Coming to America

I remember the immigration interview at the USCIS offices in Miami like it was yesterday. We left the house bright and early the lawyer had called on phone to say he would meet me at the immigration office. When I dropped my brother off at work I was not sure what would happen if we were denied asylum. Where were we to leave the car keys if we were shipped off to a detention center to await repatriation? Miami is a good thirty minutes’ drive from Fort Lauderdale where my brother hosted us for a year. My daughters were chattering in the back of the car as I drove past the now familiar land marks on the way to downtown Miami where numerous concrete fly overs eventually led me to the immigration office. I looked at my daughters’ innocent smiles and wondered whether they would be smiling all the way to Entebbe soon. They were completely oblivious to the stress that the interview had caused me since the lawyers call a week before that my case was finally being heard by an immigration officer on this day.

The gate keeper who would let me into the US or throw me out was a woman. All the stereotypes I grew up with came rushing back: ‘Women hate women,’ ‘women disbelieve women,’ ‘women will do anything to frustrate other women.’ I sat down and gave my daughters ‘the eye’ which meant they were to be seen and not heard during this important meeting. The woman had been reading a copy of the large file which I was carrying and from the questions she asked I knew she had studied it diligently. ‘It says here that after the election in March 2001, you run off with the opposition candidate.’ I knew it would not be pleasant. ‘Well, is it true?’ I answered clearly looking her in the eye – ‘No ma’am!’ I tried my best to imitate the Southern pronunciation of the word ‘ma’am’ to show respect, knowing that a familiar accent would make me less threatening to her: A clash of culture that is won by those who do their homework. Then she looked me straight in the eyes and asked me to tell her my story.

Where do I begin, I wondered? I was born on Saturday 18 September, 1965? No, that would be a very long story so I began at the moment when I joined opposition politics and my journey to the USA. I was surprised by her patience as I told the story. She never once took her eyes off my face. She had read the whole file and was waiting for me to contradict myself, to make a mistake. I still wonder how long I must have spoken. My lawyer kept nudging me on to give details that I omitted. When I was done, the immigration officer stared at me in silence. I knew my story was a bit off because it was not really a story of fear of reprisal upon returning to Uganda. It was inspired by my need to continue activism activities in Washington DC, after a one year lull, as I waited for immigration authorization to live and work in the USA. So I dwelt on generalities of the state in which I believed Uganda was in and where I believed it was headed based on my personal experiences. I expected there would be more prying questions.

Instead the woman looked at me and said, “You know I hear stories all day long and out of the ten or so people I interview each day, I believe only 3 stories in any given month. So Anne, you are one of my three people, this month. Congratulations and welcome to the United States of America.”

I sat there speechless feeling like a fighter who entered the ring ready to fight and their opponent surrenders before the fight starts. I had told my story to countless people and none of them had cared to tell me if they believed me or not. Now this woman, a gate keeper to the 'American dream,' had listened and believed. I felt sickened by my silly profiling and stereotyping and for judging her based on gender. What kind of activist was I anyway? I thanked her profusely, then with head bent in shame I walked through the door behind her desk to be processed as an asylee before heading back to the street.

At 50 I know that once I set my mind on achieving a goal, I become so focused without always considering the cost. In America when I got into the pipeline of getting the right papers for my small family I remained focused until we all became naturalized United States citizens. The cost: Travel restrictions, low-paying jobs, frazzled single mom and a total of 9.5 years before I could visit Uganda again.

— feeling determined.

Fear

I recently released my fears after hanging onto them for 30 something years. How many types of fear have I felt in my life and which was worst? Fear of failing my exams and bringing home a bad report at the end of term, knowing that my father would not spare the rod. Fear of coming home late or not at all after a fun night out with my friends, knowing my mother’s painful and accusing look would haunt me for the next week. Fear of the school authorities suspending me again for breaking strict Christian boarding school rules; knowing the wrath that awaited me at home. Fear of not getting a man to marry soon enough to escape the stifling rules of my childhood home. Fear of childbirth at age nineteen. Fear of being judged by my friends, my teachers but above all by my pious mother. Fear of not completing my education.

Oh, then there was the fear of never having a ‘white wedding’ like all the other good girls. Fear of death after losing my eldest brother and fearing I would never live up to his perfection in my parent’s eyes. Fear of not grieving him enough, correctly, with dignity. Fear of failing in my marriage and enduring domestic violence to try and save the failed marriage. Fear of being an inadequate mother to my three children. Fear of being vain, selfish and disrespectful. Fear of losing my friends who were always there for me.

