I kind of ran, kind of slid out of the bathroom into my bedroom, my towel barely holding onto my body. I grabbed the phone from the mattress on the floor, but not in time for the caller to hang up. There were over 6 missed calls. My stomach turned and my heart started racing with anxiety. I called back.
“Hello, Moss…”
“Anna, where are you? The people are waiting, everything is already set.”
“I know, I know, Moss, I’m coming.”
“Please, Anna, hurry up!”
I do not remember how I reached the venue; whether I rode myself there or I got a boda boda ride or someone took me there on my bike. All I know is that I arrived at the scene, my skin dripping with sweat from the sweltering July heat like I had not been in the bathroom only a few minutes earlier.
The music I had heard from as far back as my house was now very close to me and I could feel the beats run in synchrony alongside my anxiously beating heart. The town was talking. Everyone was talking. My friends had been effectively named the bayaaye from Kampala. The bayaaye from Kampala had come over for a gospel music concert in conservative Karamoja, featuring a female reggae and dancehall artiste who sang majorly in Luganda. If that sounds crazy, then you do not know Zabuli. You also do not know me. In the end, the bayaaye did not just deliver. We wrapped that baby up and took her home, to the bewilderment of the naysayers and outright oppositionists.
Everything leading up to this moment had been hellish. My patience, resolve and physical endurance had been tested like they had never been tested before. I became very irritable and increasingly losing it at very simple things like a sarcastic joke which ordinarily I would take in stride. I was too tired and yet too busy to even have a moment to cry like I normally do when I feel that I cannot deal with shit anymore. Heck, I hardly had the time to even ask myself, “Why am I even doing this?” At the peak of it, I just collapsed on my bed, fully dressed in field wear with the weight of my jungle boots threatening to amputate my feet at the ankles.
The thing is, I love my peace. I love to just live my life, laugh, watch YouTube videos and find all excuses not to wash, cook or clean when I should. Or take a bath for that matter. In my dream life, I have a personal assistant and a professional cleaner who I pay to take care of my mess. Most importantly, they leave me alone soon after because I cannot bear being in the company of people for too long. In this dream life of mine, I also have a baby that I can switch on and off and park like a motorcycle, only taking it out when I need to give it attention. The rest of the day, I am a money-loaded superhero fixing world problems, empowering people and sponsoring worthy projects like the film-making craft of Loukman Ali. Basically, Superman.
All this to say that, I was fine, I was loaded and I had my peace before I accepted to be a part of this crazy idea to hold a concert in conservative Kotido. Our featuring act? A female reggae and dancehall gospel artiste who sang in Luganda and English. Literacy rate for Kotido is a paltry 13%. Do not even start about Luganda, because when word went round that a “A group of bayaaye from Kampala has come to hold a concert in Kotido” the issue of Luganda became a very small matter.
You see, I have this really big problem where I cannot take my nose and heart out of things. I care. I care really deeply. So, when I arrived in Kotido in 2018 and saw all this brokenness around me, I was bothered. I was bothered at the immense lack of information, the poverty, and the societal ills that perpetuated themselves in the face of an educated elite. I was bothered by the site of children on the streets, I was bothered by the lack of progressive ideas, and I was bothered by the non-participation of young adults in offering of themselves to do something for the betterment of the community they lived in. I was bothered by the lack of opportunities for young people to operate from their talents and gifts in service of community. I was bothered by the Church and its non-participation in addressing real community needs, particularly mindset change. I was bothered by everything. I became increasingly restless as a storm brewed up and bore an unbearable hollowness in my soul. I ignored it for as long as I could until I could not bear the feeling anymore. I thought I might die from this storm consuming me if I did nothing about it and so I said, “Damn it, I’ll fix it.”
So I called Zabuli.
“Hi, Zabuli. A friend of mine here, has told me about a possible school outreach programme that you might want to be a part of. I was wondering if…”
“Anything, Anna, as long as you want it, I’m in. I’ll come with my team.” And that was it. A school outreach then, it was.
I got a call back. “Also, if we plan it well, we can close the outreach off with a concert at Church for everyone.”
“Sure, that would be really cool.” I answered. And so it was, a school outreach and community concert.
I was elated and I slowly started to feel calm being restored to my soul. That is when I knew that I was doing the right thing. I immediately shared these news with the other youth of the Church and that was when, to my horror and disbelief, everything started to fall apart.
Part II continues shortly.
Kind regards,
Anna Grace
