If my father had a chance, he would most certainly have wanted to walk to work, run with his children and even swim in the lake. Unfortunately, for the last 13 years of his life he was unable to. This was not because the police arrested him for walking to work whenever he had a chance but because he was shot by some merciless army men in the late 1970s, after which he led a sedentary life until his death.
Yesterday, I felt like waking him up to tell him that now I can’t walk. Of course, he would have been concerned...have the buggers done it again? Have they shot you too? But no, dad, I wasn’t shot, nobody shot me, the buggers just arrested me.
“What?” my dad would have said. They arrested you for walking?” Were you trespassing?”
“No, dad, I was just walking to work. I had my laptop on my back and comfortable shoes and the police arrested me, okay not just me, there were a bunch of us.”
“Nambozo were you doing anything illegal?”
“No, dad, it’s just that the fuel prices have really gone up and food is exhorbitant. I’ve even started planting maize and beans at home because I can hardly afford buying from the market anymore.”
“Nambozo, I thought things were better now with this President?”
“Dad, there’s just so much you don’t know. I’ll tell you all about it when we meet, which won’t be soon. Maybe that time, we’ll have a new President, who knows?”
“Dad, when you were young, did Africa still have a problem of leaders not wanting to let go?”
“Ha ha Nambozo, Africans are good at heart but you must understand that when poor people suddenly get a hold of money, they don’t know how to use it wisely and so need more and more because it keeps running out.”
“Okay, Dad now I understand. And money is symbolic for wealth, but also power, right?”
“Yes, dear.”
