Humour: The Villager: The origin of the word “Afande”

There are many myths and legends surrounding the origin of the word “Afande.” I tried to look it up from the dictionary but wapi! My computer’s thesaurus only gave me words like amend, defend, fade and many others. I suppose defender is the closest word one can get to. It seems the word originated from defenders in the KAR (Kings African Rifles); an army in which the highest ranking Africans served as defenders. To the locals, the word sounded as ‘afande’ or ‘afende’ (translated to mean boss). People used to call me ‘Afande’ but sincerely speaking, I never deserved that title at all. I suppose, if the real ‘afandes’ had confronted me, I would have hidden in shame and scandal. I must confess that in my entire family there was no single ‘afande’ save for a self-styled one; I was the first to pass the title. For sure, it evolved out of the word “afende,” which sounded more or less the same, had it not been for the a and e before and after f! The years after the post liberation war, Kigali was awash with so many ‘afandes.’ Most of them had “bizarre names” derived from weeds, vegetables, animals, insects and bushes. It could be that men acquired these names to hide their true identities as a way of protecting their friends and relatives from any harassment that would have been mated out by the former. In the mid 1980’s, there was a policy that called for all students aspiring to joint post secondary or tertiary institutions to pass through the national school of political education. This school was located somewhere in Wakiso (just a few kilometres from Kampala). Later on, the school was relocated to Kyankwazi, a distant country home. It was mandatory for one to go for this political education (commonly known as mchaka mchaka); it was equivalent to the current “ingando.” That time, I was in Kabarole District of western Uganda. We had to register through the district offices and then would be transported to Wakiso for the training. This was bound to be an experience of a lifetime since many of us had never travelled more than a handful of kilometres from our homes. We had guys who carried around three pairs of shoes on top of mattresses, blankets and bed sheets. We went aboard Lorries through Mityana and Busunju (avoiding going through Kampala city). The guy in-charge of the entire programme was none other than Major Roland Kakooza Mutale. After the Lorries left us on the way, he promised to give us two buses that would transport us to the final destination; as if possessed by a funny spirit, he jumped up and down commanding us to board the buses and move on! But there were no buses to be seen. One Bwambale, a son to a Kasese tycoon, asked the Major as to where the buses were, which almost earned him a thorough beating. We were told that, the two buses were our legs and that, we had to trek the route to Kyankwanzi or else we faced heavy punishments! At this juncture, most of us had to “load shed” (dump unnecessary objects to ease the match). We had an agonising four hours to get to the final destination. Wakiso was then a jungle, not like the present developed area with well-structured institutions. In the evening, we were asked to construct our shelters which comprised of grass thatched huts (mama ingia pole). To some of who had built these huts nearly a thousand times, it was trading a commodity for several times! We could see the expression on the faces of city guys not matching ours. They didn’t even know how to uproot grass thatches using their bare hands. We had to use some weak sticks to support the temporary structures and then add thatches to complete the whole work. That evening, we were supplied with dry beans and maize flour to make our dinner; since a good number were dead tired, they chose to sleep hungry. The next morning, at around four o’clock, we were awakened to distant gun shots. The Major paraded us and said we had to pack up and flee the area due to an attack by some unknown strangers who were approaching our camp. He further ordered us to burn up any thing that we could not take along with us. He told us to adopt the scorched earth policy like the Russians did to approach Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers. We had to obey his instructions and fell in line. We trekked for several hours until 10:00 in the morning of the following day. After six hours, the Major halted us for a rest; we all appeared very hungry and exhausted. Of course some of us had neither food nor water the previous evening, and we never carried anything with us for the journey. The Major told us that he had received a radio message that, all was clear and we had to return to our original camp! Some of us believed that rather than going back, it would have been better to walk on indefinitely without having any time frame, than match back for six hours! It was so painful going back and starting from ashes but we eventually arrived at the original site and started from scratch.The month or so we spent in the political school was a real eye opener. It is from this activity that I won and learnt the title ‘Afande.’ Another lesson was never to give up; when everything seems to be lost, you can always start up again and succeed! mfashumwana@fastmail.fm