“Munanansi, Just!”

Munanansi; A traditional pineapple beverage from Uganda often drunk as a mocktail, but if left to ferment long enough, has the capacity to intoxicate.

Dearest Irreverent readers!

This week’s scandal is titled ‘MUNANANSI JUST!’ and was brought to me by one of our bean spillers  who sent word from a quiet village in Busoga: Bantu people east of our glorious continent. Why is 1862 brimming with tonnes of drama?! Our bean spillers’ pots keep bubbling with wild stories every day! Today’s ‘Spilled Beans’ is about a foreign visitor who introduced himself to the village as John Hannington Speke, who journeyed from the outskirts of the Buganda Kingdom. Readers hold onto your stools for the epic drama after Speke claimed he was on an expedition to discover the Nile. Yes, that Nile! The one we’ve fished from, quenched our thirst, and sailed across for eons. But the main villain of this scandal isn’t Speke’s wild claims; it’s that scrawny parchment he calls a map!

Firstly, he insisted that from his map, the natives he encountered were Baganda, yet in this particular village by the Nile’s bank, they were a mixture of Baganda and Basoga. What did the natives care? To them, like the rest of our brothers and sisters in all our lands, we are all one. In fact, one of our Muganda bean spillers, called Mukiibi, led Speke to the village. Reddened forehead and cheeks because his white skin couldn’t take our land’s heat; Speke’s eyes darted into desperation like a hunter laying traps for his prey in Mabira forest. He was anxious about ‘finding’ this thing; it’s key to note that, at this time, the villagers had no idea exactly what he was looking for. It was a secret only revealed by the ignorance of that parchment he called a map! Clutching a compass in one hand and a telescope in another, he proudly announced to the villagers, “I am here to chart and discover the Nile!” Mama Nagawa’s loud jeer ripped through the cloud of silence, “The Nile? Which part? The part within our lands or the part that flows to our neighbours in the North?” Children giggled from behind the huts, “he looks like a chicken after its feathers are plucked.”

Funny as the children’s jokes were, the comedy erupted when Speke gathered his declarations on a scroll filled with squiggly lines, oblong shapes, and what looked like a badly drawn hippopotamus. Speke balled his palm into a fist of pride struck into the air and yelled, “Behold! I present to you the map of the Nile!” Four elders sat under a hundred-year-old mahogany tree. Elder Kato clutched his walking stick, and his wrinkly eyes hovered across the scroll, “Alcohol is bad. Did the person draw this after drinking munanansi?” Elder Igaga coughed, “Why does the river turn west here? There’s no river there? Why can’t the map show that it’s all swamp??” Elder Mawanda smoothed his silver beard, “And, here, it looks like it was drawn by my grandson Musa, who was born yesterday.” Elder Kato reiterated, “Alcohol is the devil. Munanansi just! This looks like a hyena’s footprint. What nonsense is this?” Thankfully, readers, Speke couldn’t understand a word they uttered so he asked, “What are they saying?” Mukiibi, our bean spiller, Speke’s guide and translator, who knew English from the missionary school he attended, softened the roughness of his voice and reformed the elder’s frustrations in his eloquent response, “The elders think the map needs a little more work, but they’re optimistic about its’ potential.” Mukiibi lied. He spoke in ‘that’ voice with ‘that’ diction that was only recognisable by us. You know how black people of our lands tune our voices to a different frequency to speak like the John Speke’s of the lands across the seas via a code-switch? How we veer off from our authenticities, malleable in speech and form as a survival instinct… How our narrations weigh heavy in pots of calm but empty in granaries of clarity about what we are saying exactly… The most scathing comment came from Mama Nagawa, who cleaned Matooke’s dark sap from her fingernails, “if that is the map to the Nile, then I am Kabaka Kayiira’s favourite and only wife!”

In his unfolding delusion, Speke pointed to a mango tree and declared, “We must head South!”- a quest that landed him at a kraal. Mukiibi did his best to veer Speke back on track, but he held the map to the unapologetic sunlight and squinted, “The river must be nearby!” Elder Kato groaned from the back, “Munanansi, just!” Speke skipped and danced, “I see the mist. The Nile must be ahead! Let’s make haste!” Mukiibi’s deep voice was low, “That’s a blacksmith’s gorge; that’s not mist; it’s smoke from smelting metal.” Speke’s hands anchored on his waist, “You have blacksmiths who know how to smelt iron? You lie!” His eyes were wild. “Do you want me to take you there?” Mukiibi paused. The skin between Speke’s forehead bunched, “No!” He seemed discomforted. Bearing an off-balanced grin, the grin our fore-parents warned us that most foreign visitors across generations display when they realise that we aren’t the savage peasants waiting to be saved.

