Rebel in a Bubble

002 B.C: Ngyendo. Kanyarushokye, 60, Ngyendo, Buhweju. I’m only telling you this because I was not the only one present when it happened. Otherwise I wouldn’t have. I’ve heard stories about people who were never allowed to say what they saw or heard from the Bachwezi. But when this particular incident occurred, we were all there, about ten of us, and I remember us standing there and not saying a word, pretending nothing had happened. We were so scared of them! Anyways, so we are constructing a road right? And we arrive at that difficult spot along Ngyendo hill. There had been so many accidents along that part and we wanted to enlarge the road. It’s quite steep; you’ve passed there, right? You know how the road is suspended on the side of the hill, the valley lying below it, deep and hollow. The place itself creeps some people out. But I wasn’t really terrified, I just knew if we enlarged the road a little bit, it would make the drivers a little more confident, and the accide...

001 B.C: Omwokorezi Rwabureire Rutaza, 57, Bujaga, Igara. Listen, I am a catholic. I didn’t even believe the Bachwezi existed.   But then there were just too many stories going around. You’ve heard about the fire, haven’t you? The cows, the shrines…   There are things I just chose to ignore. And I did, for quite some time. Until I met Rwabureire. Thing is, I had heard about him before. But I thought ‘they’re all drunks, they wouldn’t tell the difference between a tree and a human’. Besides, I really didn’t like the guy. He was all, you know, you probably wouldn’t understand. He was one of those guys who looked like he didn’t know where he was going half of the time. Like he woke up and just went wherever his feet took him. He wasn’t the talkative type, no. Rumour had it that he had quite a scattered number of kids that called him father, from around Kibona and Bujaga. But that wasn’t his biggest folly. There were too many men with too many kids thriving with their...