Maria came to Kirabo for a quiet holiday. Uncle Rwamiti brought several inherited beliefs and two badminton rackets.

Maria Mulungi arrived from Nairobi with a small suitcase and a firm intention to do nothing useful.

For three days, she would not attend a meeting, improve a process or circle back.

“If anyone asks,” she told Uncle Rwamiti, “I am somewhere with poor network.”

“Excellent. We have Wi-Fi.”

“Please don’t threaten me. I’ve just arrived.”

They were sitting beneath the trees at Kirabo Forest Park when a monkey climbed onto Rwamiti’s car.

Maria reached for her phone.

“Look at him! He’s inspecting your roof.”

“No. He has been promoted. Yesterday he was on the bonnet.”

Another monkey joined the first.

“His deputy?”

“Probably a relative. Recruitment here is deeply disappointing.”

Maria laughed.

In Nairobi, she explained, she had spent the previous month helping her company reorganise. This involved discovering more cheerful ways to tell people that their jobs were ending.

“We don’t say redundancy anymore.”

“What do you say?”

“Realignment.”

“Of course. A person cannot complain about being aligned.”

“Then we offer them a resilience webinar.”

“Before or after removing the salary?”

Maria covered her face.

“Uncle, I came here to forget work.”

“Then stop bringing it up. Look at your fellow tourists.”

The monkeys had begun examining a windscreen wiper.

“They seem very confident,” she said.

“Yes. Neither has a LinkedIn account.”

The job with a lifetime guarantee

Later, they walked towards the pond carrying fishing rods.

Maria’s father still could not understand her working life.

“He asks why I keep changing companies.”

“What do you tell him?”

“That sometimes the company changes first.”

Her father had entered employment when a respectable organisation was supposed to be the beginning of a long relationship. You joined, behaved yourself, rose slowly and eventually received a farewell speech beside a large cake.

“He thinks a permanent contract means permanent.”

“It is an understandable mistake,” Rwamiti said. “The word does encourage it.”

“My last company gave me a permanent contract. Then they abolished the department.”

“Did they abolish the contract?”

“They called me into a room.”

“With water?”

“Yes.”

“Whenever an employer offers you water in a private room, drink slowly. Your afternoon is about to change.”

Maria laughed so hard she had to put down her rod.

“My father says, ‘But we told you to choose a secure career.’”

“They were trying to protect you.”

“I know.”

Rwamiti stopped beside the pond.

“A parent who has known hunger will naturally recommend a dependable kitchen. The difficulty comes when the kitchen is sold, the cook is outsourced and someone launches an app.”

Maria looked at him.

“That is my entire CV.”

Something dependable in the water

Rwamiti helped her bait the hook.

“How long before I catch something?”

“We have not negotiated that with the fish.”

He showed her how to cast. Her first attempt placed the bait considerably closer to her own feet than to any fish.

“Very cautious,” he said. “You are giving them a chance to apply from home.”

On her second attempt, the line reached the water.

They settled down.

Maria watched the float with the concentration of someone who had paid for results.

After several minutes, she pulled it in.

The bait was gone.

“The fish have eaten.”

“Yes.”

“But I have nothing.”

Rwamiti inspected the hook.

“You have experience.”

“Unpaid?”

“Welcome to the pond.”

She stared at him, then burst out laughing.

He handed her more bait.

“This time, wait until you feel the pull.”

“I did everything you told me.”

“Yes.”

“So why didn’t it work?”

“Because I was giving instructions to you. The fish remained independent.”

Maria looked across the water.

She had spent much of her adult life believing that careful compliance should produce a predictable reward.

Study hard. Work hard. Be agreeable. Deliver.

When a reward failed to arrive, she examined her own performance first.

Perhaps she needed another qualification. Better visibility. More confidence. Less confidence, depending on the latest feedback.

“Sometimes I think,” she said, “we were brought up to believe life was an examination. If the result was poor, you must have missed something in the notes.”

“And some of us are still asking for supplementary papers.”

She cast again.

This time, she let the float settle.

The soulmate department

“Of course,” Maria said, “my mother is more concerned about my personal life.”

“Is there a vacancy?”

“She thinks so.”

“Has she advertised?”

“Through relatives. A very efficient network. No privacy policy.”

Her mother believed there was a man out there for Maria. The right man. A man who would complete her.

“Apparently I’m walking around unfinished.”

“Which part is missing?”

“According to Mum, a husband.”

“An extensive part.”

Maria’s float moved. She seized the rod.

Nothing.

“Another promising relationship,” she said.

Rwamiti laughed.

Her mother’s instructions sounded straightforward: find your better half, marry him and live happily.

