when one of my uncles invited me to a meeting in his home in Bweyogerere a Kampala suburb, my thoughts were divided and my decision to attend rested upon a friend with whom I was hanging out that Saturday. “Go and attend the meeting” she emphasized. Yet in my heart, I felt that not attending it would have been worthwhile in restoring my happiness indicating that being present in that meeting would have reawakened the bitter thoughts in my life about the past three years of my dreaded life.
When my friend pressed a lot for me to
attend the meeting, I thought twice and said, “fine, I shall attend” but even
then, I wasn’t very certain of the agenda of the meeting.
In about a half hours time, I had left Ntinda
and arrived in Bweyogerere. On entering the house, the place seemed lifeless. I
dashed into the sitting room and found the meeting was underway to conclusion. “You
are not late. My uncle acclaimed. Welcome and have a seat” he said in a jovial
mood. Seeming a little unsure of myself, with the humility that I always present
myself, I stretched my hand to greet every other person present. When that was
done, uncle ushered me into the meeting and told me what the meeting was all
about and where they had reached.
To my realisation, the meeting was about
celebrating the Marriage Anniversary of my maternal grandparents. I got relieved
a little and fitted well into the meeting.
The most stunning moment of my life that
day was not that I didn’t want to attend the meeting, but found myself there. The
harrowing bit of it came when it was time for making pledges and contributions.
For a moment, the house was in silence. First, it was my uncle who made his
pledge of 1.5m. Second was my maternal aunt who is a headmistress in one of the
schools in Kampala and she pledged 800 thousand shillings then followed by her
step-brother who pledged the same amount. Every time someone pledged, the whole
house would applaud them with a thunderous hand clap. It continued and three
other people made their pledges.
For a while I was lost in a decision on
what I wanted to contribute. First I thought should I pledge 500,000? Something
in me reminded me of other duties I had to fulfil in the few coming days. So the
decision to pledge rested on 200,000/=. I raised up my hand a little and
everyone looked at me in awe. I could easily read in their faces that they were
shocked if I had wanted to make a pledge. Given the way they had in the past
looked at me, I wanted to make a shock by pledging almost the same amount some
of them had, but I thought to myself again and went with the earlier decision.
“I shall contribute 200,000” I said
bravely. They looked at me and they looked at each other for a while. The surprise
was vivid in their faces and after a few seconds, they clapped. With my open
mindedness, I was almost tempted to ask as to why they were shocked, but I didn’t
want to show that I had noticed the surprise in them so...I halted that.
After the meeting, almost each and every
one treated me with respect, wanted to discuss with me development issues and
what initiatives I was involved in. Wanting to maintain my low status, I
chatted less and listened much, but brought in jokes and we laughed our way as
we walked to the road side to wait for taxis.
It was such a moment that made me to
believe that situations move with circumstances. The present perception of
yourself can cover the past perception of you.
Believe it or doubt it. Life presents what
it decides to, but the way we choose to accept life’s presents is one thing
that matters a lot. Growing up a happy
boy who easily opened up to people and who easily associated with people, after
a few setbacks in my life, I had to have a food for thought and rethink myself.
Dashing into intense thoughts about the
recent past in my life, I was rest assured, that the world only abandons you
when you become irrelevant. The more you make yourself relevant and useful to
the world around you, the more it moves with you.
It then reminded me of how in the past I
would plead with women requesting them to be my fiancée and how they would
reject me with no shame, I mean the rejections were never tactful, but those
done in the African style, you know how it hurts. The recent past in my life
has seen my Face Book inbox flooded with messages requesting to have a meeting with
me-something unusual since in the past, it had always been me handing in the
requests. My phone has also tended to be busy with messages and calls that I
hardly respond to or pick. Life in general is looking different.
With about 10 vivid rejections in my
life in the last eight years trying to found an intimate relationship, I am
impressed beyond doubt that perhaps one day, is shall not have to plead so much
to have a woman by my side. The quality of my life will dictate the end result,
I believe so.
This comes at a point when for the last
seven months I have been pleading with a one lovely woman wanting to be her
right man. Oh, you wouldn’t want to know the hell of frustrations that come
with unsuccessful attempts to land on the right woman. Your imaginations could
best save me the explanations since mere words may not thoroughly explain the
circumstances.
Till then, all that remains in me is
that life never remains the same as long as you work to make it better. Success
has got more friends than failure.
The writer works with African Youth
Development Link, is Founder of the THE BALLAD MAGAZINE and Milestone Africa, a Youth Leader,
Public Speaker/Motivational Speaker and Writer as well as a social political analyst
fekakoro@yahoo.com
+256752142630
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