Was there a time when fear did not haunt me? I could not remember a time when there was no fear but my memories were scattered. On some days they came into sharp focus but on most they were a blur and I struggled to recall what it was I was afraid of at different times in my life. I blamed my amnesia on the numerous bottles of alcohol that I drank throughout my 20s and 30s as I tried to drown the fear.

At 50 I know that the daring fearlessness with which I took on political activism in my 30s was my way of fighting back at the deep fear that consumed my personal life. I had no control over the things that made me afraid at home, so I made up for my helplessness by facing public life with courage.

— feeling scared.

Family

December in Uganda brings families together in much the same way that families come together in November for Thanksgiving in the USA. If the Thanksgiving movies I have watched are to be trusted then the family gatherings in Uganda are just as awkward as the ones in the States. My family is scattered around the country and the world but we try to head home to be with my parents in Kakoba, Mbarara.

The family tree itself has become a very complex figure. There are my blood relatives and then my relatives through other means. I try to keep things simple by adopting an embracing and inclusive meaning of family because of the many roads along which I have traveled and the battles I have fought. My daughters Joannah and Hannah Bwomezi; whom I live with when am not on duty in Mogadishu are the closest in Nairobi and that is where I start gathering the clan. When I get to Kampala, there is my son Lionel Muhangi - who at 30 years cramps my style every time he calls me 'Mommy,' is waiting. There is Edward Kashegu my other son, a little younger than Lionel but also close enough to 30 to make me feel ancient. I acquired Edward and his brother Joel Busingye through marriage as I did their sister Grace Natukunda. Grace is older than Lionel but also calls me Mom! As if this were not disparaging enough there is my brother-in-law Colin Muhoozi, who is too close to 40 for anyone to believe am his mother but Colin is still my son for the time I spent raising him. Colin has a son and my daughter Grace has two children and yes, they call me grandma! I will refrain from adding my cousins, aunts and uncles for the sake of brevity, but they too are part of the extended family that joins the caravan on the annual trek to their respective homes in Mbarara for the annual madness.

Depending on everyone's schedule and availability, (one can no longer force grown men and women to follow;) we try to leave Kampala together. We hire a mini van and still need an additional car and off we go. Last December we got to Mbarara, where more of the clan had assembled and entered the warmth of the home in Kakoba where my mother had prepared akatogo (yummy) for all arrivals. My brother John-Mark Mugisha and three of his children were there last December, as was my baby brother Peter Mugisha with wife and two kids. The first day was all joy, squeals and laughter as we caught up on who had grown taller, who had grown shorter and yes; who had put on the most weight. Joseph the brother we left in Kampala, joined the next day with wife and son; and the house overflowed with warmth and happiness. After sleeping arrangements were settled and some of my kids and grand children relocated to the farm, Karwera, where they still feel Bwomezi's absence so keenly; the reality of the extended family started to settle in.

My dad and mom wanted us to sit still, listen to their tales and attend every church service between Christmas Eve and the New Year (There are plenty!) The boys wanted to go to 'The Heat,' a local night club, the kids fought over video games and iPads, my daughters asked when we were going back to Nairobi, my other kids at Karwera (including the 30-something year old brother-in-law and my daughter;) wondered why I and the girls stayed at Kakoba instead of my late husband's home where they must have felt I had abandoned them. Before long Hannah convinced me it was time for her to visit her friend Mbabazi in Kampala, Joseph and his family returned to Kampala, Peter and his family started packing for South Africa, my mother was concerned about a brother Andrew Mugisha who could not make it from Florida. The loud laughter of the first day was tamed by non-stop arguments, bickering and some tears - then before you knew it the holiday was over. I started the long journey back to Mogadishu wondering why we put ourselves through this ordeal after every 365 days. Yet it is all the chaos that makes it a family event.

At 50 I know that the glue that keeps families together is not their last names or the manner in which they became part of the family but their willingness to suffer through the ordeal of belonging to each other.

— feeling blessed.

