Brian Bukenya. Gone too soon.

I have often joked that a school and a prison are very similar institutions because in both one is given an enrollment number, locked away and sentenced to share a common history with people not of their own choosing, for what may seem like eternity. In this case, I would like to retract my school of thought (pun unintended)... I met a remarkable fella in 'Brian Bukenya' while I attended part of my secondary school in Uganda. And even though I may have some poor experiences of going to school, my friendship with 'Buxo' (as the other fellas christened him) was one of those that gave me the 'joie de vivre' on those pretty difficult school days. My 'comrade-in-arms' I thought of Brian back then. In retrospect, I'm thankful to God for those little things and the times that we shared together as carefree teenagers. Some of these memories shall be indelibly printed on my mind cuz little things as they might have seemed back then, al grown up now, I realise the little things we take for granted are really the big things that matter in life. Meeting BryanFor our accommodation, we had an L-shaped dorm room with bunk beds stacked in neat rows across the two sides of the wall and one long and large aisle separating one side from the other. Taking breakfast cereal as a midnight snack would never raise an eyebrow where we lived. If it were illegal, I think we would all have been culprits. When we were all done with the 'snacking' as it was called, someone would put out the lights and then we would continue having our chats with each other in the darkness, each one under their blue distinguishing bed-covers as we wandered off to sleep, one by one. A few days into our established 'culture', along came this medium-sized boy that preferred to change the culture after the midnight snack by baring down to his usually bright red or black designer underwear, to do 3 or 4 sets of 20 press-ups. You might be wondering why I point out the bit about being designer but when a brand name is the most conspicuous item on a mono-coloured piece of clothing, it surely has a way of standing out and sticking to memory. Because he took his time while doing his press-ups and also did them with so much pomp and fanfare, this meant the lights would have to stay on longer through the night (or morning since it would be past midnight anyway). And it's these antics of his that first sparked off a verbal fighting contest of sorts between Brian and the bigger boys in our accommodation hall who preferred to have the lights out as soon as the 'snacking' was done with. That's how I first became aware of Bryan Bukenya - the boy who dared to shout back at our seniors, the bigger boys who occupied the light-controlling side of our accommodation hall. That's the structure of leadership that we had in those accommodations. The fellas in the higher classes always had an advantage over their juniors. In this case it was being closer to the light switch. It still beats me to this day what the logic behind that was. But to give you a more detailed picture of our lighting system, we had long fluorescent tube-lamps suspended from the ceiling by these archaic metallic strings. These lights were activated by a starter switch that was conveniently placed just under the lamp holder but above the lamp itself. Their mechanism was such that if there was no starter switch inserted, the lamp would not light up when the switch was pressed on. On this one night, someone that presumably must have been fed up of Bryan's 'ante meridian' antics seemed to take advantage of this lighting system and took the starter switches out of the lamps on our side of the accommodation hall so that should the lights be switched off the first time, they wouldn't come back on, even when the switch was pressed on again. That night, Bryan seemed disappointed but nonetheless, went ahead with doing his press-ups. I think he must have done about 20 at the time, as he made sure to count out rather loudly for all to hear... From my bunk, I could the counts come out through heavey breaths...16-17-18-19… and then a loud bang at 20 as he collapsed on the floor, an exhausted mound of bone and muscle. That was Brian for you. A brilliant performer and one that never gave up easily. About a week or so later, we had our first one-on-one encounter when one afternoon after classes, he brought me a starter switch that I think he must have nicked from somewhere. He asked me to keep it for him to use to start up the light lamps later that night. I personally enjoyed reading the Asterix-Obelix and Moses-comics selections late into the night. My own bunk bed was located directly below the fluorescent lamp holder our side of the dorm room so having the lights on a bit longer wouldn't bother me in the least. And that's how our friendship started, from tackling a common light problem to sharing many other experiences together both within and outside of school. The Bryan I knewI was never one for football but when the English premiership football craze hit our lot, I remember cheering Manchester United's Fabien Barthez along with Bryan and some others. "The greatest team of all time", we had all sang out then in reference to Manchested United. Along the way, Brian being an ardent football player took on the trade name 'Blanc' after a French footballer at the time, Laurent Blanc, if I remember correctly. I think it must have been Arsenal that took the day that season. The next school term, Bryan amazed us all that had supported Manchester United with him when he professed his love and undying support for Arsenal Football Club. I say 'amazed' because it was virtually unheard of for one to switch allegiances so easily and especially with such seemingly determined passion. The sheer unpredictability. That was Brian. And yet even in his unpredictability, he maintained a rare sense of loyalty for his new-found cause; whether it was a football team, an idea, a friend or even something as mundane as a designer brand. It's this quality in him that I think had many