The Rwabituuzas.

So the year is 1950, Mr Elisa Rwabituuza and Ms Tibayagwa Tofasi tie the knot and life begins. These were my maternal grandparents so full of life, Omugurusi Sagyenta as he was fondly known because of his World war exploits in the King’s African Rifles (KAR) and was in the subsequent government’s army. It is after retirement that he was made a sub country chief of Nyabubaare,Rwashamaire,Ngoma and Bitereko. Omukaikuru Tibayagwa who was fondly called,mukyara used to reciprocate and call omugurusi as mwami.

In the year 2000, was their golden anniversary of the marriage and I recall it was at Mitooma Church of Uganda.Mukyara’s speech was read by mum and I remember her thanking God for the far he had brought them. Omugurusi Rev. Gakyaro who has since slept was the best man at the anniversary celebrations.

Lessons from Omugurusi Rwabituuza.

Omugurusi Sagyenta was an amazing archivist,he kept all information and even used to record it on Casette tapes.I picked up reading from him as he kept copies of orumuri local news paper in a large box file so if I wanted to get what happened, I would go and get the file and peruse through. I also remember at age 8,I read,”Abagyenda bareeba” a book that was published in”omuhanda gwokumanya series”I still remember the character,”Bindeeba” and the trial he faced for an alleged murder. The writing was so good and the imagery was on point. Omugurusi loved listening to radio and as a matter of fact, I have the makula radio to listen to. Omugurusi loved hard work, I remember one time at age 9,he told us to go pluck the coffee then later,he bought us bread. This might not have made sense to me but he was instilling the value that nothing is for free. Omugurusi was a strong man, he would take milk to the diary in mitooma while on a bicycle. One thing that he had was the tough love probably because of the military background but he was a loving granny. He slept in 2008 and for some reason, I wasn’t informed (I was sitting my A levels and they thought I would be affected).

Lessons from Omukaikuru Tibayagwa ‘mukyara’
After Sagyenta sleeping, she began hating the ‘mukyara’ name probably because the person who used to call her so was gone. She was staying at Bweranyangi but later moved to Ruhandagazi. One word that describes her, “omweecumi” literally meaning a tidy person. I was born at Ishaka Adventist hospital and mukyara was the caretaker of mum. Infact due to her cleanliness, she was made the defacto leader of the caretakers (abajanjabi)

We used to have lots of conversation about politics, life and many more things. Now it was the 9th October,2016.I being in Mbarara had felt that I should go see her so I called Aunt Petash and the amazing thing is that she had planned to go there as well. Unknown to us, the Lord was preparing us for our last visit. She asked Aunt Petash, ‘nogaruka ryari?'(when are you coming back to see me) to which she replied “Christmas”. Then she said,”hoona nogira ngu nonkushangaho?”(Do you think that you will find me alive?) That I took it as a light question from the mukaikuru . This is a start of the write up on the Rwabituuzas, the next part shall be written later…….