A Twist in my Story

I was only sixteen when I first stepped out of the borders of my country, it was to Kenya. Nothing felt different. The trip was for the senior O’ Level class at Tororo Girls School. When I actually did leave to mix with locals I was often asked what tribe I hailed from. Not once did I feel different, of course being from the Teso tribe we are inherently proud for nothing but being Iteso people so I often had that pride that comes from being an Atesot. Am beginning to realize like Joël Té-Léssia that keeping my pride and shame for the acts that I commit might be a better way to live life as I put no effort in hailing from the Teso tribe.

However, I remember the first time I left the African Continent; I went to North America on holiday, as my friend and I drove from Philadelphia to Harrisburg our car broke down. We called a tow truck and when the men came they asked where I was from. When I mentioned that I came from Uganda, one of them said, “oh Africa, I have a friend in Algeria do you know him?” This was my first experience of Africa being termed as a country. 

One of my friends, has often asked why when Africans are asked where they are from, they say Africa. I have been thinking of this and as I look back, I realize that before I left my country I was always known as an Atesot, I was not Ugandan. None of my grandparents will introduce themselves to anyone as Ugandan. Uganda is a concept that has never really formed in them as a description of who they are. When my parents were born there was no Ugandan state, my father was 17 years old when Uganda became a state. I was never raised to believe in nationalism or be a patriot, not even in school. I was raised to study hard to make a life in an ever changing society. This is what I know to do. So when am asked where I am from by a non- African, Africa is the best description of me. When am asked where am from by an African, Cushite, nomad or Ateso is who I am. 

In thinking about Adichie’s danger of a single story, I know that  my Friends from the Northern hemisphere have been taught if at all that Africa is comprised of nations and because they come from solid structured nation states, it’s what they understand. I on the other hand learned African history for six years, I learned about the Kingdoms all over Africa, of Mali, Asante, Bunyoro Kitara, Buganda, Zulu, and Egypt. I learned about the migrations all over Africa and I learned of the wars, trade, Iron smelting, and the formation of Juridical nationalities under the imperialists. I know that I am African more than I am Ugandan from my education. I also learned European History, Crimean war, napoleon, British Empire and its invasions; I learned the geography of the Americas and Europe and Asia, so I know that Europe and America are not countries. When I moved to work in England, an Englishman once said to me, “You Africans do not have any history, your history begun when we came to your continent.”  I was taken aback; this was my first time to live abroad. I, with all my Teso pride and knowledge of my continent before colonialism; I did not know what to say, mostly because he was much older than I, and where I come from elders should often know better what to and not say. I felt pity for him. I let it slide, with some irritation and shock at his ignorance. 

I remember my friends from England preparing to come visit me in Uganda and asking me whether we had roads, and whether we had cars or wore clothes. There were times I barely had answers, my mind purposely forgot the answers I gave. I know for sure that they most likely did not have ill motives. I agree with Adichie that they have heard a single story of Africa. One where there is barbarism and jungles. One where naked children and adults roam the paths and carry animals for food, one where animals and people live so close together that disease is shared and no remedies are found.  The year was 2006 and yet they appeared to be reading Alexander Crummell’s description of Africans, “The natives are idolaters, superstitious, and live most filthily; they are lazy, drunken rascals, without thought for the future. Insensitive to any happening, happy or sad, which gives pleasure to or afflicts them; they have no sense of modesty of restraint in the pleasures of love, each sex plunging on the other like brute from the earliest age.”

Since leaving my country, I have learned from my own experiences and what I have read never to take the story as I have heard it until I have experienced it. I am in Bahia as I write; I came with the notion that the Brazilian Police are notorious for violating child rights. I had my thesis subject cut out for me, after talking with a few people, am hearing another story. A story where children in Brazil have taken these rights to a level where they can do whatever they want. The Police do not want to get into trouble so they let child thugs do their thing. Juvenile prisons are useless so I hear, children can only stay there for a day at least since it costs to maintain them, the government does not want people in jail. Yes, there is a level of impunity on both sides, children and the Police. The judges favor the children’s story as a way of protecting the much praised ECA and the Police would rather keep their jobs and receive a monthly salary than get into trouble with the courts. So underground, the police have squads that they hire to murder child gang members. My thesis will most likely have a stronger twist to it; however it’s a constant reminder being here that there is certainly peril in buying into a single story. 

As I travel, meet people, and share life experiences I am reminded that we are all searching for the same things in life. As I read Kwame Appiah’s ‘In my Father’s house: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture’ I know that claiming race as a means of differentiating possibilities, opportunities and treating people on the basis of race is buying into concepts that only limit my understanding of the bigger picture. Some people choose not to discuss race matters because then it does not bother them. However I realize that when I discuss race with people just like me, I settle in a cocoon, there is a danger of being comforted and blocking others out. When two of my Caucasian friends and I discussed race in Rio, as we sat under the Cristo Redentor, I felt free. As if we were all acknowledging despite the power politics that race promotes and the hopeless never ending race issues, we are still friends, we love each other and yet somehow we understand the plight of the other. Our stories ceased to be one, instead they meshed into each other’s stories and somehow I realized that in sharing our story and recognizing the other, we plunged into a world where we can co-exist as equals with an understanding.