The flags or our fathers are a
tedious thing. A great burden we have to carry. A heritage and an inheritance
we never ask for but must bear most of the days of our lives.
I have always wanted to write these
pieces, actually make it a series of pieces, talking about what our fathers
here in Uganda have left us and how many of us are forced to contend with these
long after we have left our parents’ home and grown into young men and women.
I wanted to write but I did not
want to sound like a defeated youth blaming the acts of yesteryear for their
misfortune especially in an atmosphere that seems to whisper, “if you have
failed it is your fault.”
I did not want to cuddle up to
the other masses of on line attention seekers who illicit sympathy and
readership because of their dark brooding lives and tales of woe and misfortune…I
did not want to be a cynic either regaling you with how the world is quirky and
sort of does not work by poking fun at other, myself or you the reader.
I want this to be one man’s honest
journey into his past and his present, investigating the things that make him
who he is and how they shape his future.
It will be a tale of some joys
but mostly sadness for I cannot write about the laughter I did not have or the
smiles I could give but the tears cried and uncried that defined many aspects
of my life.
I want it to be a roadmap for my
future. A statement that from henceforth I shall not be the man that my father
was but I shall surpass him or I shall die trying. I shall carry my name
proudly but I shall not carry the shame or the heritage.
This is a chance for me to lie on
the couch and let loose into the cosmos the burden of my heart and hurt and let
the flags of my father unfurl in the breeze allowing a chance for new life and
new hope, that this symbols that has been such a burden shall start to breath a
new an air fresher than that of the savannah after a heavy African rain. That the
wind shall carry away with it my fears and hurts and pains, but like the
moisture heavy ocean winds bring with it a torrent of newness and life.
The flags of our fathers
Are a burdensome thing
For our desperate hope and
Identity to it we must cling
Dearly like the fragile sapling
borne to the crevice whilst
just a seed , it’s the sum of our
Of our existence.
