UNSUNG HEROES

There’s an old lady that lives down the hill from my father’s house. She has a beautiful name. I like it. You would too! Her name is ‘Yozefina’. Runyankole (my mother tongue) for Josephine. Everyone calls her Yozefina. I think everyone likes her. I have known her all my life. Today she came to call on me. She sort of does that sometimes. When she knows I am at my father’s house, she comes by. I never visit her. I don’t know why. That’s why I like her. When she comes by, I am never guilty for not checking on her too. She brought me something. People do that a lot. Especially the older people. They never go visiting empty-handed. She brought two cups of ground-nuts (seeds). She said, ‘I had nothing else. I thought of millet flour, but no. And your mother gave it to me. I give that to the grand children. They get tired of matooke (plantain). I
wanted to bring something different. The other option was millet (seeds). I said ‘thank you’.
The old lady that lives down the hill from my father’s house, Yozefina. She knows a lot of things. I asked her for medicine. She told me to get lemon. ‘Scrub your face with it’, she said, ‘then peel aloe vera and finish off with that. That will make your skin soft and smooth in a couple of days.’ She said: if you come by I can show you a lot of things.
It was cold. It had rained. I said to her, ‘Go back home and warm yourself.’ But she’s a story teller. She told me a story. This is her story: I went to pick up my papers (National Identity Card). They were reading names. I heard mine. I did not hear my family’s and the grand children’s. So I asked why I hadn’t got theirs. They said I was old and stupid. ‘You got yours. Go away.’ Later they said, ‘try checking on other stations’.
Then she told me another story. The government sent some ploughing hoes. I went to pick for my family. I got two. But they didn’t register my son’s wife. So I asked, ‘where is her’s’. They said, ‘You want to get extra. You want to go and sell it.’ He said, ‘She’s stupid’. When I turned to walk way, he said, ‘My vote on Friday’. I said, ‘How would I know about elections, if I am stupid?’ Then she said to me, ‘These people disrespect us. They count me for a fool.’