The Nose To My Father’s Surname
The Scars of 1994
Grandma recalled April 7th, 1994, as if it were yesterday—when two peace negotiators were blown up in the sky, their airplane reduced to ashes. Hatred rose like milk in the saucepan abandoned on extreme heat. The main voice on the national broadcaster commanded: “Cut down those ungrateful trees, cut them all down!”
These were not forest trees, but a people—slender, very tall, and marked by sharp noses. They were the Tutsi minority, who had accumulated wealth under Belgian rule. My grandpa was a village chief with vast herds of cattle and land stretching wider than football fields.
River Kagera divided our homestead into two vast tracts of land. Papa’s elder siblings swam, fished, and tended the long-horned cattle that beautified the hills. Grandma always said the river—once a source of prized fish—had become a mobile cemetery for thousands, even millions, of people.
These were people sliced apart by angry neighbors, hatred birthed years earlier. They had suffered under kings who rested spears in flesh, and chiefs who, hand in hand with the bazungu, worked people to the breaking point. Backs bent under unbearable loads, many drowned to escape a monarchy infested with occupational greed.
Grandma wove tales of grief that filled the air as children’s screams echoed across the hills. Terraces were drenched in human blood—a suffocating stench that pierced the nostrils of those yet to fall, often silenced by gunshots.
My grandpa’s neighbor and his eldest son returned wielding sharp machetes that shimmered like polished steel. They accused grandpa of possessing an “unofficial nose”—long, sharp, pointed, and prohibited among them.
They seized him by the collar and dragged him across the muddy ground like a rag, rough, showing not a grain of mercy. Their eyes burned with hatred—the kind unmistakable on any face. Blades fell upon Grandpa’s head while he begged for his life from people he had grown up with, hunted with, and shared meals with.
Grandma hid in the matooke plantation where she had gone to gather fallen avocados. Papa, still a child, was strapped to her back. One hand pressed tightly over his mouth to silence any sound that might alert the monsters. Every time Grandma gathered us by the fireside, tears flowed like river Nyabarongo as she recalled how her first two sons died trying to rescue Grandpa.
Papa, barely six years old, clung to her back as they fled through the plantation—panting like game hunted by poachers. Their pursuers screamed, “Inkota!” “All you deserve is death—only death—to purify this land infested by inyenzi.” Grandma mourns her husband daily. Her stories are threaded with chaos and sorrow. She tells of her journey down Kagera, where corpses floated toward the “borders of hope.” The water turned red, choked with the stench of fallen “trees.” Humanity was reduced to manure—fertilizer for the earth.
While fleeing, she slipped into the river, mingling with floating corpses. Papa clinging tightly to her back. She escaped being seized by neighbors turned strangers, determined to erase her for ancestral sins. “They called it clearing the forest,” Grandma said, “but they were cutting down our men.” Men with “chosen” flat noses dragged her into the woods and left her walking lame.
Papa sat on a tree trunk, watching wicked crimes committed in a people’s name. Sorrow engulfed him like a second skin. This memory follows him daily—his mother’s rape replayed endlessly. “Mama’s legs were stretched like elastic,” he said. “I couldn’t move an inch. She lay still like a corpse.” “The wounds are still fresh,” Grandma would say. “A daily defense of the nose.” When my sister Betty once asked if Grandma hated Uncle Tom, Grandma lowered her head and whispered: “You won’t understand the weight of forced penetration.” Uncle Tom was conceived from that rape—planted in Grandma’s womb along Kagera’s banks. He was not Grandpa’s child, but a reminder of the massacre.
❧
In The Borders Of Hope
The splash of the Kagera’s waters hit the banks with a hushed thud. It sounded as though Grandma was seated by the fireplace. As the river swept past, it carried with it old memories of a people sent to their graves simply for the pointed shape of their nostrils. That was twenty one years ago. No one asked questions then—questions like the one about Uncle Tom. The year was 2015, in a place beyond the familiar borders. Grandma floated past the Land of a thousand hills, clinging helplessly to countless drifting corpses.
She had no choice but to let the river carry her anywhere safer than home. Home had begun to speak a language that reduced people to cockroaches and snakes—nothing human. Home had adopted the friendliness of a machete cutting through flesh, of women turned into food for predators. Fortunately, I was born in a better place. Here, we dared to dream new dreams—a people hell-bent on righting our history. I enrolled in school and progressed from class to class. Early in my school days, I took offence at being addressed as, “cockroach.” I grew furious even at being called Munyarwanda—literally, “Rwandan.”
