3.

Saturday, April 10, 2004

Isaac took off his shoes to lie down. It was only four o’clock but he had returned to the tent to catch some sleep. He had been on the go since the start of the week and was exhausted. Kizza was out with the other children playing and would not be back to the tent until after supper, to sleep. He lay down on a mat and propped his head on his bag for a pillow. He rolled onto his back and tried to sleep. Then he opened his eyes and stared at the army-green converse of the tent above. Thoughts had started to plague him. He refused to think about the future. Instead he reflected on how life had led him to this place. In terms of relations, he was now rich. It was interesting listening to relatives talk about their mental disorders or other problems with pride as if it were a badge confirming Kintu as their ancestor. Brothers who did not have a problem to complain about—to Isaac the clan was made up of brothers, sisters, and elders—seemed to lack the conviction that they were true descendants of Kintu.

Before meeting the elders on the council, Isaac had been dismissive of his father’s family’s claim of a family curse. After all, every family—in a bid to make their roots seem deep and profound—claim some kind of spiritual inheritance. Isaac had never met a mental health sufferer who accepted his mental condition as just that—people always claimed that it had to be supernatural. Then he met the council of elders, all of them more educated than he was but believing, except Elder Miisi who was skeptical. Now, here he was with hundreds of relations, many with stories of their lives, or stories of relatives they had known to suffer the curse. It felt as if all his life he had been walking on a road leading here. He was home.

“Uncle Isaac,” a boy broke into his reverie.

Isaac sat up.

“Elder Miisi says that the medium has arrived and you are needed at the shrine.”

Isaac stood up, put his fatigue aside, slipped on his shoes, and walked out of the tent.

The shrine was completed.

As Isaac walked toward it, he was overcome by emotion. Did Mayirika occupy this same spot? Did Baale and Kalema play about here? Does the ground remember Kintu’s feet? The ground has a memory he was sure: it was beyond comprehension, beyond sight, and beyond touch but he knew it. Otherwise, how else could he explain the hundreds of Kintu’s descendants gathered now in this place?

At the threshold, an organic scent from the hay that carpeted the shrine greeted him. It was of the morning earth—open fields and dew. Isaac took his shoes off and walked in. The hay tickled his feet. The stillness and partial darkness inside created an ambience of reverence, as if the ancients hovered. Elder Miisi sat awkwardly on the floor. Next to him, two men sat on a mat. When Isaac sat down, Elder Miisi made the introductions. “Isaac, this is Muganda, the medium. The gentleman next to him is Nsimbi, his assistant.” Miisi turned to Muganda and said, “Isaac is our son: he represents his father who cannot be with us. However, Isaac is one of those sons you can rely on as much as an elder.”

“Isn’t it wonderful to meet such young men?” Muganda shook Isaac’s trembling hand.

Muganda took Isaac by surprise. First of all, he was not much older than him. Secondly, Muganda wore slacks and a polo shirt. The strap of his TAG Heuer watch was thick and wide. His hair and beard were manicured to sharp edges and he spoke in soft tones. Isaac was confused. He had expected an old man, tired from carrying the weight of spirits on his head, with hair in matted dreadlocks because the spirits would not allow him to cut it.

“Muganda and I met at Cambridge a long time ago,” Miisi was saying. “Before you came, Isaac, I was asking him whether he completed his course.” Now Miisi turned to Muganda, “You arrived just before I finished my research.”

“Yeah, I finished the BA and went to Newcastle for an MA,” Miisi and Muganda spoke about Britain as if it were a suburb in Kampala. “I see where this is going,” Muganda preempted. “You’re thinking—how can a British educated man be a medium?”

“No,” Miisi denied.

“You’re thinking that education should’ve lifted me above these cheap versions of psychology.”

“Normally, when people get a calling like yours,” Miisi said, “Which in my view is really an order, they give up everything.”

“My ‘calling,’ as you put it, did not force me to give up anything. I have a job and I travel.”

“So, at Cambridge, you were aware that you are a medium?”

“I found out in my third year. Got headaches and hallucinations and I was put on anti-depressants. When I came home for the holidays, my father went native, but I would not. Finally, the healer came to me. As soon as he saw me, he went into this trance saying: this is huge. He asked my father to construct a shrine immediately.”

“When did you convert?”

“I’ve never converted actually. I had a violent episode and my father asked me to lie in the shrine to rest. Twenty-four hours later, I woke up exhausted. Only I did not wake up, I had been up all night hosting all sorts. It took me a week to recover from the exhaustion but the headaches and hallucinations never returned.”

“So what is it really like? I mean, do you see, hear, or feel things?” Elder Miisi probed.

“I am a host—an office if you wish. Spirits come on my head, do their thing and go. Unlike you, Miisi, and your dreams, there is no contact whatsoever between me and the energies that occupy me. That is why I need an assistant.”

“I don’t understand,” Elder Miisi said.

“Neither do I,” Muganda smiled. “It is not cerebral. My intellectual friends speculate that there are energies out there in the universe and minds like mine are in touch but are too primitive to handle it.”

“I am familiar with the idea.”

“When the winds come, I stop being. My consciousness is repressed. When they leave, I’ve no recollection.”

At this point, Elders Kitooke and Kityo arrived with Bweeza who had carved out the office of the Great Aunt for herself and had finally edged her way officially onto the elders’ council. As Elder Miisi made introductions again, Isaac observed Muganda. He was uncertain about an educated medium, one who spoke such immaculate English. He did not doubt that Muganda had powers—he had already performed exhumation rituals in o Lwera and had identified the spot where Nnakato was—but Muganda was too anglicized to inspire confidence.

“At six in the morning we shall exhume Nnakato,” Muganda was saying. “My men are experienced in exhumation but Nnakato will take time because she is in a squatting position. We shall dig around her and lift her from the bottom. Then she’ll be laid out part by part. At about eight o’ clock, two elders will come with me to o Lwera to collect the Tutsi and the patriarch. I suggest that we leave Bweeza here to oversee the laying out and wrapping of Nnakato.”

“Well said,” Bweeza beamed.

Isaac was not surprised that Elder Miisi had opted out of the journey to o Lwera. He was a stubborn old man. Isaac feared for him: tradition showed that reluctant mediums paid a heavy price. Elders Kityo and Kitooke agreed to go with Muganda.

Later, as he lay down on a mat to sleep, Isaac mulled over everything. Since locating Kiyiika Village, he had been busy liaising between the elders and Kiyiika’s local council. It was through the local council that he found out about the Tanzanian brothers and sisters. Isaac smiled at the thought. When he asked them whether they needed clearing at the embassy, the Tanzanians had asked, “What embassy?” Then they had crossed the border like ants—without travel documents or visas. Elder Miisi had laughed heartily. “Bloody borders! African countries are a European imagination.” It was the first time Isaac had heard Miisi speak English.

Isaac had also procured all the materials needed for the reunion. He had hired locals to help with the physical work on the site: clearing the gorge, preparing the campsite, digging makeshift toilets, and erecting traditional tents, which they sold to the clan. For a week before the reunion, residents had worked on the track through the village to make it passable for the expected cars. The amount of money the reunion brought to Kiyiika Village had endeared the clan to the residents. There was even a taxi service from Masaka to Kiyiika for the first time. Kiyiika residents had told Isaac that Nnakato had blessed them for their faithfulness. Yet, throughout those preparations, Isaac had not considered the spiritual dimension of the homecoming. Now, having met the medium in person, he was apprehensive.