By Dilman Dila
Uganda
My father was a god, though he looked like any other old man. He had a thick
white beard, and a bald head with tufts of hair above his ears. He had no wrinkles. His ribs showed. His gait was slow, shuffling. He always wore large, green earrings, a rainbow-coloured necklace, and a black goat skin loincloth. He looked ordinary, but I knew he was a god. I confirmed this the day he showed me the egg-shaped thing. It stood on two bird-like legs that were taller than he was, and it had a pair of wings that were so large he must have skinned twenty cows to make them. I wondered where he got the hide, for he had no wealth to buy cattle.
“It’s buffalo skin,” he said.
“You don’t hunt,” I said.
“I paid a hunter.”
I frowned, but was too courteous to ask how he had paid the hunter. He was so poor he could not afford to buy a chicken.
