Dinner With Mwavuwalaba and Nabukeera

Greetings. Last Valentine's day I shared stories; non-economic (Kiwanuka's journey courting Zalwango) and economic (the borrowing patterns of rural women). To continue with the custom I intend to share an excerpt from Peregrine Kibuuka's novel, Habakkuk the Catechist. 

The novel is a coming of age story of Timothy Mwavuwalaba, son of the titular Habakkuk, beginning with his childhood in Loko village. Dr. Kibuuka started his schooling at Namilyango Junior Boys' School. Like the protagonist of his novel, he continued on to Nyenga and Gaba Seminaries. Both Kibuuka and Mwavuwalaba abandoned their priestly vocation, with Kibuuka proceeding to Namilyango College whereas Mwavuwalaba continued his further studies at St. Pius Secondary Schools (whose head, Fr. Ben, is no less inspired by Kibuuka's former head teacher Fr. Bernard Kuipers). Upon completing their university education both men pursued teaching careers at their respective former schools.

The excerpt I have elected to share covers a honest conversation about domestic finances and work ethic between Mwavuwalaba and his wife, Goretti Nabukeera.

I was in no mood to listen to preaching when I had no money in my pocket. I did not think buying a fashionable constituted any obligation in the midst of a financial squeeze. So I remained mum. We ate our lunch in silence. And now she has called me for supper. Because of the retreat, she simply declares to the whole house: "Dinner!"

I uncover the supper. Angels above! Clean white pieces of cassava neatly laid out on the plate. I ask why the cassava. Nabukeera says the matooke got finished.

"Why did you not tell me?" I shoot back.

"I forgot."

"You seem to be forgetting everything. You better jot down your name. It looks like I must employ a quarter-master general in this house."

"Go ahead and employ one, provided you pay. But I suspect that he might need more than the cost of the shoe I am asking you to buy." Then Nabukeera breaks into a loud, dry sarcastic laugh.

"If I had a car, I would walk on you, Nabukeera. You are perfect nuisance," I declare.

"I may be a perfect nuisance, but pray, why do you indulge in wishful thinking? At this rate, do you ever hope to steer a car in you life. You are going to end up as an elegant pedestrian, a John Walker! Walking the streets with your oversized hand bag full of useless files and marking schemes! Only a miracle can save you. But miracles do not happen so often nowadays. Mwavuwalaba, it is high time you pursued wealth while you are still young. I do not like to spend my energetic life poor and only get rich in my older years when I am too old to enjoy it."

"What do you expect me to do, steal?" I ask. 

"Do something to improve your lot. Your teacher's salary will never take you anywhere. You are so dull. You lack initiative. I must accuse Dr. Fr. Gawanye of telling lies about you right on the altar. He described you in such glowing terms and tried to convince the congregation that I was walking down with some sort of stormy petrel, with a romantic touch and perfection. You do not know how to organise yourself. I could run this home for you with your money." I give Nabukeera the look that reminds her who wears the trousers in the home. 

"Women have never managed to run anything in their lives," I shoot back.

"Do not be so chauvinistic, Timothy. Have you ever delivered a baby?" Nabukeera asks challengingly, looking me straight in the eyes.

"The ladies are recognising you cannot run your affairs, that is why they must dismantle your systems, if need be through a war."

"Do you realise any common denominator in your heroines?" I ask.

"No."

I must get Nabukeera off my back, so I hit below the belt.

"Either they cannot stay with their husbands or they cannot keep them alive. I have pictures of Mrs. Golda Meir. I still have to see Mr. Meir. She fought two wars in less than ten years which are responsible for the world inflation we are in. You see the Arabs were not amused and clamped an oil embargo. Look at Indira Gandhi; she dismembered Pakistan. Maria Peron, a widow, excelled herself in mismanaging Argentina."

"Why did you marry me if you are such a cynical misogynist?"

"I am not a misogynist, but a simple observer of threats. I am amazed that you think you can run a home better than a man. Report me to the women's court the next time male chauvinism gives you another Women's year. By that time I will be just history and of course gone to heaven, rubbing shoulders with St. Peter."

"It seems the Landlord in heaven can accommodate all sorts of impossible characters there. I shall not debate your ability to go to heaven on your steam. But that is what you are, talking and talking and doing nothing to improve your lot here on earth. Why do you discuss heaven you know nothing about, when you cannot plan anything on the earth you know? Mwavuwalaba, you are no longer in the seminary to discuss heavenly things. You chose the world. Discuss how to successfully live in this world; when you do that, God may think of taking you to heaven after death. But as of now, better do something. Get a side business to supplement your income."

"Nabukeera, you seem to have bright ideas tonight. What do you, for example, suggest I do?" I ask pensively.

"You see, now, everybody is swindling neighbour by the thousands. Buy something, hoard it and sell it at black-market prices," Nabukeera advises.

"Nabukeera are you suggesting that I become a magendo agent? Remember I am a son of a catechist, and I come from a good Christian family," I warn her.

"If your morals are still carved in stone, you will die a pauper. If you are a man of great scruples and high principles, you will not be able to do anything without feeling that you have offended a principle, a code of ethics, a gentlemans code and what have you. What you need, Mwavuwalaba, is to be broadminded. I am not prepared to be a pauper's wife."

"Nabukeera, are you threatening? Remember you marriage vows: 'Rich or poor, till death do us part'," I remind her.

"I do not remember promising to stay with a man with no initiative. Mwavuwalaba, did I promise that?" she adds rhetorically.

"Nabukeera," I warn her again, "there are remarks which one never forgets or forgives; watch your tongue!"

"Stop verbal threats and try out something. Try soap. Hoard it. It sells like hot cakes. Get a carton and see," Nabukeera advises.

"That needs capital and patience both of which we do not have. You have to buy and hoard. You wait until people are badly off then you produce the commodity. We are already in the category of the badly off, Nabukeera."

"Then let us try something that does not need hoarding but sells like hot cakes. Something that does not need much capital."

We have declared a unilateral war on poverty in the home. I have to beat the inflation by declaring an economic war on it. 

Ceteris. Paribus.

Source

Kibuuka, P. (2010) Habakkuk the Catechist. Marianum Publishing Company Limited, Kampala. Chapter 15: Side Business