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How Moses came down from his mountain

Wednesday August 16 2017
Moses

Every Saturday afternoon, Moses took his wife to see a different part of Kampala. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYANGA

By KAMEGA BAGUMA

When Maama Bobu went to Kampala from the village, she was snubbed by the women of Kisenyi slum. Her husband Moses was a welder in the nearby area of Kibuye, and their two children — Bob and Maria, 10 and eight years respectively — attended the UPE school in Kisenyi.

Maama Bobu had brought her very large bean harvest to sell in Kampala where it would fetch a better price. She was going to give the money she made from the beans to her husband and then return to the village.

But conditions had been tough that year for the family, and after Moses paid off the arrears of school fees, uniforms, rent and his personal debts, there was no money left for Maama Bobu’s transport back. And so, she stayed on.

In a way, Moses was glad to have someone to clean the shack they lived in, to wash the clothes, to have hot supper waiting for him at the end of the day, and, above all, take care of Bob and Maria who were growing up fast and becoming difficult to manage.

Besides, his three sisters were unavailable because they lived at the village home.

However, in spite of all these advantages, Maama Bobu’s presence was a source of acute embarrassment to Moses. The slum women derided her for wearing only gomesis, and his acquaintances often asked each other how a street-smart man like Moses had ended up with such a greenhorn.

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Her peculiarities were not lost on Moses. For instance, her incurable habit of kneeling before the shopkeepers and any male who addressed her.

And she would not burn her plastic shopping bags, but carefully stored them for reuse. They were a cause of mild irritation to Moses. This woman had been in Kampala for four weeks and still behaved like a villager, he thought disgustedly.

He cringed inwardly at the snide remarks the other women made about her, and hated the idle men who came to his door on one pretext or another just so she would kneel before them.

He really must send her back to the village. Why, only the other day she had gone and cleaned out Hajji Musa’s goat pens, a job done by drunks. And Samson told him, with a twinkle in his eye, that Hajji Musa had paid her well on account of the good job she did.

Moses was furious. He started to come home after dark and would leave at first light.

One evening she announced that she would put up a shop. Moses listened half-heartedly.

His attention was outside, where a lively discussion of the weekend’s football match was going on. He had missed that match because he was trying to save up enough money to send Maama Bobu back to the village.

Imagine his surprise when he came home in the evening and found his wife sitting on a tree stump with a basket of roasted ground nuts.

“What are you doing here at this time?” he asked her.

“I am selling my goods.”

Once in their shack, he turned on her in annoyance and asked: “Where did you get the money?”

Maama Bobu knelt down before she answered, “From cleaning out Hajji Musa’s goat pens, husband.”

Moses felt his temper rising and swept aside the curtain that shielded their bed, sat on it and sulked.

He really must send this woman back to the village before she did something disastrous. Selling groundnuts meant that he had failed to provide for the family. He was sure his neighbours were all laughing at him.

Maama Bobu warmed his bathwater and took it to the bathroom, then came back and served the children supper and put them to bed. She did not speak to him for she saw he was in a bad mood.

The following week, she added tomatoes, onions and green peppers to her stock. And people came to buy, if only to observe her odd behaviour. That week went well for her.

Meanwhile, Moses only had misfortune. The welding machine broke down and his boss demanded he pay for the repairs, and this coming from a man who routinely kept back part of his wages. He had to use all the money he had saved, and was now broke and his mood got worse.

Then Lucy, the salon owner, befriended Maama Bobu and advised her to buy some skirts.

“People in town do not put on gomesis,” she said. So Maama Bobu bought two skirts and three blouses from the second-hand clothes dealer.

The clothes were out of fashion, and her neighbours were amused. Everyone turned out to see the comical sight. Mamma Bobu’s sales went through the roof. She had to go for more stock three times that week. Soon she was selling hot katogo (stew) of beans and cassava in the mornings.

It became common to see two or three men on an early morning seated on a bench near her shack enjoying her food.

That Saturday, she bought a kilogramme of meat from Yusuf the butcher, and her neighbours were silenced. She even gave her husband money to go and watch football and buy one beer. That cheered him up a great deal.

He began to take notice of his surroundings, and saw that Hajji Musa was unaccountably attentive to his wife, advising her on her small business and even getting his boys to put up a crude kiosk where she displayed her vegetables and groundnuts.

And there he was, watching her as she cleaned out his goat pens, chatting about only heaven-knew-what, with her. He often told her female neighbours that they would do well to take a leaf from such an industrious woman like her, and loudly sang her praises.

Moses now had a new worry. Hajji Musa was a prosperous goat dealer in Kisenyi and had only two wives. It is true he addressed Maama Bobu as “my daughter,” but still he made Moses nervous.

And Maama Bobu could not take a hint. Hajji Musa was a frequent diner at her bench. No, he must nip this “friendship” in the bud before anything bad happened.

He could not send her back to the village now because she was bringing in a lot of money, such that he could afford to send his sisters some of it. Also, the children had never been happier and were looking good.

One evening he came home early and saw his wife seated on the wooden box in front of the shack. Then it hit him. He knew what he had to do. The next day he went into town and bought his wife a smart dress and a pair of shoes.

He handed them to her saying: “On Saturday, I’m taking you to see the town! Ask your friend Lucy to mind the children in our absence.”

Every Saturday afternoon, Moses took his wife to see a different part of Kampala. After three such trips, Maama Bobu finally gave up cleaning the goat pens. Though Hajji Musa still frequented her makeshift restaurant, Moses had no fear. Here at his shack, he could keep a close eye on him.

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