Open House

Musa Nagenda
Kabana saw his father and other elders from his village get off the red bus, take down their
suitcases from the top of the carriage, and look up at the gate. After looking at the poster
with approval, they noticed the boys standing in white shirts, ties and khaki shorts and
hurried through the gate in the compound.
When the parents were seated on chairs under the trees, and the boys on the ground, the
headmaster made a short speech welcoming the parents to open day at the school. He
invited the elders to have tea with him and the staff in the common room after they
examined the exhibits.
Kabana and Yagunga ran to their fathers and elders as soon as the headmaster dismissed
the meeting. They dropped to one knee before the elders, whereas the elders placed
hands on their shoulders and greeted them. Kabana remembered the courtesy of greeting
the elders first, so he came to greet his father last of all.
"Kaije – It has been long," his father said.
"Ego – Yes," Kabana answered.
"Buhoero – It has been very long."
"Ego."
"Agandi? – What is the news?"
"Nimarungi" – It is good, Agandi?"
"Nimarungi" – His father said.
"Oraiegyosebo" – How did you spend the night?
"Kurungi – Well."
Mulangu smiled upon his son, but Kabana knew his father well and he looked hurriedly
away, for he did not see the one thing in his father‘s eye that he looked for. He wanted his
father to be proud of him, but that was the one thing missing. His father always seemed to
be saying "Prove yourself first."
"The people at home greet you," Mulangu said.
The people at home greet you – Olewa, Rugaya, Totesie. He could see the smiling faces of
his mother, sister, and little brother as they moved about the compound in Ruti Village. His
mother was such a wonderful mother and a good cook, and Rugaya such a beautiful and
thoughtful sister that it almost broke his heart not to tell them so. But it was not the habit to
show much emotion, for life was a hard challenge every day and the thing you love so
dearly today might disappoint you tomorrow. And it seemed to him he was failing them all –
especially Rugaya. Lately his father had chided him on his softness of manner, and one
day during the last holiday, Kabana forgot one basket of coffee and it remained in the
coffee field all night.
"Why don‘t you use your head for something more than stuffing it with all that book
knowledge?" Mulangu had asked.
But today was Open House of Kisumbu Secondary School. Perhaps his father had
changed in his opinion of his son.
The leaders from the different villages had lingered behind him when the other parents and
visitors left the school and went back to their villages. After the conference with the
headmaster, they went outside and sat in a circle near the compound under the jacaranda
tree. They smoked their pipes, talked and nodded their heads for a while before they sent
for Kabana, Yagunga, and Biraro.
When the boys had taken the place offered them in the circle, the oldest elder slowly
refilled his pipe and lit it. The ebony walking stick, his rod of authority, lay across his lap.
When he‘d taken several puffs on his pipe, he began to speak. He did not hurry but looked
straight at the boys with deep lines of seriousness in his kind face.
"Mwebaremunengaemirime – thank you very much for the work you‘re doing here," he said.
"You have made the hearts of your forefathers happy. They and we rejoice in your
success."
Then slowly, and with pride, he sketched a history of their tribe, telling about the hardships
and demands of life in their village, how through hard work, daring, and attention to the
ways of their fathers and Ruhanga, their God, who lighted and guarded the fires of the
Omugabo and protected the drum of Banyankero, they had always triumphed. The faces of
the other elders beamed with pleasure as his words, in the Bantu language, rolled out of
him in a tone and rhythm not unlike the emotional beat of the drum.
Yagunga, Kabana, and Biraro sat in the circle of men underneath the jacaranda tree and
felt the stares of boys of other tribes like hot sun on their necks. Kabana was ashamed.
This talk was for the village and had no place here at school. He wished the elder would
hurry so they could catch the bus. If they stayed longer, they would hear some of the things
Kabana had said to the other boys, and the other boys would get a chance to see that his
father couldn‘t eat with a fork and that he ate too fast.
Still the musical voice of the elder went on, and Kabana felt compelled to listen to it
although his legs cramped, for it was a long time since he had sat on the ground.
"Now," the elder went on, "you have gained a book education. We will also see that you
have your tribal education. You, three boys, Yagunga, Biraro, and Kabana," he nodded at
them as he spoke, "will soon be made men. You are of age, now."
"They are of age," said another elder with enormous ears and a black beard.
"Soon you must come home for studies and trials and you will learn everything about the
joy and the dangers of living. We shall spread your story in the village of our clansmen, and
sing of it in our kraals. We greet you, we salute you, and now as our journey is long, we
take leave of you." After a moment, all men rose together and started toward the bus,
leaving the boys sitting in the broken circle.
When they had gone a short distance, Mulangu turned and called Kabana to him. As
always, now, when in his father‘s company, Kabana felt a tightening in his throat. He had
mixed feelings about his father. He was ashamed of his crudeness, his inability to speak
good English, his long hair, but at the same time he felt pride in his strength and his ability
to take care of his family and play a leading role in village affairs. His chest rose high. He
felt proud to have a father so strong, so brave, and so successful. He was respected by
both villagers and Europeans for his bravery and his ability as a farmer and trader, and
Kabana always felt that he‘d never be able to live up to his father‘s expectations. Mulangu
touched Kabana‘s shoulder and nodded to where Yagunga and Biraro sat in a broken
circle.
"You have done well here in your studies and in your special callings as drummer but your
life is incomplete. It is like that circle, broken because things valuable are left from it. Do
you like this school?"
Kabana nodded. "Yes, Sir." But it was the question that he knew to be coming next that he
dreaded.
"And the village, what can you say about it?"
"It is my home, father. My mother, my brother, my sister, and my friends are there," he tried
to be tactful.
"You love them but no longer love their ways?" His father looked straight at him.
All right he would tell the truth. "I used to love the village, but now things are different, I
don‘t know where I belong. Do I belong to where I fail or where I succeed?"
Mulangu‘s face clouded. "So, this is what I sent you to school for. To forget your own
people – to despise our ways. Your failure is your own doing. With effort you could do what
is expected of you." Kabana didn‘t want his father to be angry, but now he thought of old
men who sat around doing nothing but drinking beer, of with doctors with rattling gourds,
and poison taken from snake heads and the dried entrails of goats. The very worst of the
village flashed into his mind. His father was talking to him. "You hate the village, don‘t
you?"
"You sent me to school, father. "Before the words came from him Kabana regretted them,
but still he spoke them.
Mulangu stiffened. He almost struck Kabana, but he looked around hurriedly and saw the
other elders watching them.
"You‘ll never be a man. At the initiation you will surely disgrace me. You are always acting
like a baby. Night and day your head is in your mother‘s kitchen or bowed to your sister. Do
you know these are not the ways of men?"
"I shall improve," Kabana repented.
"You say so, but you won‘t. I noticed you in our village. You no longer joke, tell stories with
the other boys, or dance. Are you a European?" Kabana bowed his head, and Mulangu felt
the guilty sting of his last remark.
"Very well, the elders think the boys here will vote to come for the initiation but having a son
like you, I doubt it. So as soon as school is out, you come home and I shall try to do a
father‘s duty by you." He looked closer at Kabana and tried to be pleasant. "We have been
both made unhappy, father and son, but this time we shall talk to each other and in our
village, we‘ll laugh and be happy."
"Oh, that will be wonderful, father," Kabana said, hopefully.
"Don‘t be late. The coffee is ripe and there are many goats to herd.
Osibegyeomwanawangye – Goodbye, my son."
"Osibegyeomukawawanye – Goodbye, my father.Obandamukize – Greet those at home
for me."
Grade 8 English Learner's Material, p. 462-465