As time passed, I became more tolerant to this cold behaviour. I finally completed the Primary Leaving Examinations, Kigezi had been home for the past thirteen years of my life. The dark past no longer held us back. My mother’s sister, Twikiriize, was so excited by my performance that she promised to take me to Kampala for my secondary school. My face beamed with a rare smile as I recalled the telephone conversation. “Hello, Aunty. This is Asiimwe.” “Yes, hello, my favorite nephew.” “I’m doing perfectly fine. Guess what!” “What? Tell me… please.” “UNEB results are out. I scored fourteen aggregates. ” The evening was jubilant, friends and neighbors gathered in the small compound of our homestead, a colony of about twelve houses, isolated from the rest of the town and nestled deep in the bushes. My father’s eyes speak profound pride with a single glance. Someone in the family had broken the curse of never studying beyond primary six.
I saw it in Grandma’s silence too. Her eyes twitched whenever praise shot toward me like a bullet of ecstasy— her only mode of communication in old age. I felt a hand reach for my shoulder. Turning, I saw Betty, my little sister. “Big brother, I am so proud of you.” I hugged her tightly and promised to miss everyone once Aunty took me to the city—especially Grandma’s facial gestures. Blind from old age, she communicated only through movements. The night was one to remember, we gathered to celebrate the milestone. Betty danced until her legs gave way, joy beyond words. Papa was the DJ of the night, jumping up and down because his son had now finished with primary school. People slowly drifted back to their houses, weary from the long night of joy.
At dawn, among the virgin hills, birds sang beautiful, unseen melodies. The chilly fog settled on my hair, making it look like a Muzungu’s. I was dressed like a mountain climber—in a heavy jacket and Timberland boots. I boarded the bus for Kampala, excited to let my feet caress the city’s dust for the first time. I wrestled with sleep to catch every detail of the journey—a task Betty, a fountain of questions, had entrusted to me. At last, I stood where my dreams had drawn their map: Kampala. The city’s concrete kissed my feet, assuring me I had truly arrived. On these streets, my nose—like my father’s surname—defined me, just as it did in 1994, a time I never lived. I sat in a taxi headed to Kireka, a Kampala suburb. The driver repeatedly shouted out locations. Suddenly, he looked at me. “Move to the extreme end!” Before I could shift an inch, “Move, gwe! Why don’t you listen, cockroach!” The words flipped my mind backward through Grandma’s stories. I felt them peel my skin and drop it fell onto the taxi’s dusty, rusty floor.
I imagined how such a small misunderstanding could drag me into years before my birth—the horrors that dressed Kagera red, bodies floating toward the unknown. When the driver lost the argument, he reminded me that my nose was ‘un belonging.’ These words drove a thorn deeper in the wound already aching. I was dumbfounded by the hatred burning in his eyes. He fumed like an unvaccinated mad dog. Unable to endure the insults any longer, I abandoned the taxi and boarded a Boda-Boda. It was far more expensive, but to reduce the cost, I chose one already carrying a passenger. I climbed onto a shabby motorcycle—slightly better than the scrap taxi I had left behind. Fearing being sandwiched, I sat at the very back. Barely minutes into the ride, the Boda-Boda man asked me, “Mister, what is your name?” I now understood the cold glance he had given me when I flagged him down. “Asiimwe,” I replied calmly. “What is your real name?” he asked again. I masked my anger. “I am Asiimwe.”
The woman seated in front leaned closer and whispered to him, “Ono alimba, Munyarwanda.” They burst into laughter. When the Boda-Boda man asked my tribe, I answered, “I am a Mukiga”. Before he could process that, the woman asked, “What is your father’s name?” My mind froze like ice, but I stuck to the truth. “Harerimana.”
They laughed again, joking about people with ‘strange noses’ and ‘unhealthy surnames’. They mocked the ‘food for fish’ that had filled Kagera —human bodies nourishing fish in Uganda. These fish, containing fingers, ears, and other human parts, drove some people away from eating fish altogether. The stench in the air and the river’s colour echoed biblical images of the real Red Sea.
Their words stung— not because they were new, but because they echoed old stories. Stories that haunted my nights and kept me awake until I nearly passed for a night watchman. On dark nights, I wondered whether I would end up like Grandpa and his two sons. Beyond the sharpness of my nose and my tall stature, I wanted to scream, I was born here, among the hills of Kigezi! Everything Kigezi is etched deep in my veins. I belong here. But I chose silence, afraid they might choke me. For the rest of the journey, I remained mute—like a statue in a heavy rain.
