elder but the rest of the elders had refused, no, no, no, that’s not done; it does not work!

When Kanani returned to his tent, he was heartened to see two cousins sitting with Paulo. First, they recited the Lord’s Prayer, then there was a reading from the Scriptures followed by a hymn. Kanani talked about God’s love as it manifested on the cross and they sang another hymn. He rounded up the prayer with the Grace.

As he and Paulo rolled the mats and put the Bibles away, Kanani felt lifted: legions of angels were on his side. He would dismantle the curse and crash the Devil. This reunion was crop, his job was to bring in the harvest. He looked at Paulo putting things away. Lately he had felt haunted by his grandson. Was this a sign that he, Kanani, was losing his faith? For example, in the past, he would have brought Faisi to the reunion, regardless of what the clan said. They would have overrun this place with the word of God, giving the Devil a bloody nose. Yet, here he was asking people whether they wanted to pray!

“I’ll go back to the car park,” Paulo said.

As Paulo walked down the hill, Kanani dismissed his anxiety about bringing him along. All would be well.