clamouring for Bryan not to be on the opposing side of their arguments. When Bryan believed in something, it was usually to the death. I only learnt later on in life when we were both out of school that he would actually soften or even change his stance on something if you laboured to convince him enough, carefully laying your facts and figures correctly. If they weighed out against his, you'd succeed in having him see it your way.Political Education had been one of the newly introduced teachable subjects for our school syllabus and the school administration had brought on a new visionary teacher to kick-start the process. Perhaps it was the man or simply his teaching style, but in retrospect, I cannot remember a single soul back then that wanted to let go of the Political Education teacher even after the bell signalling the end of his lesson had gone. Bryan was one of those that would literally tug at the teacher's coat, to keep him inside the class taking to us a little longer. With Political Education, it was for us usually an insatiable hunger to learn. Bryan would take those political debates back with him to his accommodation hall, drawing up even more controversy when he differed in opinion with others (or vice versa) on a particular issue. Another time, when one of our teachers had given birth, Bryan had led the entire class to raise funds towards the purchase of a congratulatory gift and in small visiting parties of ten had marched us to the teacher's home, a few kilometres outside the school campus. I was in the last visiting party and on our way back, Bryan took me on a detour for a small treat: to have a hair-cut in a real salon. Back then, that was a lot better than the single school barber who came in only once a week and sometimes even less frequently, to serve a population of 500+ students. Brian got something they called a crew cut then while I went for a fade. It was much later that I realised he would be visiting an all-girls' school the next day, hence the convenient detour. All the same, he had shared what he had with me and that was something. Brian loved to dress up smartly. He was actually one of the few boys I can remember in my class that kept his school tie on for the most part of the day. Once, when Sylvia Owori, a clothes-designer of sorts in Kampala was the 'new thing' in town, Brian had gone off to her newly opened ‘Sylvie's boutique’ and picked up a pair of classic sleek shoes for school. That was the first time I (and many of the other fellas in our class) heard of a shoe designer called 'IKON'. Brian not only brought the shoes but a style magazine introducing the IKON as a classic shoe design. Our whole class and maybe a couple more others heard of IKON too then. Bryan certainly made sure of that. And again in retrospect, I think Brian's 'IKON' became the most famous non-living member of our class. Brian Bukenya, a man of style!Once, for a whole year, I was paired up with Brian in class. This meant that we sat next to each other and we also formed our study groups together too. It was during that time that our bond as friends grew even stronger and we each learnt a great deal about the other's life. One day, going back to our accommodation halls after classes, Bryan looked at me and said he was tired of having a 'skinny' friend for a neighbour and that I had to start working out so I could add some muscle mass to my 'frame' as he called it. 'Kabawo' (as flat as a log), is the term he actually used to describe what he thought my torso actually looked like. At the time, Bryan and another friend had this private gym thing going and this was more or less my invitation to the exclusive club. So at sweet sixteen I was introduced to the world of weightlifting in an improvised local school 'private gym'. We would work out for an hour or more after classes for 4-5 days a week doing the same range of exercises everyday. We didn't know any better at the time. Later, when I progressed to a real gym and a professional trainer on leaving school, I learnt that we had been doing a lot of things the wrong way and it was little wonder I couldn't see much for myself in terms of the weightlifting effects during those school days. But at that time, Brian and the other friend were my personal trainers. I did whatever they did or told me to do. It was like family how we worked out; fluctuating between 48 and 50 Kgs at the time, I was the lightest and obviously weakest member of this exclusive club, so I needed a 'spot' most of the time especially when I would get to the last 5 reps of my set of exercises. Bryan would usually offer to 'spot' each one of us, cheering us on, encouraging us to complete the sets. Bryan never gave up on you. One day, tired of the monotony of these exercises, I had abandoned the 'gym' to go and play some basketball and when I had just made team which was quite an effort in itself, I saw Brian coming out to the basketball court as he pointed at me... "Man, I can't leave you here. You know where you have to be!" he shouted out at me. You couldn't just say NO to Brian. He pulled me by the arm and walked me back to the 'gym' as he lectured me about 'collective responsibility'. Apparently, I should have let him know first, before I wandered off like that, and then that 'gym day' would have been cancelled for everyone, allowing all of us to go for the field sports. "Besides," he said, "You have all the weekend for basketball." Bryan was caring like that. We would later exchange notes on the correct techniques of weightlifting and dieting when we both moved on from secondary school. Once, I remember Bryan waking me up at 1.00am in the night with ice-cold water over my face and literally dragging me out of bed to go to class so we could study for our exams. We would study for up to 2 hours at the most and then he’d pull out his stash of letters from girls and have me edit his replies. Once I had been replying a letter of my own and Brian had asked to see it but I told him I didn’t think it was any of his business. He pulled it away from me anyway