An Uncle Rwamiti Story

Uncle Rwamiti first met Joseph and Susan when everybody still understood their positions.
Joseph was a successful lawyer. Susan was a waitress at a hotel Joseph frequented with clients. She was cheerful, hardworking and unusually attentive. Joseph noticed her. Love did what love does. They married.
At the wedding, one uncle whispered: “Joseph has rescued that girl.”
Uncle Rwamiti heard him. He said nothing. Marriage was still young. There would be time for education.
Joseph discovered that Susan had always wanted to study professional catering. He paid for the course. When she finished, he helped her rent a small building and provided the capital to start a restaurant.
Six tables.
Joseph even brought some of the first customers. “My wife has started a little restaurant,” he proudly told his friends.
Little.
That word did not survive three years.
Susan could cook. But more importantly, Susan could run a business. She remembered customers. She watched every shilling. She knew which office ordered lunch on Fridays and which customer wanted his matooke almost mashed.
Six tables became twelve. Twelve became twenty-four. Then Susan opened another branch.
People stopped saying, “Joseph’s wife has a restaurant.”
They started saying, “Ah! You are Susan’s husband?”
Uncle Rwamiti says a man requires a strong constitution for that sentence.
Unfortunately, at almost exactly the same time, Joseph’s law firm lost two major corporate clients. The receptionist still answered the telephone professionally. The brass plate still announced: JOSEPH & PARTNERS, ADVOCATES.
But the brass plate was doing considerably better than the partnership.
Money became tight. Meanwhile, Susan’s restaurants were overflowing.
The financial geography of the marriage changed.
Susan began paying the larger household bills. She paid the children’s school fees. When the family car needed replacing, Susan paid.
Joseph said he was proud of her. And perhaps he was. Human beings can carry two truths simultaneously. One says: I love you. The other whispers: What does your success say about me?
Small quarrels started.
Susan would say, “Joseph, don’t worry. I paid the electricity bill.”
Joseph heard: “You cannot pay the electricity bill.”
Susan would say, “I have handled the school fees.”
Joseph heard: “You are no longer the man of this house.”
Then Susan made her own mistakes. One evening during an argument she said, “Joseph, please. I don’t have time for this. I have two businesses to run.”
The sentence lasted six seconds.
The wound lasted six months.
Then Uncle Rwamiti arrived.
It was a hot afternoon and he was thirsty. Before anybody could explain the marital crisis, he had already finished a full glass of water.
“Another one.”
Susan brought it. Just as he raised the glass, a bee flew towards his face.
Uncle Rwamiti jumped up, knocked his cap onto the floor and began waving his hands wildly.
“Go and sting somebody with a salary!”
Joseph burst out laughing. Even Susan laughed.
Rwamiti picked up his cap, inspected it carefully and sat down.
“Now. You people were saying your marriage is collapsing because there is too much money?”
Joseph frowned. “It is not like that, Uncle.”
For nearly an hour, Rwamiti listened. Then he asked for tea.
Susan brought expensive imported tea.
Rwamiti looked at it. “Do you still have that ordinary tea you used to serve when the restaurant had six tables?”
Susan smiled. “Yes.”
“Bring that one. Today’s problem started when people forgot where the first table came from.”
Rwamiti stirred his tea.
“Joseph, when Susan was a waitress, did her small salary make her less worthy of your love?”
“No.”
“Then why should your smaller income today make you less worthy of hers?”
Joseph looked down.
Rwamiti turned to Susan. “And when this man paid for your catering course and helped you start the restaurant, was he purchasing shares in your obedience?”
Susan laughed. “No, Uncle.”
“Excellent. Gratitude is not slavery.”
Then he turned towards Joseph. “And helping your wife succeed did not purchase permanent superiority either.”
Silence.
“Our fathers prepared men for one kind of marriage,” Rwamiti continued. “The man provides. The woman receives. The man protects. The woman depends. But society has changed faster than our minds.”
He pointed towards Susan. “Today the woman you marry may become a banker, surgeon, engineer, professor, minister or entrepreneur. She may eventually earn three times what you earn.”
Then he pointed at Joseph. “And the market can remove your chair while you are still sitting on it.”
Joseph protested. “But Uncle, surely a man must have dignity in his own home.”
“Absolutely,” Rwamiti nodded. “And the woman?”
“Of course.”
“Then we agree. The only remaining problem is that you have confused dignity with income.”
Joseph went quiet.
Then Rwamiti leaned forward. “Joseph, I am going to tell you something even more annoying.”
Joseph laughed. “I knew there was more.”
“There is always more.”
Rwamiti adjusted his cap.
“Before you become Susan’s husband, you must first become Joseph.”
Joseph looked puzzled. “I am Joseph.”
“No. You are Joseph the lawyer. Joseph the provider. Joseph whose wife once depended upon him. Joseph whose friends knew he was doing well. I am asking about the Joseph underneath all those things.”
Silence.
“If your peace depends upon earning more than Susan, Susan’s success will always frighten you.”
He rubbed it in.
“If your dignity requires somebody else to be smaller, then you have borrowed your dignity.”
Susan looked at Joseph.
Rwamiti was not finished.
“A whole human being does not need a poorer spouse in order to feel successful.”
Joseph shifted in his chair.
“And Susan, don’t start smiling. Your turn has come. You too must know who you are without the restaurants, money, customers and applause. Otherwise one bad year and you will also start wondering who Susan is.”
He leaned back.
“Each of you must first learn to stand comfortably inside your own skin.”
Then he smiled.
“Marry yourself first.”
Joseph raised his eyebrows.
“Know yourself. Respect yourself. Be able to sit alone with yourself without needing another human being to prove that you matter.”
He pointed at Joseph. “Then when Susan earns more money, you celebrate.”
At Susan: “When Joseph’s business struggles, you don’t suddenly become taller.”
Back to Joseph: “And when her restaurants become ten, you don’t become shorter.”
He slapped the table.
“That is the marriage of two whole people. Not two frightened halves measuring each other with bank statements.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Rwamiti delivered the final blow.
“Joseph, suppose Susan’s restaurants become the biggest catering company in East Africa. Suppose she earns ten times what you earn.”
Joseph smiled uneasily. “Then what?”
“You order the most expensive meal on the menu.”
Joseph laughed. “And?”
“Then you thank God your wife owns the restaurant!”
Everybody laughed.
Rwamiti picked up his cap and stood. At the door, he turned.
“One last thing.”
They waited.
“When the person carrying the basket changes, sensible people do not throw away the food.”
Then he looked directly at Joseph.
“And my son, never be frightened because the seed you watered became a tree.”
He turned to Susan.
“But when a tree grows tall, it must not start insulting the person who once watered it.”
He walked towards the gate. Then suddenly he came running back.
“My cap!”
Susan pointed at his head.
It was already there.
Rwamiti touched it. “Ah.”
And walked away again.
Perhaps that was his final lesson.
A man can occasionally forget where his cap is without losing his dignity. And perhaps a husband can occasionally forget who paid the electricity bill without losing his masculinity.
The world is changing. Our stories about ourselves must sometimes change with it.

Dr Petero Wamala, DBA
Making sense of change through ethical storytelling