Absolute Kiwani: Crazy Whispers

**Crazy Whispers**

In Uganda, everyone knows or has ever heard of a place called Kakuku, a slum within the city of Fort Portal, nestled in the western reaches of the country. If Kakuku is unfamiliar to you, relax, for you’re about to be acquainted with its remarkable, amazing and intriguing mysteries.

Kakuku’s claim to fame is its association with the renowned Mr. John Paul Kyomya, akin to Kamwokya’s connection to the celebrated Robert Ssentamu, Bobi Wine. Those who dwell near Mr. Kyomya consider themselves fortunate for they don’t merely hear tales or pay for glimpses of him but often witness his evening strolls to the local centre.

Spotting him walk donning his distinctive mean hat, one might wager he’s a man before his 50 but when he doffs it, would have lost! The John Paul I am talking about is now 70 years old but carries a vigour of someone twenty years his junior, though his head is ever silver grey covered. Whenever he walks, at least two people always escort him, guarding him!

But let me not reveal too much too soon. Instead, journey with me to a pivotal time in his life that you’ll clearly understand him. 

In his golden age, the year 1999, Mr John Paul Kyomya was 48 years old, the same tall dark-skinned muscular man he is today. He was an eminent noble figure in the whole of Kakuku for he was the chairperson of the local council, a post he secured in 1996, as well as the leader of his clan, the Kaiso clan, and the former famous headteacher of Kakuku Primary School, which was 2 kilometres from his home.

Married with two sons, John Paul’s wealth spanned goats, cows, land, and various other assets. His residence was well situated atop a modest hill that from the front yard the view swept through most of Kakuku’s heart.

Locally, he was simply ‘Chairman’. People loved him so much that he had won the elections by far, back then when the folk voted their leaders. However, like any other leader in his area, he was corrupt, a practice so ingrained it had become customary. For every case he settled or folk meetings and callings he attended, he always solicited some amounts and commissions he called ‘Allowances’. Even for the parish stamp or his signature on your papers, you’d have to pay him some allowances, and the people were used to it as it had become a tradition, a tradition that had met his hunger and greediness!

Life progressed smoothly until alcohol took hold, consuming him as vigorously as he consumed it, drinking like fish, day and night. His addiction became so insidious and severe that one time he suffered an acute intoxication, he lost his dignity and almost his role as a chairperson! 

Addiction deepened exhuming his previous griefs. He began selling his property with all the money perishing in the bars, becoming bankrupt. As time went on, he advanced to getting debits from friends but he never invested nor refunded any only perished it drinking, and financial and family problems evolved. 

The only income they depended on hinged on their son Johnson Wadde’s wages, a modest goat enterprise, and a small garden that barely sufficed for their subsistence needs.

Life grew increasingly difficult as Mary Kyomya, overwhelmed by her husband’s decline, abandoned household duties, including digging, in favour of daily church prayers. She sought divine intervention for her husband’s redemption and her family’s salvation. This shift burdened John Paul with resentments, viewing her piousness with scepticism.

The family had endured lots of terrifying hardships but none was more harrowing as the robbery on Christmas Eve of 1998 where the modest money they had gotten from the sales of a piece of land and a motorcycle John Paul cherished so much were all stollen, followed by the tragic loss of his second son in late January 1999.

The subsequent periods of their lives were marked by relentless cycles of attempts and failure. John Paul Kyomya succumbed to depression, exacerbated by grief. His health deteriorated as he sought solace in alcohol, drinking intensively, profusely, and relentlessly. 

He attributed every single problem to misfortunes, caused by his wife’s witchery and churchgoing; he accused and blamed her, lamented days and nights… that his depression became chronic! 

Across the country, people lived a normal peaceful and prosperous life until preachings about the judgement day, the end of their times foretold to precede the dawn of the year 2000. Whispers and rumours affirmed so, and Kakuku was as well infected by the malignancy!  

The apocalypse phobia was insidious and cancerous. People dreaded and worried so much that the coming Christmas of ‘99 was potentially the finale. 

Believers rushed as if death was in the next morning, as if the whistle of injury time had been blown; everyone was after winding up before fate peeped… Freewheel was the pace of their mind’s processing units; the bars, saloons, markets, clubs, brothels and churches opened wide day and nights! All the believers, who were mostly Christians, died to do anything they’ve never done before judgement knocked…  and those who never believed watched the mania ride. 

