Muzungu Kwanjula
Have you ever seen Kampala from an airplane
on a warm summer afternoon? The reddish marks
of highways expand as far as the graves of the forgotten
women of Juarez. Their names known only to the angels
dancing in the greyish blue clouds.
But sometimes we have to laugh to forget the pain or
our tears will remind us that the only thing in the heavens is blue sky.
They say it never rains in southern California but does it ever snow in central Uganda? Why am I a muzungu in Nansana but a wetback in America? I’ll never forget the first time you did okufukamira. The Prophet said if he could’ve ordered any creation to bow to another, he would’ve ordered a woman to bow down to her man. Such things never concerned me. I only care about enough air in my lungs to breathe out your name.
In Luganda, olulimi is polysemous. It refers to both
tongue and language. The only difference is the way
it moves around in my mouth when I ask you what
you thought would take years to happen.
Ekirooto on Muzigo & Mbuubi Road
A tall man walks past you sweating. The charcoal
bag on his back feels heavy. Bluish green made of
thin plastic threads and itchy covering his entire body.
You notice what’s between his sandals. Ashy feet calloused
enough to walk barefoot if it weren’t for the rain gods of
his ancestors. You see a book in his eyes telling whole chapters
divided into sections of dreams too long for you to finish.
He knows hunger but is thankful for strong legs. He drifts
here and there longing for another sunset to lay upon his head.
There’s a funny way the wind strokes the palm trees back and
forth. Its breeze smells of hot cooking oil and burnt chapati. Maybe if
his mother dies the day after tomorrow he has enough for transport to
the funeral. They are a people in their villages but foreigners in their cities.
A piece of charcoal falls. You want to turn back, pick it up, give it to
him but you know if you do, he’ll tell you it’s not his, like most of his problems.
The Fanoos of Al-Azhar
There’s an ancient fanoos hanging in the hallways of Jami al-Azhar.
She shined her brightest during the days of the Mamluks: pearl
white, held by copper wires, Ayat-ul-Kursi circling her beautiful stomach.
The Ottomans changed her candle every Ramadan even as the French and
British carried on until the coup of King Farouk. She watched in sadness
when Sadat was placed under her. His shrouded body wrapped tightly in
chaos and hatred. And even when she was dropped and shattered by one of
the janitors during the inauguration of Mubarak, a craftsman fixed her good
enough that you couldn’t see one crack. But now time has taken its toll.
The glue that holds her melts with each new candle. She has fallen twice this
year. She’s stained with brown dust and fungus. I watch the janitors take
her down from the wires. I can’t help but notice drops of candle wax leaking
from her, falling, the way teardrops do when you know it’s time to say goodbye.
Al-Qarafah: City of the Dead
Reddish-glows govern beige mausoleums as white sun dives into Cairo skyline…I can see the stolen electrical lines feed life into cracks of forever darkness…it’s the stuff of Najib Mahfouz’s wet dreams, a novel in the making, maybe a novella, if you run out of typing paper or wake up from your sleep. I roll the window down, rub my eyes, and look to my left. A tragedy unfolds…
A pig, amongst many,
snuffles and snorts along
the dusty street avoiding
the Egyptian girl swinging
a long date palm switch across
their backsides. She yells at them
Yallah! Yallah! her silver cross be
-jeweled with topaz swings side-to-side,
a toddler follows behind, he needs a diaper change,
a few feet away a family watches the news in the crypt
of Umm Anuk. The Egyptian girl slips in a puddle, the pig laughs, the others follow. His eyes long for freedom, to believe freely, to write, to express himself, to love who ever will love him, to live. One day, he thinks. One day.
Amazing what one observes from a taxicab headed to Ahmed Helmy.
Author’s Bio
Tomas Maldonado is a Mexican American creative nonfiction writer and poet who teaches English for Academic Purposes and English Composition at South Central College in South Central Minnesota. He uniquely blends creative writing in his TESL courses while mentoring his multilingual students as they journal their writing experiences via poetry and creative nonfiction. Tomas writes personal essays, interviews, and book reviews for Erato magazine and has had his creative nonfiction, poetry and short stories published in Chrysalis, Rio Grande Review, SEDAA, Latin@ Literatures and The Corresponder. When he’s not taking long walks through Kampala, he’s making snow angels in Mankato.