Amazing World

I have been lucky to study and work in many places and experience cultures that inform me that there are as many versions of normal as there are types of laughs.
So when Lesley and I were robbed at La Rambla in Barcelona we were amazed that we could not get any help, anywhere during siesta. Spanish siesta we discovered is not a half- hour long but quite a large chunk of time after the midday meal. We heard about it, read about it but experiencing a whole town go to sleep in the middle of the day is quite something. Shops closed, cars parked, the hotel receptionist seemed uninterested in our worries and wanted to be left alone. Barcelona goes to sleep after lunch and will not wake up until late in the afternoon no matter your emergency.
I traveled to the beautiful city of Brindisi, Italy arriving on a Sunday evening. After putting away my bags in the room, I instinctively followed the crowd of people that were heading towards a fountain in the city center. The stream of people poured onto the main boulevard where they took over the streets, licked their tasty gelato, stopped for conversation and pored over the wares of street vendors in this organized tradition. Motor vehicles disappear from the boulevard and residents spend Sunday evening walking in the middle of the street. The bargains included everything from fine pieces of art to Persian rugs. Down the boulevard where the road met the sea the street vendors gave way to a string of restaurants with grand views, that served the finest wine and sea food. I sat alone and savored the ambiance as well as the food. The next morning like magic the streets were back to behaving like normal streets with cars, taxis, buses and hustled pedestrians. Normal for the residents but quite bizarre for a visitor who arrived the evening before.
My first clear view of the Ngorongoro crater near Arusha, Tanzania, invoked the same awe I felt staring down the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA and the first time I felt the soft unending shower when I stared down the roaring Victoria Falls at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Even more awesome was the sight of Maasai men grazing their cattle a few hundred yards from the lions and wild life at Ngorongoro. Really? How do they all co-exist in that crater?
In Lamu, Kenya, I got off the plane and stepped back in time, into a world that seemed to have been left behind hundreds of years. People on the island are proud to tell you that there's about two cars on the main island and they are there only for a purpose. But on Shela Island where I was headed, there were no cars at all. We left the airport on foot walked to the pier where a small boat transported us across the water to the island. We took off our fancy shoes to step off the water taxi, our luggage was hauled by some strong lads onto their strong shoulders and they half- walked, half-run up the hill to the island hotel. My daughters and I followed as fast as we could, up the narrow, winding paths; careful to skip over the mounds of donkey poop that littered the way. The girls thought our holiday was going to be at a modern holiday resort and they were dismayed at the old fashioned, homely atmosphere of the Swahili themed Shela hotel. The only form of transportation other than our feet were donkeys which pooped all over the sand, grossing out my city-type teenagers. It took them a couple of days to appreciate the raw beauty of Lamu, but I was mesmerized from the get-go by a place where time seems to have stood still centuries ago.
I have since been threatening to go to Hawaii to adorn a grass skirt and coconut bra for my 50th birthday and the look on my daughters' faces tells me exactly what they think about that.

At 50 I know am not embarrassed by my brazen wanderlust and I will continue to travel this amazing world and experience its cultures for as long as am able to.

feeling amazed

When I Grow Up...

The most pragmatic class I took in school was Home Economics, a class we all scorned because it seemed to reinforce the notion that girls were destined to run a household rather than a business. We liked it for the baked delicacies we made which were not served in the school cafeteria, otherwise we scorned its presence on the syllabus.

Yet when I wake up in the morning in the simple studio I call home away from home, the first thing I do is make my bed and I do my best to tuck in those 'hospital corners' the way I was taught in Home Economics. Nothing bothers me more than returning from office to a bed that isn't well made. I walk to the bathroom for a shower and am reminded of how we were taught to brush our teeth correctly in that same class. Then I open my wardrobe and miss those firm starched collars that we learnt to perfect even when commercial starch was unavailable. We made our own starch from cassava roots. So I wear the blouse with the floppy collar and walk to office in the humid heat knowing that by the time I get to my desk I will be thankful that somewhere in my past someone taught me the importance of deodorant.

In office I apply all the knowledge accumulated through education and experience but the things that bother me most are all the small but significant things that were not on the syllabus. How to gently tell a colleague that the meeting should have ended 20 minutes ago and how to accept the same advice when I go into talking mode and keep everyone from all the important things they need to do. And why isn't email etiquette on the Training Curriculum this year or next year? After all these years I still forget to do a spell check and must discipline myself to make sure that the autocorrect ghost does not rewrite my email before I press send - with very embarrassing consequences I might add. Then there is the mix up between official and personal email. I give my friend a business card and they immediately forget my personal email and send me Juliana Kanyomozi's latest song - and there it is between the Tasking Orders that I need to complete!

By 11:00am out of sheer boredom, I decide I might as well listen to Juliana's soothing voice but at the back of my mind am wondering what section of the rules I may be breaking by opening YouTube from my official email. And as I get into the Afro rhythm I realize that she may be the one that attended the right classes. While I was internalizing an obscure section of the Penal Code without knowing that I would not practice law, she may have been in the much despised MDD or Music, Dance and Drama class, better known in the 80s as 'Musilu Ddala Ddala!' (You'll have to ask someone else to translate that for you.)