Like many other people in Kakuku, Mary Kyomya had become obsessed that you could hardly drag her out of the church. She clung to the belief that repentance and redemption were the only safeguards and survival tickets of what was coming; the second coming of their lord, judgement day, when the world would end, the dead and living be judged alike.

Chairman John Paul Kyomya resorted to watching the obsessed maniacs die of madness. He was never a believer in anything mysterious, his religion was solely his daily hustles and trials. To other people, he appeared cool, but never to his wife Mary; every time they argued and fought about it; judgement topic.

Their son Johnson never showed his side nor a view on the matter. He resorted to working hard for the future he aspired for, for he never hoped or confided in his parent’s help. He worked on the merit of the acute apocalyptical mania that prevailed. 

Despite his youth, Johnson became a pillar for his parents. The little wages he earned; they tapped it. As time went on, Johnson got overstrained and, in an attempt, to work harder, drug abusers manipulated him. He joined their robbery gang, they used him, and was caught!

His father, ashamed, liquidated what little assets remained to raise his son’s bail. Still struggling with his son, Mary’s health faltered, incurring medical expenses that John initially resisted but ultimately settled. 

Due to the many problems that overwhelmed him, John Paul was only left to wake up every early morning drinking, lamenting and later wander the garden aimlessly to waste time. He became paranoid and depressed, dark thoughts his constant companions. 

Because of his changed behaviour and mood, his people started dishonouring and distrusting him and they stopped presenting their issues however ‘sick’ they were. Although they disrespected him, nobody could impeach him for it was not in accord with the laws unless death occurred. 

On the morning of December 02nd 1999, Johnson Wadde woke up first and went to the garden. His mother woke up preparing to go to church as she quarrelled with his father about her daily churchgoing and her faith in the impending apocalypse, their routine disputes. John Paul repeatedly stopped her from going to church, but never on a single day, she listened or obeyed his nonsense. 

Mary took her breakfast with her ears stuffed to avoid her husband’s noise. By 8 am she was live in the church immersed in prayers.

John Paul woke up shortly after Mary had left, to an empty house, opened the door and pondered his day’s agenda. He moved out with his chair to the front yard, basking in the morning sun before deciding to go to the centre have a tour, what he called ‘daily duty’; to solicit some money and drink.

He immediately got inside and dressed up decently. He braced his pants, topped on his black coat, and picked up his wallet, plus his short walking stick. He looked in his broken mirror on the wall and judged fine. He then moved out walking gently through their well-cleared path to the centre.

When he had just reached the centre, he found school-going children loitering and playing under the bright morning sun during school days. He wondered. “Oh gods, what future of our children!” he prayed silently. 

However, their recognition of him quickly turned to jeers and provocations. “Bar chair’, bar chair’, Uncle Paul...” they mocked. Anger flamed within him pulsing to discipline them, but before he could act, a shop attendant who came out very naked intervened, offering apologies and dispersing the children. John Paul accepted her apologies. Calmed, he went on.

As he proceeded walking, he also noticed school-going youth idly playing card games, noblemen and women in bars and discos as early as morning and noises from the multiple churches were inevitable and unbearable. He stood for some seconds, stared at them and wondered when the real saviour of the world would ever come. 

Somewhere inside his heart, he got convinced that indeed the world was to end by 2000, a few weeks then. People were in total mania; everyone was obsessed by the end of time doing whatever pleased them. Shame had become an obsolete word, and laws were no more laws! 

Be fornicating on the open road in broad sunlight, be walking naked, be starving, or revenging, no one minded, for as long as they did whatever they wished before judgement doomed them. Somehow, he thought perhaps they were the sign the true world was indeed ending. 

He ignored and continued for a short distance then made a corner at a junction and walked forward to the old house that stood before him. The door was wide open. He entered, majestically. 

The house was big and dark inside only lighted by dim lamps. Smooth music from a cassette radio played at the counter welcoming and comforting guests. It was a bar, one only for the freemen, those who believed days would move on after 2000.

“Mr Chairman, we welcome you,” greeted the attendant, sparking a chorus of warm receptions from his last remaining friends.

He proceeded to the v.i.p. section where they seated. “Comrades, I’ve had a very bad morning,” he said.

“Oh, first complete the circle here,” one of them said to him, as he cleaned his seat, “get here, the beer is very nice today.” He gave him a long pipe to suck from the huge brown pot that sat on a round pad at their centre.

“So, is it again your wife?” another one, Ogwang, asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied sadly.

