Me, entomb me in the bowls of the earth any time! At least, finally when I “fall into things” – as we used to say in Uganda, for becoming rich overnight – it won’t be over the death of 1.25 million souls.
Me, entomb me in the bowls of the earth any time! At least, finally when I "fall into things” – as we used to say in Uganda, for becoming rich overnight – it won’t be over the death of 1.25 million souls.
I’m alluding to the overnight fame of a Rwandan cook in the despised names of Rusesabagina.
I won’t have hoodwinked the world that I’ve saved cowed Rwandans holed up in a hotel, in mortal fear of the blood-thirsty Interahamwe besieging them. I’ll have earned a clean buck over a mere two months of missing wine.
What am I on about, you might as well ask.
Well, if you have forgotten many things that happened last August 5th, at least you remember the news of miners who were trapped some 800 metres in the depths of the earth. And now that I’ve jogged your memory, you know that the story refers to 33 men who were trapped in a mine in Chile.
What is intriguing me is not that the men are back on terra cognito now, but that they are back to what? From what I gather, all the Hollywood high-muck-a-mucks are waiting to make a killing. I’m told that the blockbuster of a film that’s likely to come out of that story will wrack in tones of trillions of dollars.
The miners won’t get much of the loot, of course, but the little that will trickle to them will be in millions. Men who’d have known nothing but a life of drudgery in the mines, turning into instant millionaires. Who wouldn’t wish to have been one of them? After all, they were enjoying their daily square meals and were only denied wine.
Just under three months of denial for boundless luxury. Me, give me even a year of denial for a lifetime of swallows and all! Not that I was anywhere near them even before they got trapped. When I’m earning a few dollars per month for telling you these bizarre tales, the men are earning a colossal $1600 each, as miners.
A sizeable salary for a miner, considering that that is almost the salary of a minister here. Still, that’s going to look like small change to these men whose two-month holiday inside the womb of terra incognito has turned them into millionaires.
And to think that I’d have earned myself equal fame and wealth if only Hollywood had known the existence of humanoids near gorillas! There is this time I disappeared from my home’s known environs for a week in the 1950s. I made crooning history when I finally surfaced and recounted my story.
I’ve often told you of the story of how we, as kids, used to go into the bamboo forest at the foot of Mount Muhabura and play with the kids of the families that used to live there. Usually, together we’d climb higher up where we’d join gorilla kids and play with them. Then, as today, gorillas led a nomadic life and we did not always find their kids.
One time, then, when we’d found them after months without playing with them, I played with young Guhonda for so long that I forgot that I’d need to go home. I did not even hear the others shouting their byes. I only turned to realise they’d left me alone with the gorillas.
I ran after them, dodging thickets and bamboo stalks, as I called out to them but there was no answer. Then it dawned on me: you cannot tell the way through the forest on your own. Only the forest families know their way through that thick forest.
I remembered that only a few days before, two students from Butare University, climbing down from Muhabura summit, had lost their way and perished in the forest when they wandered away from the group that had a guide.
So, I retraced my steps and went back to the gorilla family. For a week I roamed the forest with them, feeding on bamboo shoots and wild fruit. Evenings when they made their bed of twigs and grass, the kids made sure my place was in their midst, sensing perhaps that I was not possessed of their thick coat of bushy hair!
I knew that it’d be impossible for anyone to find me, as every day we changed homes…..As an aside, I can practically hear a young reader ask, why didn’t he have a mobile phone? Actually, I had! The mobile phone was in the form of Gakara.
Gakara was ‘umumotsi’, a man whose duty was to call out to the villagers of the area, whenever the sub-chief convened a meeting. And, indeed, two or three times I heard him holler out "Yewe, Ingina y’Igihanga weeeh!”, but he could not hear me, however hard I shouted back.
It was only through sheer good luck that one time I noticed that we were at the edge of the forest. Ingrate that I am, I immediately raced home, without remembering to shout a ‘bye’ to my guardians!
Still, when he was still on this terra firma, late Guhonda was a buddy to his last day.