In that silence, I thought of Mwanjari market, where my friends and I bought cheap Christmas clothes. No one asked questions there. I watched people of every nose, name, and colour flocking around the stalls. A sudden warmth filled my belly—a quiet confirmation that I belonged, regardless of their piercing words. The Boda-Boda had reached my destination. I jumped off, paid the fare, and turned my eyes from the motorcycle to the slum by the railway line. “Welcome to Kireka.”
I headed toward Aunt Twikiriize’s home, where I found Uncle Tom seated in the doorway, his chin resting between his massive palms. He gazed at the sky, as though searching for a treasure among the clouds. It took him a while to notice me. I watched him, then cleared my throat. Surprised, he asked, “How long have you been standing there?” “About twenty minutes,” I replied. We fell into silence, both gazing upward. I wanted to tell him about my terrible day when he whispered: “I still see them—my evil father and brother, or father and grandfather—whichever of the three shameless rapists they were. I still hear Mama’s cries, begging for mercy.”
“Behind those dark clouds, I see the monsters’ faces. What breaks me most is that I inherited their nose—the same nose that irritated my own mother. I am my mother’s scarecrow.” I slowly placed my arm over his shoulder and whispered that, I too, still saw the ugly pictures of a past none of us had lived—yet one that continued to haunt us all.
❧
The Price of a Name
I can see my nose in Kagera, a broken mirror. I hear it echoed through the city. I remembered Grandma’s usual tale—that our entire dark past was cast under the hills and recklessly dumped into Lake Victoria. The river’s roaring waters re-echo the resilience of a crushed culture, painting survival in names. How time flies! I have been a resident of Kireka for six years. I am nineteen years old, yet I still yearn for my twelve year-old self—the one that couldn’t sleep without Grandma’s stories. Horrific stories that would send chills down my spine, yet still sounded right, for it was good to know a piece of my ancestry.
I sat at the table with Papa, looking him straight in the eye. “Son,” he said lightly, pain painted across his face, “I’m really proud of you.” He paused, then continued, “Your sister Betty will soon join you here in the city.” I sensed that all was not well with Papa. “Pa, you have traveled a long journey to reach me—what is the matter?” He responded slowly, “See, son, the chairman recently ceded our land to an elder. He said a person whose surname chases away the ancestral spirits cannot be trusted with land. How can one whose nose disturbs the ancestors’ comfort be allowed to have a large harvest?”
Pa’s eyes were hot red, tears streaming down his cheeks. Nevertheless, he looked straight at me, and in his gaze I saw many unanswered questions. I didn’t quite understand how he rose from the chair. He stood and paced about, back and forth. His hands shifted from pockets to his chest as he tilted his head toward space, often stopping to murmur inaudible phrases. Unsure how to comfort him—or how to accept the chairman’s actions—I joined the pacing. At times our eyes met mid-air, as though we were slightly coordinating our despair. He finally sat back down, still muttering to himself. In that chair, Papa fell asleep while I stood by the pillar, gazing at the middle-aged man turned suddenly old, words still spilling from his mouth.
The sun slowly rose above the houses across the railway line. Its rays pierced through the window and struck Papa’s face. He groaned and pulled a blanket over his head. I could only sigh and retreat to bed—not from sleepiness, but from the weight of racing thoughts. I didn’t know what to say to Papa. His face showed how a forty-two-year-old man could appear eighty. A man not enjoying his retirement—thrown off his land. Land that had belonged to our family since birth. Given the circumstances, Betty’s education became my full responsibility in a community that saw us as enemies to be dealt with.
With all this burden, I found myself walking down memory lane to an earlier incident. I had visited the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) offices. My colleagues’ IDs had arrived—those of us who applied while still in school. Yet mine never did. In my mind I pondered, Will I finally get my ID? Will this document assert my presence? I thought that once I obtained the identity card, I would finally be Ugandan. At the gate a police man with a rude look asked, “Wewe, what are you doing here?” “My national ID, Afande,” I replied. He finally allowed me entry.
I stood in a long queue, waiting patiently to be served. The numbers were large, but I didn’t mind. My goal was to leave with a card that pronounced me Ugandan. By the time I reached the counter, my knees ached. I noticed unhappy faces ahead, sending shock waves through my legs. The possibility of leaving without my ID became real, but I regained my composure like a lamb led to the altar. I wasn’t going to be slaughtered. Still, the thought of leaving with the card pulsed in every nerve.
