Jiggers

Like the great migration of the wilder beast from the Masai Mara to the Seregenti Plains or is it from the Seregenti Plains to the Masai Mara, here the annual migration of the 4x4 Prados, Land Cruisers, VXs and Range Rovers has started. And this migration starts in Kampala and ends up anywhere from Rukungiri to Hoima, to Iganga, to Pader and other regions. Yes it is that annual Christmas migration to the village.

Right now in some households, the word has come down from the powers that be – Mum and Dad that is, that the village beckons. And in some households there are many Teenies who are not amused for they know they will be no Boda Boda, Cayenne, Club Silk and even DStv to look forward to in the evenings. Even worse, they will be an absence of hot water and a hair salon.

Back in the day, I like many others, was subject to the great migration but now that I am of age, I have a choice – to go or not to go and this year I have yet to make up my mind.

Anyway years ago, the migration from Kampala to our village in Ibulanku used to take us a good four hours. And when we got there it was a time to fend for ourselves. I did know a good deal of people there though I was rather perplexed that all the old men and women claimed to be my grandfather and grandmother yet, I do know my grandfather had sadly passed on before I was born and I knew who my real grandmother was! But I let it be and let them go on thinking that I was their grandson.
About a mile or so from home, lived an elderly man whose name I can’t recall nor do I think he was a relation. Anyway, Elderly Man in his frail state had something peculiar about him. His limbs were all swollen and he had a bad rash all over his body too. My sisters and I took the rash for the effects of mosquito bites for he had pimples too. And generally Elderly Man always made it a habit to be at our home first thing in the morning until the wee hours of the night.

Because of his appearance we generally avoided him but one day like the way curiosity killed the cat, curiosity got the better of me that I decided to go and have a talk with him and find out more about him. Obviously there was a language issue because he spoke a version of Lusoga that only my dad could click but despite that short coming, with a little trial and error we somehow managed to have an haphazard conversation. And obviously I had to ask him about the pimples all over his body and in his hardcore Lusoga, he replied: I have nvunza (jiggers).

Nvunza? Now what on earth is that? I was only a 14-year old lad so why would I be concerned with something as innocent as nvunza’s? So over the course of the holiday, I forged a relationship with Elderly Man who gave me some insight into my dad as a young boy growing up and much more. Our relationship however was soon about to come to an end when one of the men who worked the land advised me that it was not in my best interest to be hanging out with him for I never knew what diseases I might catch. And the message was further rammed home by my mother who assured me that I should have nothing to do with him again. And with that, I moved on.

A couple of weeks later I started getting a sensational itch on my fingers. Sometimes it would be a soothing itch, other times it would be and irritating one. If my fingers weren’t giving me trouble, then it was Him down there. Whenever I went for a pee, it felt like I was pissing razorblades. But it was one of those things that I thought would go away.

But it didn’t go away. My scrotum too had started to itch and by now had developed pimples that I kept on thinking how on earth the mosquitoes managed to bite me down there yet, I am always covered up? And in my agony people began to notice that something was amiss. Yes so my cousin Peter pointed out, I had jiggers! I was dispatched to see one of the old ladies and who armed with a pin started digging them out. One by one she dug them out that by the time she was done, I had huge gaping holes in my fingers.

But still there was the issue of going for a pee and peeing razorblades. At that point I was so obsessed with holding my crotch, that it took the intervention of an uncle to tell me that it was not a nice thing to do in public. And that’s when I told him my issue. Taking me to the bedroom he had a look, didn’t say a word but told me to get dressed and get into his car.

To the clinic I was driven and there in front of two nurses, I had to drop my pants while one of them took her time in extracting the jiggers from my scrotum and other parts of him!

And since that incident, whenever I saw Elderly Man, I would scowl at him and just want to be as far away from him as possible. A few months later he passed on and from what I gathered, his body was so riddled with jiggers that he practically had no flesh left on his body.

And as I wish you all a merry Christmas, I wonder if I invited my immediate editor, Sidney Miria and the Sunday Vision Editor David Mukholi to come down for Christmas in my village would they come for I want to introduce them to the off spring of Elderly Man so they too can experience the jigger experience!