“Sorry… but why does she think prayers can bring you salvation?” said Ogwang.

“I told you Ogwang, my wife is another Kitwa!”

“Oh! Bada…” Ogwang said, “I told you, just toss her out, ask for a refund of your cows. How can she disrespect you that much and waste time in church doing madness that praying for the world? They are all witches. Tell her you’ll never relinquish!”

An old man from their circle also said, “You see Ogwang, this delusion does not stop here. I am told everywhere people think the world’s ending is imminent! Families are divided… I wager even those cows are deluded too by now, and chairman shall not want the damned cows in his no farm.”

“Come on old man, everyone’s aware of that, everything is proof,” said a man seated in a lesser section drinking from the folk ndeku listening to them.

“And what does an economics graduate have to do with a gentlemen’s conversation?” Ogwang fired at him.

“My economics professor always defined economics as a branch of science that deals with money in relation to employment which makes me competent enough to talk like a scientist, old man.”

Laughter erupted from the group.

“Do you believe your economics theories will shield you from waking up every morning dreaming about briming your old ndeku to finish your no money? You’re the people…” Ogwang said.

“Mr Chairman, spare me from this psychic thinking I drink because I believe the damned beliefs. First, I’m no Christian, nor do I entertain any Adamic craps, and I’m immune to every contagious fear. Tell him I drink because I have my money, I am an economist. I know and understand no one can escape the inevitable, death… tell him I worship no deity but my ndeku and there is no drinking in any no heavens, but only here.” he sang on slow jazz in the background.

John Paul just ignored him.

“Here me and rejoice, for I bring you warnings. Repent your wickedness, our lord is coming back soon, to end our times, to judge us all, the living and the dead. Only those who believe in him he shall save, and only when we congregate in his church. If you want an everlasting life, come to our church we embrace and worship him…” an old renowned woman, Ssebalamu, quoted. Everyone worried the gossipers had haunted them at their site. “That’s what my neighbour shouts every morning,” she relieved them, “but the man is right, now is the only time, drink for neither in no hells nor in no heavens you will ever find this juice… and if what they say is true, for us we shall die full!”  

“Hey old Ssebalamu, thanks we do not believe in their damn apocalyptic delusions. I bet on my degree; we shall never end soon. In fact, if gods exist, they’re not what you say. They___” the economics man said.

“How dare you?” interrupted Ssebalamu, “You think it about us here in Kakuku. No, the whole world, when was the last time you read your bible, you___”

“Woman,” shouted chairman John Paul “everyone here knows you’re some Christian, tell us why drink with us this morning in no damn’s bar. Is here a shrine?”

Before she replied, the economics man continued, “You Christians misinterpret the bible… I tasked you show me a one verse that reveals the end you preach, you failed! These things of prostitution, black magic, theft and drug abuse are mere works of your devil but not evidence of the ending world. Look, parents fail to guide and discipline their children and they get spoiled, the government fails to plan for us and people get unemployed! And you endeavour to string everything to your mythical prophesies.”

“I recall your god of Israel vowed never again to perish the world. I wonder the hatred, why annihilate you?” said Ogwang.

“Oh, yeah. I believe little Christianity, at least I don’t believe Adam or Eve ever existed, but I believe we shall all die and meet the Christ, and he’ll come back again to judge us as he promised. Those who do as he says like drinking to dawn in respect of his first miracle he shall select for, those who make noise for us from the churches and discos he shall select against… that’s why I am here, Mr Chairman,” Ssebalamu said.  There was a period of silence in the house.

“And that’s exactly what I’m talking about!’ John Paul shouted breaking the silence, “I thought I was only sick, but see… the poor old thinks she will be on the queue to meet her no god when she dies, yet the damned no god is coming for the dead! The next drinks shall be on me as courtesy of our brotherhood. Enjoy my reign.”

At around half-past two, John Paul staggered into his front yard all drank yelling for breakfast, and lunch! 

His wife was busy praying. His noise disrupted her, concentration failed, stopped, moved to the kitchen, served him food, put it onto the table, and resumed praying. The repelling never ceased. 

That day, they anticipated the arrival of Isaac Mutwe Baguma, John Paul’s brother from Kasese, who was visiting to collect a debt. At twilight, Isaac arrived, his modest luggage perched on his bicycle.

Mary and Johnson greeted him warmly, embracing him as a cherished sibling. Johnson assisted with the luggage, escorting it to the guest room they had readied.