Today the MDD graduates (and drop outs) are Kampala's glitterati. They own the towns and the masses, their following gives them the political clout that I could not build in 9 years of political activism! I shake my head and acknowledge that I was the real 'Musilu Ddala Ddala' to read law for six years and practice it for only one year in my entire career - and that was out of sheer necessity. It was never my calling. I did law because my father and everyone else knew that if you were a top Arts student and got accepted at Makerere University, then of course, you read the law!

At 50 I know that as much as they hate it, we must never tire asking our kids: 'So what do you want to be when you grow up?' And then please, listen to them carefully and help them work towards that career because we can be so wrong in predicting future employment and business trends.

feeling sarcastic

Battlefield of the Mind

My mother told me to choose my battles carefully and to accept the consequences of the battles I chose to fight. In Primary School I sat fidgeting waiting for the break bell but scared to death knowing that there was a fight waiting on the playground and wondering if I should join the fight and if the consequences were worth it. In Secondary School there were many battles to be fought out of sight but when someone snitched on us and we got in trouble we made her the 'enemy'for the rest of the school year and I struggled with my conscience wondering if the fight had been worth it. I fought the wrong battles, transferred the blame to the wrong people and refused to take any part of the blame or acknowledge the consequences. 

Then one day I was forced to own up to my decisions because there was no one else to blame. I had no one to whom I could transfer the pain when I was in labor at Nsambya hospital. I had recently turned 19 years and I was facing a daunting problem, alone. I could not call anyone to help because this was a personal journey, my own battle. The pain and blame could not be passed to some unsuspecting person. As my mother would say; this was my cross and I had to carry it. The decision was mine, the pregnancy was mine and the pain, the consequences, were mine. I spent 24 hours in labor and each hour was exponentially more painful than the last.

When Lionel was born, I realized that this particular battle was worth it. There were no grey areas at all: the consequences were a miracle. In my arms lay a healthy bouncing baby boy, my son. I never knew love like I felt that morning in March 1985. I marveled that my mother had gone through all this pain to bring me into this world and when I rebelled and hurt her she never stopped loving me - she loves me still. On that morning every word she uttered in anger when I first announced my pregnancy made sense. I knew for sure that she loved me as I loved the screaming bundle that kept me awake when I most needed my sleep.

At 50 I know that the battlefield is in the mind. We are weak and imperfect by nature and constantly struggle to validate our poor decisions. We only win that struggle if the consequences of the battle were worth fighting for.
 

— feeling strong.

Perils of Conservative Christianity

Growing up in a household of devout Christians has many distinct advantages for which am eternally grateful. The laws handed to us in the Ten Commandments and the ethics of the Gospel that are taught as part of the Christian doctrine were internalized early on and held me in good stead most of the time. I learnt early that my father and mother were to be respected, that we should love one another, that we should forgive those who treat us poorly, treat others as we want to be treated and that we should fear God.

My parents are conservative Christians and their interpretation of the Gospel was dictated at meetings of the Scripture Union and Mother's Union. To this day and ever since I can remember my father has contributed generously to the Church but his most significant contribution has been purchasing a large box of Scripture Union devotional diaries - 'Kishumuruzo' in Runyankore, and donating them to individuals and Churches at the beginning of each calendar year. I have been the lucky recipient of this little book that explains a different verse of the Bible each day of the year in pragmatic detail. I also have to confess that the most used pages of my Kishumuruzo are January to March after which it kind of sits there waiting to be replaced the next year.

Parents who practice conservative Christianity seem oblivious to their contribution to driving their children far away from the church and their faith. We found it difficult as teenagers to talk to our parents about nearly anything a teenager wanted to talk about. There were strict rules about attending church, evening prayers with the family, no consumption of alcohol, no smoking, no boyfriends or girlfriends until engagement. The rules were imposed and enforced strictly which made it the greatest ambition of every rebellious teenager to break them and I broke them with enthusiasm. With time I attended Church not to worship but as a habit. In the evening I knelt with the family to pray but my mind wandered and I shifted uncomfortably as my father or mother recited familiar words or used the opportunity to scold or warn us against normal teenage behavior. When I went to boarding school, I joined the group that was most willing to break the rules and in my first year in boarding school I was suspended for consuming alcohol. I learnt to smoke cigarettes which tasted terrible but were a true symbol of rebellion. And sure enough I met my first love at Secondary School and the consequences would cause my parents a lot of pain, but then again they had taught me love, forgiveness and respect and I expected them to practice what they preached!

At 50 I know that it is important to inculcate strong ethics and faith in our children but I also know that they have the right to be children and to make their mistakes and learn from them.
 

— feeling thoughtful.