I sobbed and cried quietly throughout the English lesson that day. The teacher made me think of the stories of Amin that I had heard. Daddy said the reason we came back to Uganda was becausewas no longer president. H. E. Museveni had restored peace, and so we didn’t have to be in exile anymore. If it wasn’t for Amin, maybe I wouldn’t be feeling like an outcast in my country and new school. My big sisters wanted to stay in Sidney for a few more years, but daddy said when death came his way; it should find him in his own country. He had spent the last two years sending money back to Uganda in order to build a home for us. Also, since he was a viceprincipal of a teacher’s training college in Australia, Makerere University offered him a big job that 29 he couldn’t turn down. I thought I would find peace in Uganda like he said, but instead, the English teacher had just slapped me. I tried hard not to pee in my pants in terror of it all. I resolved never to come back to school again. But then, as soon as the teacher ended her class, the children sitting around me started saying sorry and offering me sweets and telling me how I’d get used to the beatings and all. Suddenly, I was making friends. The children were no longer scared of talking to me. This began my orientation into my country, Uganda. Uganda was horrible at first! When we arrived, three weeks before my initiation into Ugandan school days, we did not have electricity for two days in a row. After that, electricity was off every other night. There were only two TV stations; UTV and CTV. Between those two stations, there were only five cartoons; Pingu, Superbook, Kissyfur, Duck Tales and Didi. Well Didi wasn’t a cartoon, but he was just as fun to watch since he was a clown. In Australia, power only went off once or twice a year, and the dates of the power cuts were announced at least six months before the blackout. And there were two whole channels dedicated to cartoons all day and night. Here, the cartoons only came on during the weekdays in the evenings, so I spent my weekends learning how to play kwepena (dodgeball) and dool (shooting marbles) with my neighbours. I have learnt a lot since then, over the years. I have learnt to kneel when greeting elders and to peel and steam matooke in its banana leaves. I have learnt to iron clothes with a charcoal iron when there is no power, and to cook with firewood. I learnt to wear three pairs of shorts under my school uniform so that it didn’t hurt as much when I was caned by teachers. I learnt enough Luganda to bargain for things in Owino market, and how to make kwepena balls out of any piece of soft rubbish in the compound. I no longer have an Australian accent. My friends learnt a lot too. They learnt the difference between Australia and America. They learnt that not every Ugandan abroad is cleaning toilets and bedpans in hospitals. They learnt that not every child from abroad is a spoilt brat who can’t climb trees; in fact, children from bulaaya can be very generous with their fancy toys! They learnt that it is futile to speak vernacular to someone who spent the first nine years of their life speaking English in a foreign continent. In fact, had it not been for the numerous relatives that camped at our spacious home for years after we got back, I probably wouldn’t even be able to speak the little Luganda I do now. And we speak Luganda, not because it is our language, but because daddy’s new job is in the country’s capital - Bugandaland. Everyone from every other tribe in the country learns to speak Luganda when they live here. Most of them know their own languages too. But a few, like me, who only visit our villages once or twice a year, will forever suffer this minor identity crisis and those quizzical looks we get every time someone declares, “You can’t speak your language!” But today, I am not going get that look. I am going to let the receptionist blabber on in our mother tongue, and I’ll keep nodding and laughing and exclaiming at appropriate intervals, because that is my ticket to getting into the doctor’s room without paying that expensive consultation fee. Then he’ll fill in my medical form, stamp it, and I’ll get out and say bye to the receptionist in Luganda or English. Then she’ll say bye to me in Luganda or English and she won’t find it weird because everyone in Kampala speaks Luganda or English. Then I’ll get out and add my medical form to my other papers which I will submit to the embassy. Then they will call me after a few days to let me know if I’ve been approved for a visa to fly out of my country to do my masters degree in Australia. 30 Waiting Hellen Nyana The chick in the purple top, high waist skirt and kitten heels definitely knows how to dress in an understated yet alluring sort of way. Not a hair out of place - I had to stop and stare to make sure there really wasn’t a hair out of place - subtle make-up and clean, short, fingernails. The fastened buttons of her button-down shirt stop slightly above her bosom, giving me an ever so slight peep as she heaves in subtle anticipation. She is a snob though. Earlier on, when I tried to greet her and introduce myself, she had politely answered, but had deliberately refused to give me her name, walking off instead and sitting at the other end of the table where she pretends to read a book. No one can convince me they can concentrate on a book while they wait for a life-altering experience so she has to be pretending. Then there is the breast-feeding chick. Not that she has come with a child to the job interview, but the tight knot around her chest attracts even more attention to the already lifted boobs, thanks to an obviously effective push-up bra. She keeps checking herself in her pocket mirror and adding layers and layers of grease to her lips. She might be bored, like all of us are in the waiting room but she definitely intends to rely heavily on her “bosom buddies” to nail the job. Those boobs better do a good job today or I would hate to think what she will do to them if they fail her, I think to myself. I turn to my HTC and update my twitter status to: Had I known boobs played a big role in getting a job, I would have been born a woman. #WinningNot The waiting room is down a long corridor, next to a conference hall with a big wooden door in which the written and oral interviews are to take place. The room is portioned off with a glass screen and a sliding door. The glass has patterns on it, such that the people on the inside and those on the outside can see figures on either side without making out the faces. It is furnished quite tastefully with black sofas and a glass-top table in the room’s centre, topped with business magazines and profile pamphlets on the organisation conducting the interviews - the Ministry. Six of us have just been herded into the room from the reception. We mumble greetings to the people who are next to us in the line and attempt to look for comfortable spots in the room which can easily fit twenty people. I take the seat nearest to the entrance just in case I need to dash out, and also it can’t hurt to see all the people that want the job. The profile pamphlets are the first to be picked up and like hot, meaty bites at a cocktail party, they go fast. One must know everything they can about the company they want to work for, I guess. I pick one from the last two and begin to leaf through. My reading is interrupted when a short, old man in an oversized coat sweeps into the room. He says in a firm and loud voice, “Good morning everybody. How are you all today?” We all mumble unintelligible things, some of us startled out of our private worlds by his commanding presence. Due to his air of authority, if I had not seen him before at the written interview we had in Namboole, I would have thought he already worked for the Ministry and had come to instruct us in the next step of the selection process. He goes ahead and pumps some hands, sprinkling more pleasantries as he jumps over people to reach those seated on the other side of the table. They have already warmed up their seats and refuse to leave their strategic vantage points. He finds a seat on the other side of the table which is directly opposite the entrance and proceeds to pull out a bunch of papers and starts going over them with furious concentration, as if preparing for a final exam. From the unnaturally black edges on his scalp, you can tell he has recently dyed his hair. Dude, y
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