The family had made preparations befitting any esteemed visitor. In the evening, they indulged in a lavish feast, their spirits high with merriment.

Post-dinner, amidst the radio’s hum, Paul disclosed his recent tribulations to Isaac, who had been out of touch for long. He confessed their dire financial straits, doubting his ability to repay his debts.

Isaac, the elder and most revered among his siblings, was seen as their guiding light—their champion. He was the eldest, the most educated, and the chief counsellor of both their family and clan.

The propensity for alcohol, it seemed, ran deep in their bloodline, as Isaac himself had been stripped of his clinical profession due to his own struggles with the bottle.

Isaac took time to listened and digest all the issues they presented to him. He consoled them, he encouraged them to stick to the lord, for he was the ultimate saviour and all-seeing. 

His visit was one of their nicest times ever. They laughed, cheered and slept smiling. The tensions between John Paul and his wife were temporarily pocketed. Everyone was at ease… a rare tranquillity enveloped them all!

Come morning, around eleven, Johnson returned from the garden to find his father and Uncle Isaac composed in the shade, breakfasting beneath the tree as the sun’s rays danced upon their skin. Their nocturnal discourse had resumed.

“Observe, brother,” Isaac implored, “do you truly believe the masses are mad to accept this prophecy as truth? No, I assure you, it is genuine! Look about you—why else would there be such rampant wickedness today? Your many troubles are a divine signal; our lord beckons us to renounce sin and seek redemption.”

“Come on doc. Though I do not believe in any deities, this is common sense. The world cannot just ruin and conspire against me and then cease to be! There should be madness in you to believe so. Whatever the prophecy is but a scheme for profit and political gain. Can’t you see that? Just tell me how I redeem my plight and poverty, not your church problems.”

Isaac first thought for a bit, like he was on track and then enticed his persuasion. “Listen, brother, this is precisely what I’ve been trying to convey... I believe I’ve found a way to extricate us from these problems,” he spoke with measured politeness, capturing John’s full attention. “The strategy is straightforward. We leverage your chairmanship to organise a fundraising, then discreetly appropriate the proceeds. We’ll leave no trace, and even if the world ends, it shall not on this household,” he said sarcastically.

Paul paused, astonished by the ‘good news’. “But how… what words could compel their compliance?” he wondered aloud.

“Oh, poor brother, worry not. As I was coming, I saw your roads poor; all the trenches bushy, and I am sure your wells and springs are worse. People are now possessed with the revelation. Tell them to raise funds and hire cleaners to clean this city so that the end and the lord find them neat!” Isaac said.

“Just like how you did your fake wedding?” John Paul asked. Isaac and his divorced wife had done something quite similar deceiving everyone they wanted to marry, people contributed them money, but a wedding never happened…

“Oh, brother! do not distract me. We never meant that then. If it were the case, you would never have found out! But believe me, this must work out.”

John Paul zoomed in contemplation, the idea of engaging in such a deceitful act weighed heavily on him, yet the dire of escaping his financial burdens was tempting. It wasn’t as well a one-man decision; though there’s a space with the wife, he summoned her to come determine but she refused to conspire even on every persuasion effort, excusing dying a sinner wasn’t her aspiration.

Because of the secret bond she had with her brother-by-law, she later gave in, but after he convinced her that the husband had accepted to repent before judgement day. 

John Paul pretended; he came out publicly gossiping about the revelations more than a staunch believer. In those times nothing could really surprise a soul, but many were after his turn, as the times were also confusing. Others thought he was charmed. 

His wife joined her in the campaign. In addition to must repentance, he told the entire parish that things had changed; they had to smartly prepare their village only then to die smart. ‘What one does on earth will reflect in heaven; if you are smart on earth, he will be given a smarter place in heaven, and whatever a good man does is always the lord’s will,’ he gossiped.

Believers joined them, their hands in the hard work, cleaned the entire centre, cleared the bushes, picked the loitered junk and did their proper indoor hygiene. The bystanders wondered how fast the defiant John Paul had changed! Even his only friends never believed it for he never spoilt any of their schemes to any soul. 

The whole exercise was good. It helped improve the sanitation and hygiene of the people in the area. 

By the end of the exercise, Mary had wholly joined the conspiracy by the methods of Isaac Mutwe! However, the money they had collected wasn’t enough as anticipated for many believers had opted to engage personally than to pay! 

Therefore, Isaac Mutwe recalled them and proposed yet another incredible charming scheme…

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