When I returned to Rwanda for the first time, I was warmly welcomed by a one Mr. Gafaranga.  There is a common Kinyarwanda saying that,” if you hate your child, name him or call him a bad name”, don’t you think the untold reverse of the saying could be equally true? 

In those days when we roamed the Kampala streets in search of jobs and the rewards that come with them , my host Gafa walked and walked and walked, till he lost hope of ever getting a job. 

Some of us being young men, not that we were very young nor what you would call old, we were deterred by any thing that lay in the way of our pursuit for "green grasses”.

Gafa being around a decade or so our senior, we always referred to him as "Baba”- a Kiganda slang used to address your elder brother or sister). 

Under several Ugandan cultures, it was a taboo calling or addressing your elder or elders by their names. You had to use slang like Bwana, Mzee, Nyabo, Ssebo etc. Who cares? 

After all, that is a long time ago, a lot of water has flown under bridges of this world for us to dwell on those nitty-gritty. 

Come home, under the protection of a big brother (not the one on DSTV though), like Gafa, was so reassuring that, I laid my life into his hands and could play with it as he wished.

Gafa having arrived before the "guns stopped smoking”, he was more placed to know Kigali better than any of us. Some things are better left unsaid than being said at all!

As age was quickly harassing our man (Gafa), coupled with the "AIDS” (Acquiring Income Deficiency Sorrows), a clever man would have jumped or is it, leaped at the slightest opportunity of getting healed from such a predicament.

Obviously, that is what our Gafa did. He married a nice looking business woman from Central Buganda.  In my heart of hearts, I believe, that lady must have migrated from another planet; she was too beautiful to be true! 

Ok, dukomeze, "Not all that glitters is Gold”. I can hear many of you silently cursing my statement and terming it as a matter of "Sour Grapes”. 

Those of you who do not know what this saying means; there was an animal that wanted to eat some grapes off their tree, but this poor animal could neither fly nor climb the tree, he lay underneath the tree with mouth agape in the hope that, the grapes would fall off the tree and he ate. 

After waiting for so long and no grapes dropped, he consoled himself that, after all the grapes on that tree were sour, he could as well ignore them and hence the births of the term "sour grapes”.   

The lady was most probably older than our Gafa, but who says that love has any age limit!

Many years after, the couple lived happily there after (and are still happy to date).  Late last year, "Tantine” (we used to call her Auntie and that made her look too old, we decided to Frenchnise the same) informed her husband that, she had received a phone call informing her of the sudden death of her elder sister’s son, a one Kizito (may God rest his soul in peace). 

I hate talking about departed ones lest they turn in their graves in anguish. Poor Gafa had to find the necessary funds to go and "gutabara” after all, it is widely known across the northern border of our Republic, that a one Gafaranga, "fell into things” here in Rwanda and so, he had to redeem his name. 

As is tradition, in Buganda, funeral are conducted in a very orderly manner with lots of people around, lots of food, beers etc. On our part, Gafa insisted that we accompany him because a "muko” has to arrive in style.  

We left in a troupe of six. We boarded the Jaguar Bus to Kampala and hired six self drive cars so that, our in-laws would not underestimate us. Everything went as planned and we returned to Kigali.

Five months latter, there was a rumour that, Gafa’s wife had lost a son. We all rushed to Gaculiro to express our sympathies to the Gafas for having lost a son.

To our utter horror, we found no funeral vigil at their home, there was a birthday party instead. We did not know of any living son of Tantine, other than the young Gafa’s. Could it be that, Tantine was not yet aware of the same?

No thank you! I called her aside and asked her about the story going round town and she admitted that, the guy we had buried late last year was her son but she had kept the secret away from Gafa.  

As and when our Gafa hears of this, I don’t know nor do I want to around.  Let us wait and hear what happens next.

Contact: Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm