THE COW-BOY

A certain pumas full-back by the name of el-mago, The Magician once took a kick that curled like a banana and bounced on and off into touch against the All Blacks. Try kicking a rugby ball in that fashion and you will appreciate the magic of that play.

I’m not to watch something and let it pass, so I made it a point to produce such a kick, a banana kick. Whenever I’ve been free in the last month from that time I watched the kick on Rugby Dump I’ve headed to the st.Joseph’s school pitch to practice, I might not know yet what it’s like to kick at such a level with big crowds and media but I know what it feel like.

I have grieved at times on seeing the school boys play into my practice time, that being when they go past 6:00 pm, which is tea time back at school. On this particular wet and misty evening a boy found me kicking the ball and he asked why I was playing alone, if my mates were coming later on. He had this open tone we have come to expect from the Bakiga. I told him there was nobody else. He expected the boys to be around. I told him the ball wont refuse to be played by one person, in a rather sad tone, what with a ball that’s played by fifteen people plus and here I am solo. He caught on and started telling me how life is hard, how the world is complicated. He had worked hard and given his Mom his savings worth 40,000 UGX only for the father to take it and spend it on booze, and later on burnt up himself in their house… he threw his bitterness at the old man for not opening out to the clan about his problems, why couldn’t he borrow money if he had a problem…? I told him life is like that, he will understand some more when he’s a grown man. But couldn’t he tell somebody about it, it’s not like other people don’t get money problems? I told him not everybody is like that, its not like some people to share their problems. He will see it as he grows up and he should try so hard not to be his father and not to be so bitter about it as it won’t do him much good.

Before he could say more I told him to move to the other side of the pitch so I kick to him and he kicks back. Before he can go too far I ask him his age….14! And he is telling me how life can be so hard! Instead of a punt, he is kicking it like a football, I show him how to punt, a basic pant; its clear he’s not a natural on top of having a worrying family situation. I go on with my punts and drop-kicks occasionally asking him a question or two.

He looks after cows belonging to one of our neigbours in the village and has to make it work, his mother can barely look after herself and his siblings. However there’s one that undermines the credibility of his story, he says he isn’t a thief and doesn’t want to associate himself with thieving persons. From experience that’s a classic statement given by the crafty. People say conditions force people to be crafty but they also force them to work hard, they (conditions) must enforce what one’s true nature... I think .So I wouldn’t trust this boy employing him, not so much, from that statement, you ought to have some reservations , I suspect. Though ,from other reasons..

When the red light on the telephone mast at st. Joseph’s hill came, it was time to take his cows back home. That’s how he could tell the time how observant! I’m not forgetting that particular kicking session for sometime.