The villagers’ humour was evident in their bets on Speke’s next claim. Elder Igaga scoffed, “Five cowrie shells says he claims the Nile is the village well.” Elder Kato’s stick scratched the earth, and his voice was gruff, “Fifteen cowrie shells says he claims the termite hill is Mountain Rwenzori.” Their witty banter added a layer of entertainment to the unfolding drama.

Frantic pointing, peering through a magnifying glass, and pretending his map was his guide, Speke discreetly followed Mukiibi’s footprints that led him to the Nile. Falling to his knees, he theatrically yelled, like a gladiator after a victory, “Behold! A glorious day! I have discovered it! I have found the Nile!”

As Speke celebrated his ‘discovery,’ a young boy called Musumba, who understood English from eavesdropping on the different caravans of preachers that traversed town, couldn’t contain his amusement. “Did he think we were hiding the Nile from him?” Nambi, his best friend, giggled and bit into a juicy guava. “Quick! Somebody fly to the heavens and tell our God, who created the earth and the rivers, that the Nile has finally been discovered by a Munanansi drinker.” The two friends erupted into laughter, their joy mirroring the jubilation of shared sarcasm.

Speke ran his fingers through the gushing falls, “Mukiibi, I think my Queen will knight me upon my return!” ‘Knight you for fraud?’ Mukiibi’s eyebrow raised, he dared to question but held his tongue. “Sir John Hannington Speke sounds grand, congratulations!” Mukiibi, instead, plastered a flattened smile. After declaring to Mukiibi that his guidance was inconsequential because his map was superior, Speke offered Mukiibi a small tin cup for his troubles translating. Mukiibi, who hailed from a long line of blacksmiths, politely declined. In truth, the cup was an embarrassment to the metallurgical world, smelted with more enthusiasm than expertise. It didn’t glint like the cups that lined Mukiibi’s kitchen. It dimmed into its misguided attempts. “Thank you, Mister Speke, sorry, Sir Speke,” Mukiibi’s bow exaggerated, “your generosity and wisdom precede you, but I could never accept such a treasure,” Mukiibi’s smile and tone were warm, enchanting, the perfect code-switch!

When Speke left, beaming with might, map and tin cup in hand, the village campfire for the following weeks was a hive of laughter and jokes. “I can’t believe he drew a baboon trail and called it a river,” Mama Nagawa clapped while Mukiibi drummed. Even the village chief,  Nadiope, often mysterious and distant, joined in the golden glow of the fire, “If he discovered the Nile, then I discovered the throne that his Queen sits on!” Cracks in elder Igaga’s wrinkled face softened, “We should organise a comedic play for all the villages about John Speke’s visit and charge one cowrie shell for entrance to raise money to improve the dwellings where our women have caesarean births.” Mukiibi drummed louder, and the village girls’ and women’s waists rotated to their rhythms. Their waist beads and ankle bells chiming in symphony. “That’s a wonderful idea!” Mama Nagawa’s feet kissed the earth in wavy motion, “What shall we call it?” The drumming halted, and a gruff groan pierced the web of silence, “Munanansi, Just!” Elder Kato burst into throaty laughter, and the entire village was a chorus of joy that bubbled from each corner like a distant thunderstorm. Smoothly melted metal cups clang into unbridled laughter, an inside joke shared only by them for generations to come.

The village’s bean spillers claim the children started drawing replicas of Speke’s map and titled them, “A map to nowhere, Munanansi just!”

And so ends another scandal of the foreign visitors’ absurdity in our lands. Who will come next, claiming to ‘find’ or ‘discover’ what we’ve always known? Rest assured, our bean spillers are prowling the mountains and plains, the green savannah, and sandy dunes for our next ripe fruit to suck on. Until our next scandal comes out, hold onto your sheep and goats. Always remember that not all men with maps are discoverers- most are just very, very confused, maybe even inebriated, if not by Elder Kato’s ‘munanansi’, then surely by their egos. If you’re in Buganda and Busoga, don’t forget to get tickets to the epic play “Munanansi, Just!” It’s for a great cause! Tickets are stationed at all weavers and fish markets, or the clay pot stalls by every well. With music, dance, drama and drums, Munanansi, Just! aspires to be the sensation of 1862!

Always remember, Spilling The Beans is here to bring you laughter during what are strange times!

Until next time, don’t forget to party and jubilate at the play’s afterparty like it’s 1863!

Yours in Scandal,

The only anonymous bean spiller.