Summary:
A white man visits an interior part of West Africa during the colonial era and gifts the town a radio which would later serve as a bait for colonialism and cultural imperialism.
"The gate of needs is flung open,
There is silence
But only a moment’s silence-
A silence of assessment.
The tall black king steps forward,
He towers over the thin bearded white man,
Then grabbing his lean white hand
Manages to whisper
“Mtu Mweupe Karibu”
white man you are welcome.
The gate of polished reed closes behind them
And the West is let in."
Stanley Meet Mutesa - A poem By David Rubadiri
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Unlike most parts of West Africa, it took a relatively long time before Boma had any contact with the Europeans. Perhaps this was because Boma was far from the coast and surrounded by intimidatingly tall mountains, which somehow isolated it from the rest of the world and made life difficult for the few who dared to visit it.
At any rate, I was a little boy when the first white man set his feet on the soil of Boma. Accompanied by three hefty black guards, he came on a hot afternoon, when the blazing ball of the sun was roasting the earth. My elder brother Tari and I, sweaty and mangy-looking, were plucking some mangoes from the elephantine trees overseeing Dada’s hut when we heard the thunderous voices of chanting women and children some distance away. Curious, we hastily abandoned our sport and fled towards the direction of the noise.
Two market days before the white man’s arrival, the Sun and the Moon had quarrelled over the rulership of the vast hectares of sky above us. The Moon, escorted by a legion of stars, had suddenly shown up to overthrow the Sun. The aftermath was a thick cloud of darkness that lingered for a little while before the Sun resumed her duties, in glory and splendour.
The whole of Boma was greatly terrified, everyone scampering to safety. Not even the oldest man in Boma had witnessed such astronomical tussle – of the night harassing the day and of the day victoriously fighting back to defend its territory. Consequently, when the whole drama had settled, the elders of our land consulted Odimba, the village’s chief priest, who lived in a place known as Zukitiki, which is translated “the cave of the dead” in Boma’s tongue. After the consultations, the elders returned with only one message, "Get ready for the forthcoming swarm of locusts."
Our elders had thought that Odimba’s prophecy was literal and had appeased the gods to protect their farm lands, but it would take them several years to realize that Odimba was referring to the coming of the white men.
When Tari and I reached the dusty, broad road which ran into our compound, we saw a white figure who was dressed in what we would later know to be a pair of deep blue shorts and a grey shirt. He was slowly riding a skinny, two-legged and headless creature which zigzagged like a hopeless drunk on the sloppy road. The white man’s guards would later tell us that the strange-looking creature neither went hungry nor thirsty. When we enrolled in the white man’s school a few moons afterwards, they told us that they called him a bicycle.
One of the white man’s guards – who, like his two other colleagues, was dressed in our traditional regalia, an adorable skirt intricately woven from raffia – carried a tiny coffin on his head while his companions wielded what seemed like long sticks with tiny throats. We were told that the long sticks could spit fire and stones and kill a cow as far as two hundred feet away. As the party drew nearer, I noticed that the white man had curly long hairs and an unripe beard – his two eyes dancing restlessly beneath another pair of bigger eyes which stood on the bridge of his narrow and protruding nose.
"Ekio," Tari whispered to me, "Look. Does the white man have four eyes, two above and two beneath?"
I didn’t give an answer, for I was myself confused. At last, the party entered our kraal, for it was a popular custom in Boma for a first-time visitor to pay homage to the high chief before seeing the rest of the little town. And, fortunately, my father, Dada, was the high chief.
By the time the white man and his guards entered our kraal, the elders of Boma had formed a ring under the shed of the large mango trees overseeing Dada’s hut.
“I bring you greetings from Josef, the white lord in our midst,” the guard who carried the little coffin told the elders in our tongue, after the white man had uttered some words through his nose. "The white man has come here neither to make war nor to challenge our customs and traditions. He comes in peace, to trade and to help your people."
“Tell him that we are a peaceful people too,” Dada, leaning on his walking stick, told the interpreter, “as long as he and his people do not bring war upon us. Tell him that we are open for trade if his conditions are fair and just.”
When the interpreter told Josef what Dada had said, he smiled and spoke through his nose again for a while before he retired to his seat.
The interpreter told the congregation of the elders, “Josef is pleased to hear your response and has decided to reward your people with a talking box.” He opened the little coffin, which he had now placed on the floor, and continued, “Here is it, the talking box. It can talk like a parrot and sing like a nightingale. Josef has promised to bring more of these talking boxes and other magical items if you would allow more of his people to come here.”
It would take some moons before we knew that Josef’s gift was a transistor radio. Every evening, the whole of Boma would gather under the towering trees in our compound to hear the radio, although we didn't understand the hasty, white voices which blared from it. Josef told Dada in one of his frequent visits that if we allowed him, he could teach the children of Boma, like he had done in other neighbouring villages, how to understand the language of the radio. Dada had smiled and said, “Wayo, awayo,” which is loosely translated as “Take it gradually,” in Boma’s tongue.
Once we finished hearing the evening broadcast, Dada would return the radio to his chambers where nobody dared enter without his say-so. One morning, when Dada had gone to farm and while I was feeding the chickens in our compound, Tari, whom Dada had instructed to count all the tubers of yams in our new barn, came to me. I could see mischief in his darting eyes. At once, I perceived he was up to something, something that would have baleful consequences.