“Young man, how can I help you?” the woman behind the mahogany desk asked, her eyes fixed on my face—more keenly on my nose. “I am here to check on the status of my ID,” I said, balancing confidence and fear. I provided my credentials. She looked at them, then glued her eyes back on me. “Young man, what do you really want from here? Were you born in Uganda?” Confused, I replied, “Yes, Madam, I was born in Kabale.” She interrogated me further, making me swear upon Nyabingi’s name. “Well,” she finally said, regaining her calm. “Your ID was denied because your name doesn’t sound Ugandan. You must return to the hills to confirm your Ugandan-ness with the Chairman LC1, the DISO, and the GISO—in writing.”
My mind froze. Of those offices, I only knew the LC1 by name. I hastily prepared to return to Kigezi—a mission to prove my belonging. The bus swallowed me at midnight, and by ten in the morning daylight spat me into Kabale city, smelling of dust and dreams. I stood in the chilly hills of Kabale — the land where I was born and raised. Home fondled my skin like dew on grass. It had been ages since I last set foot in Kigezi. I spotted Betty waiting in the reception area, her small frame vibrating with anticipation. She screamed with excitement and hugged me tightly. “Big brother, welcome home.” I handed her the gifts I had brought from the city, and we immediately set out to find the officials.
We met the chairman LC1 first. A big bottle of Eagle earned me a stamp after brief questioning. He laughed as he spoke. “Asiimwe, the fact is that your father’s mother crossed the border during the harsh times of the ’90s. Do you think your nose—or your father’s—looks like mine or my neighbors?” “I’ve known your grandma since she first crossed Gatuna border. I have seen her son, Harerimana, drop out of school and start making children with our young girls. He corrupted your mother.” “Mr. Chairman,” I asked, “wasn’t I born here in Kabale?” Temper seized his tongue, and I was exiled from his presence. On the seventh visit to the DISO’s office, he assessed my Ugandan-ness over a WhatsApp video call and later instructed his secretary to stamp my papers.
We proceeded to the GISO’s office, a stone’s throw away. As we walked, I asked Betty, “You seemed unbothered by the chairman’s words. Don’t they irritate you?” She looked me straight in the eyes. “Big brother, I am not bothered. I am here to stay. I will study hard—maybe become a doctor. I won’t charge my patients according to their nose or surnames. I will treat everyone with the same love I gave my dolls.” She paused, then added, “I will choose my man from any region—or beyond. Not a tribe.” I could only gaze at her in silence, lost in admiration. Young as she was, she had decided to belong, no matter the cost.
The GISO was at the mosque that Tuesday. We were directed there. He emerged praising Allah and, without looking at me, said, “I plead in Allah’s name for your ancestral sins to be forgiven.” A tall man with a giant physique, he loomed over me like a big wall. He handed me the stamped papers and dismissed me.
I boarded a night bus to Kampala in cautious joy. The papers were secured. Yet my head swirled with contradictions—celebration tangled with doubt. I thought of Betty and her fearless hope. I wished I could wear life the way she did. The bus emptied me into the chaos of Kisenyi terminal, I navigated the murmuring crowd and boarded a matatu to Kireka. At six in the morning, I had already arrived at NIRA offices. This time, the Afande asked no questions. I waited until the office opened.
At 8:30 a.m., I entered the familiar office. The woman welcomed me warmly. I handed over the documents. She examined them and soon presented a form for my signature. Five minutes later, my ID was ready. I stared at my name printed in silence. “Asiimwe Harerimana.”
The streets still withheld the comfort I had hoped for. My nose remained a passport to exclusion. I feared for our land, for Betty’s future, for repetition of the 90s—not as memory, but as reality. That night, Grandma appeared in my dreams, her blind eyes weeping. I heard Papa and Uncle Tom wailing in a dark tunnel, their voices receding no matter how fast I ran. Betty hummed to her toys, unbothered. I fell to the ground.
This is our journey.
Ankwasa Harlord Halelimana is an Undergraduate poet and author at Makerere University, Uganda, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Arts with Education (BAED). His poetry has appeared in Best New African Poets (2020), Moonstone Review, The 100 Sailors Magazine, and Lunatic Sanity: an anthology by FEMRITE Uganda. He is a UNESCO’s Regional winner for the Safer Campuses Poetry and Arts Competition for East and South African countries 2025.
