Free Tombstones and Banana Trees by Medad Birungi Page B

significance. She would stand with us if we had a problem and filled the gap that our father’s absence had left. We fixed our eyes on her for everything.
    People who had made a habit of despising us started to change their views. They started to look at us with something approaching respect instead of disgust. It was a remarkable change, and it made us even more happy.
    I had performed well in my final exams at primary school, and because of this I was admitted into a high school, Makobore High School Kinyasano in Rukungiri town. Peninah had agreed to help pay those fees, and I felt as though life was about to make a substantial turn for the better. Was this what Margaret meant when she told me that one day I would surprise the world? Certainly nobody had ever expected me to be able to attend and complete primary school, and I do not think that even I imagined I would be good enough to continue my studies. To have the financial backing to make it possible was so far beyond us that I do not think I ever dreamed of it. I was the first of my siblings to be accepted into high school; surely the whole world was surprised?
    Others looked on at our rapidly changing situation, but not everyone was pleased. Some of my relatives and others in the village who hated us were particularly resentful of these changes, and when they spoke with Eric’s first wife, they found a mirror of their bitterness. She did not like Peninah, which was not at all an unusual way for a first wife to feel about the second, but somewhere along the way her dislike joined forces with that of our enemies and turned into a murderous hatred.
    Our land is beautiful. I am told that there are parts of China where the hills are terraced in similar ways, as if some giant has sculpted the mountains with a knife. Those hills rise like they do in the highlands of Scotland or beside the deep lakes of New Zealand, and it is not hard to stop, lift your eyes from the red soil, and look up to where the sky is held up by these peaks and feel a sense of God’s power and a love for creation.
    I felt something like this as I left home and headed toward Peninah’s house one morning. We had arranged for me to meet her so she could give me the money I needed for my first set of high school fees. I was also going to buy some books with the money and do full shopping in preparation for the start of term. It was not hard to feel a sense of gratitude when so much good was coming my way.
    The journey from our house to Peninah’s home took two or three hours. I was not in a rush, just happily walking and thinking about what life would be like in a few weeks’ time when I would start high school.
    Halfway along I met my friend Isaiah, who was my sister’s houseboy. He did not look well. He told me my sister was dead.
    I did not believe what he said. I could not believe it. Why would she be dead? Isaiah told me she had been shot, but why would anybody shoot Peninah? She was not political in any way. How could this be true?
    Some people gathered round and started screaming and crying. Isaiah continued on the way I had come to tell my mother and my sisters, while I walked on toward Peninah’s house.
    I spoke to no one on the way. My steps were slow, but I do not remember much more about it than that.
    Eric was a businessman, and at the front of their house was a shop. They lived around the back, and even before I passed along the side of the house I could tell there were many people in the yard that separated the rear of their home from the Rushoma River beyond it. It was down this side path that the soldiers had walked, and it was across this river that Eric had fled.
    Later I discovered what had happened. Eric’s first wife had formed the plan and had gained support from our enemies. Together they had raised seventy thousand Ugandan shillings, which would today be in the region of five hundred dollars. It was a large sum of money to find, but the hatred