Reflections on sunday : A past of survival through solidarity

Interesting that there is an American who went through the rough collisions with nature that I weathered! His bouts of collision may have been few but, even then, they could not have left him unscathed. And I’m not talking about any Yankee around the corner getting involved in those collisions. I’m talking about the mother! You’ll remember when a certain dictator in the Near Eastern sands declared “the mother of all wars” on USA but never lived to see it through. From then, we started referring to anyone and anything big as “the mother”. Another dictator recently vowed to clear his North African sands of “all rats” only to see “all rats” drill a hole in his skull, after a round of disgraceful tortures. But “all rats” is not catching on as a phrase. Anyway, the mother of all Yankees to whom I refer is US president Barrack Obama. Among his recollections in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, is a visit to his father’s native country, Kenya. In the villages of Alego and Kendu, Obama is able to survive a combination of collisions that must have come in handy as a survival kit in the cut-throat race to White House. He talks about seeing “women slapping wet clothes against exposed rock” and taking his showers in the open. Today, our own kids here in Kigali cannot understand it when we tell them how we used to wash our clothes, those who had them. They cannot understand how we used to fetch water and sometimes spare some for a shower in the open. As refugees in Nshungerezi, south-western Uganda, in the early 1960s, we did all those and some. “Some” in the sense that apart from showers and washing clothes, there were other tasks like being hunted by animals, building our huts, tilling the land, running to school (yes, a duty also!), fetching firewood, working for food, and multiple others. So, we simplified some. Instead of wasting the water you fetched on showers, why not take a shower at the source of the water? It is in that line of duty that one time we were at the Akagera River bank, whose course was near our camp. As usual, on arrival at the river, we put our water containers aside and removed our clothes for washing, by “slapping them against exposed rock”, as Mr. Obama calls it. After washing them we put them on a big log nearby to dry. Then those who could swim dived into the water, on the shallow side where the water was slowest, while those of us who did not know how to swim only picked the water with our hands and splashed it onto our bodies. After our ‘showers’ and ‘baths’, we went back to check if our clothes were dry, only to find they had crawled away! And indeed, we could see their ‘paw-prints’ (surely they couldn’t be footprints!) and we followed them until we stopped dead in our tracks – there was no mistaking that tail! When we stopped to check carefully, we saw that our clothes were cosily riding on the back of a crocodile! We followed discreetly to wait for it to pass through some thicket so that our clothes could be caught in grass and twigs but nothing doing. We sat down to ponder our next step but, before we could even start thinking, someone cried out: “Kiragarutse!” (It’s back!). We scampered back the way we had come but, coward that I was, I thought better of challenging the beast to a race. Instead, I clambered up a stout tree and watched the others from the comfort of branches, as they scattered in all directions without stopping to take a breath. Unbeknown to them, the crocodile had stopped and was comfortably sunbathing, just as we’d found him on arrival when we had put our clothes on his back to dry. I called out to them to stop running and one of them glanced back to confirm. They stopped but could not see beyond the beast. In the tree, I could see the clothes where they’d been caught up in some brush and I called out to them to go round and pick them. After giving the animal time to forget about my voice, I quietly climbed down and sneaked away. We rendezvoused at our containers and put on our clothes, after which we filled our containers and set off back. In all his adventures, be it in Singapore or in Kenya, Mr. Obama never had a close brush with any beast of Wild-land! I know a number of our leaders who had such close shaves, and a pile more, and their experiences are the richer for it. Only problem is, they are leading a more complicated society, not one that has its odds and ends all nicely tied together. But for their complicated environment, no one would question their democratic credentials. With a background of survival through solidarity, your very DNA spells democracy. Even my selfish streak was for the good of my comrades – and no tongue in cheek! E-mail:iyigihanga@gmail.comBlog:iyigihanga.wordpress.com