I still quite remember a few years ago when Tari stealthily crept into Dada’s chambers and stole some cowry shells from his gourd. Tari did not stop there, as one would have expected. Instead, he cleverly replaced each cowry he had stolen with a palm kernel. And each time Dada jiggled his gourd to ascertain the state of his money, he beamed with smiles, thinking that everything was fine – until the week he needed to take Ogasa, the highest title in the land. That was when Dada emptied his gourd and realized the monumental fraud – realized that a homegrown enemy had planted tares among the wheat while he slept.
On the next day, after issuing threats and promises without any success, Dada paraded all his five wives and his twenty five children before Odimba to swear an oath of innocence. Odimba fetched a large bowl of water and placed it before us. He told us that we would drink in turns from the bowl of water and anyone whom the Gods found guilty would fall down, convulse, and die. Poor Tari. Before Odimba even ordered the first person to drink from his bowl of strange waters, Tari fell to the ground crying and confessing his sins. Dada would retrieve the most part of his cowries from where Tari had hidden it, and went on to take Ogasa, the highest title in the land of Boma.
"What talks inside the radio?" Tari asked curiously. The chickens I was feeding had encircled us by now, pecking the numberless grain of corns now scattered all over the floor. "Ekio, I suspect that Josef’s brothers are imprisoned within the walls of that talking box."
“I don’t know what talks inside the radio,” said I angrily. “And I don’t think that should be your business. Perhaps, Josef will tell us what talks inside the radio when our people allow him to start a school here.”
“I can’t wait until Josef builds his school. I want to know what talks inside the radio, today,” Tari insisted. “I really want to know what talks inside the radio.”
“How would you do that? You can’t determine the colour of the water inside a coconut until you break it. Will you break the radio?”
“Yes, that’s exactly my point. I will break the radio and rescue the brothers of Josef imprisoned within its walls.”
Before I could utter a word, Tari ran into Dada’s chambers and searched frantically for the radio. Crook, he soon found it under Dada’s bamboo bed.
“Today, the whole of Boma will know what talks inside the radio,” Tari cried, before smashing the radio on the huge rock on top of which we broke parm kernels.
To our surprise, when the radio burst open, we saw what seemed like flat coconut shells and tiny silvery stones with strong worms scattering all over the floor. We did not see Josef’s brothers, did not see anybody, did not even see any parrot flying out of the radio.
“Ah,” Tari shouted in astonishment, “the white man is full of strange magic. He has blinded our eyes from seeing the spirits that talked inside the radio.”
“You are in trouble,” I said to Tari. “Once Dada finds out that you broke this radio because you wanted to know what talks inside it, you’ll be buried alive.”
Tari shrugged and ran away. Dada was furious when he returned in the evening and learnt that Tari had broken the radio of Boma, merely because he wanted to know what was talking inside it.
“I will show that little idiot what talks inside a radio when I lay hold of him,” Dada’s voice shook as he spoke. “Tari wants to bring disgrace to the Kofata clan; not when I am still alive.”
At sundown, Dada called a meeting of the whole of Boma and honestly told them what Tari had done – how he had sneaked into his chambers, grabbed the community’s radio, and smashed it on the rock because he wanted to find out what or who talked inside it. Afterwards, he asked the people of Boma to judge his son.
“People of Boma, I salute you.” A certain woman gave Tari, who had been made to kneel before the large gathering, a stern look.
“Our people used to say that madness lies in the heart of children. And when such madness manifests, we should serve them delicious plates of whips. Therefore, Tari should be whipped until his back and eyes bleed blood and water. I have spoken.”
“I disagree,” another woman countered, “this poor boy should not be whipped. That will damage his back. Instead, let us make him walk round the whole of Boma stark naked while he carries the debris of the white man’s radio on his head. I have spoken.”
Afterwards, a few other people gave their opinions before Timi, a hunchbacked elderly man who was known throughout Boma for his oratory skills, rose to his feet and spoke in this manner:
“People of Boma, I salute you. I don’t think this little boy deserves to be punished for breaking the white man’s radio, simply because he wanted to know what was talking inside it. Many of us here would have also smashed the radio if we had the opportunity of doing so and getting away with it. Tari, like many of us in this gathering, is ignorant. Instead of punishing him, let us allow Josef and his brothers to build a school here, so that our children can learn the white man’s magic and the things that talk inside a radio. Boma will then grow in knowledge and strength like the many lands the white men have visited. I have spoken.”
The whole crowd cheered in approval upon hearing the words of Timi. This was how Tari went unpunished and the first school was built in Boma. The white men would later say that our religion was paganism, for we worshipped many Gods and revered several spirits. But how was that different from what Josef himself taught us in the sanctuary - three Gods (Father, Son, and the Holy Sprit) who are all strangely one?
The white men, armed with their fire-spitting sticks, pulled down our shrines and banished Odimba from Boma because he had refused to convert to the new religion. That was when our elders realized that Odimba’s prophesy (a swarm of locusts) had come to pass.
Indeed, the locusts came, eating up the green leaves of our customs and the fruits of our traditions. That was perhaps the sacrifice we had to pay for learning what talks inside a radio.