“Imagine the interview,” Maria said. “‘Good afternoon. Are you the missing portion of me?’”

“‘Can you provide two references?’”

“‘And explain the three-year gap in your emotional availability.’”

They were still laughing when Rwamiti lifted a hand to his neck.

Then he stood up abruptly.

Maria looked round.

“What?”

He made a noise she had not expected from a sage.

A bee had stung him.

For several seconds, all discussion of human flourishing was suspended.

Maria put down her rod and helped him check the sting. They moved away from the spot, dealt with it and fetched a cold cloth.

Rwamiti sat holding the cloth against his neck, offended.

“Did you disturb it?” Maria asked.

“I was discussing marriage.”

“Perhaps it has views.”

He gave her a wounded look.

She tried to remain serious.

Failed.

“The bee has found your bitter half.”

“Maria.”

“I’m sorry.”

She was not remotely sorry.

The programme continues

After a break, Rwamiti insisted that their afternoon continue.

“Are you sure?”

“The bee was not our host.”

They walked back towards the lawn.

Maria was still considering the soulmate question.

“Perhaps the problem is expecting someone to arrive already knowing how to love you.”

“While you arrive already knowing how to live with them?”

“Yes. Two complete strangers, each carrying a family handbook, convinced the other one has been issued the same edition.”

Rwamiti nodded.

“One says, ‘In our home, we discuss everything.’ The other says, ‘In our home, silence meant the matter was settled.’”

“And both call it common sense.”

They stopped near the badminton net.

“My mother’s advice came from affection,” Maria said. “But I don’t think she ever explained what happens after you find him.”

“Visitors arrive.”

She looked at him.

“From both families.”

Maria bent double.

A fair contest

Rwamiti handed her a racket.

“Now. A game based on merit.”

“Finally.”

They began gently.

Maria missed the first shuttlecock.

Rwamiti missed the second.

By the third, both felt entitled to comment on the equipment.

“The breeze,” he announced.

“Your racket,” she replied.

They changed ends.

Maria won a rally.

Rwamiti inspected the shuttlecock.

She folded her arms.

“You said merit.”

“I am investigating the conditions under which merit occurred.”

Soon they were playing properly. Maria moved quickly. Rwamiti had judgement, reach and a growing preference for shots that required his opponent to run.

After one particularly energetic rally, she protested.

“You sent it exactly where I wasn’t!”

“Yes. I am beginning to understand the sport.”

He won the next point.

Then he pointed to a mark on the grass.

“Out.”

“It was inside.”

“The line is there.”

“There is no line!”

“I know where it would be.”

Maria lowered her racket.

“You own the park, provide the equipment, decide where the court ends and now you’re winning on merit?”

Rwamiti opened his mouth.

She waited.

He closed it.

Then he laughed.

“All right. Your point.”

“And my promotion?”

“Let us not become unreasonable.”

They sat down, breathless.

Maria looked back at their imaginary boundary.

“That is what bothers me about the advice to work hard. I believe in working hard. But sometimes the person explaining success also owns the court.”

“And sometimes,” Rwamiti said, “we lose because we keep hitting the shuttlecock into the tree.”

She nodded.

Both had happened that afternoon.

No answer at the back

Towards evening, Maria finally caught a fish.

It was small, but she held herself like a woman who had defeated an international syndicate.

“Take a photograph.”

“Shall I include the fish?”

“Uncle!”

Later, with her phone in her hand, she found herself on unclerwamiti.com.

Rwamiti had mentioned a story in which a family faced a difficult decision. She had intended only to look.

Now she was reading the choices.

“What happens if I choose this one?”

“Choose it.”

“But which is right?”

“See what follows.”

She made her move.

A little later, she frowned.

“Oh. I didn’t think about what that would mean for her mother.”

Rwamiti watched the lawn.

Maria went back to try another path.

“You could have told me.”

“You were doing rather well at telling me this afternoon.”

She smiled and continued.

The old instructions had promised her a secure job, a completing partner and a world that rewarded effort fairly.

At Kirabo, she had found hungry fish, disputed boundaries, a bee with poor manners and an uncle willing to surrender a point.

It had been a surprisingly useful day.

Her phone rang.

“Mum.”

Rwamiti raised his eyebrows.

Maria answered.

“Yes, I’m enjoying myself.”

A pause.

“No, I haven’t met anyone.”

Another pause.

“Actually, I have. But he stung Uncle.”

Rwamiti reached for the cold cloth.

Maria was laughing too hard to explain.

Uncle Rwamiti
The uncle your parents should probably never have introduced you to. 😎