h2>Dating : A more constructive environment…
The blanket is rough and itchy. Cheap. The kind that jjaaja refers to as “munyarwanda agudde ku kkubo,” even though she’s a munyarwanda herself. The sheet beneath is damp. Caesar slept in that spot last night and of course wet it. Caesar leaks like the roof of Jjaaja’s kitchen. But, between her fingers is a heavenly feel: the wrinkled softness of Jjaaja’s elbow.
Tonight is her turn to share Jjaaja’s bed and running her fingers through the wrinkles of jjaaja’s elbow is her favourite lullaby. On most nights, she’ll suck on her thumb to go to sleep but on these nights, she adds the feel of Jjaaja’s elbow. So good! She is actively fighting sleep; trying to make the feeling last as long as possible.
Jjaaja’s soft even breathing says she has finally fallen asleep. Kojja Ssendi and Uncle Jack in the sitting room on the other side of the wall must somehow know. They have lowered their voices to a whisper, as if not to disturb their mother’s sleep. Then again, they are conspiring to take away one of Jjaaja’s grandkids.
They used to be seven, now down to 4. All three were take to the city; “a more constructive environment,” Kojja Ssendi, head of the clan, likes to say.
Tina loves words. English words have a special pull. They come typed and neatly lined up in Kojja Ssendi’s books on the dusty shelf in the sitting room. Unknowable beauties. She likes when Kojja Ssendi uses them. That only happens when his brothers who went to school, like him, visit the village home. Like now, with Uncle Jack. When they talk, they usually just slip a few English works in, here and there. “Ajja kujja. Ssi leero. Mpozi tomorrow.” It sounds like a song to Tina’s ears; starting out in the world you know, and fading out into the unknown and unreachable. But every once in a while, Kojja Ssendi, inspector of schools in Mityana county, shows off his storied education and drops a word or phrase that even Tina recognizes as big.
“A more constructive environment,” is a common choice. He likes to use it when he is fantasizing about the city, or complaining about the rumour mongering on the village. Tina likes to memorise the big words Kojja Ssendi blessed the air with.
As far as she can get, a more constructive environment is the world beyond Jjaaja’s homestead, where the educated brothers of the home, take the children of their uneducated sisters. Tina, Christina Namatovu, is one of those children. Daughter of Ester Nakandi, said to be a market women in Kalerwe, Kampala. Father: Unknown. He could be anyone of the young men on the village. Tina’s mother, pregnant at 15, didn’t say despite a severe beating from her educated, now embarrassed older brothers.
Tina’s ear is trained at the room beyond, listening for big words, when Kojja Ssendi says to Uncle Jack in Luganda, “take Tina. She is the smartest little girl I have ever seen.” Then in English, “take her to a more constructive environment.”
It’s the first time she has heard those big English words and not like liked it. She thought they would take the older boys, Richard and Manzi, first.