and read it amidst loud guffaws. When he was done, he told me everything about me was his business because I was his friend. That was Bryan for you!And then outside of school, there were the parties and the girls... One thing I'll say about Brian first is that I think he was one really focused young lad. For all the time that I was with him and even when we went to new places after our time together in school, Brian was usually in a committed relationship. Whenever I asked, I never heard him say, "Oh, I am single now" or "I am open to anyone" as most boys our age were wont to do. No, Brian was usually seeing someone and I think that saved him a lot of trouble in the long run. Brian loved and knew how to have a good time with his friends. If he wasn't hosting one, he was inviting you to go with him to one party. Not being one for loud parties myself, I usually had to decline his invitations. I remember Brian distinctly telling me how he would be happy to stop by in the Emirate city of Duba'i where I lived at the time, if only I could get a good party thing going. Miles apart, we’d kept our friendship alive chatting everyday on messenger and it's also during that time that I introduced Brian to blogging and then a few days after opening his own blog at: www.bbukenya.blogspot.com, he had instant messaged me asking, "but Zack, who ever reads that stuff?" I told him in reply, "Brian... it's simply a blog... whoever wants can read." Blogging seemed to lose its appeal to him after a while so he quit but I asked him not to delete the blog as I hoped that it would serve some purpose in retracing his history once he had ‘made it up there’ someday. Of course we never realise the irony of our statements sometimes until life deals you this way but thinking of what I said again, it takes on an entirely new and ironic connotation. In retrospect, I’m glad Brian acquiesced to my request because his blog is perhaps the only unadulterated cached memory of his that we may still have online. And of course, a few months later came the revolution of the social networking sites. First, hi5 and then later Facebook following closely on its heels. Even as he pursued his cumbersome law studies as he liked to refer to them, Brian was never one to be left behind by trends. His social profiles were usually awash with dual traffic between him and his many friends.The other side of BryanNow before I go any further, I would like to state that this is my obituary to someone that I think I knew for more than 10 years of my life, someone that I also called a close friend and with whom I shared many personal experiences with and so I don't really care how or what some people may think of some of the things that I'm saying here. This is simply how 'I saw things' to borrow on a more literal phrase.To some people, it may have seemed that Brian was a young lad who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I wouldn't say that. In fact, I think that in many ways, Bryan went through the toughest circumstances, trying to make his own luck somehow until he persevered. Self-made Brian Bukenya. To someone seeing him from a distance Brian may have carried himself erect and might have even seemed to exude some power and solidity. But what they didn't know was that inwards was a more fragile young lad doing his utmost best to conceal inner struggles, passing off as the kind of person who wouldn't be easily hurt, a person who tried to ride all the blows that life dealt him. Beneath the mask he wore was great pain, there was really a little boy struggling to be accepted, to be called 'beloved' or even simply, 'son'. Brian worked very hard to get his father's attention in his life. Now, I have seen people in a similar situation simply give up and settle with eking out a living on their own. But Brian was different. I remember once accompanying him to this building somewhere in the up-scale surburbs of Uganda's Kampala, where his father worked and we were made to sit for what seemed like eternity before Brian was eventually told that his father would not see him due to the latter's busy schedule. Just like that. I could see the tears well up in his eyes and before he shed any, I quickly made to leave because I felt as though I had intruded on a private moment and my presence there at the time might have retracted from him the macho-image that he'd worked so hard to build of himself in the public domain. But Brian didn't give up. I was to learn that a few weeks later he had gone back and once again had gotten the same result. He kept on going until he finally got that appointment with his father. Brian loved his father dearly and he was almost the only one person that featured consistently in most of his conversations. More than anything, Brian longed to be recognised by his father as a beloved son. To earn his father's love, Brian humbled himself to do every chore at his father’s beck and call. Now, I don't mean to critic a father's style of bringing up his child and I think Brian's humility to his father was quite exemplary but I think that at some point, it was a little too harsh on him. But it paid off. During his university years, Brian would later became his father's closest confidant. What saddens me the most is the fact that Brian had only just started to enjoy this close relationship when his life was suddenly taken from him. And my last sight of him, as he lay deprived of life in a green metallic casket, most of what he had been longing for the most part of his 26 years... love, public show of affection, suddenly came aplenty. How ironic life can be! I know that I hurt as a friend but I just cannot imagine the pain and sorrow of losing both a son and a friend that both his father and mother must be going through at this time. My heart goes out to them!Fare thee well my good friendWhen I first heard that Brian was gone it all seemed so surreal to me. Just a bad dream I thought. And it's only now that typing out this obituary I am suddenly realising he really is gone. There's not gonna be another Brian on the other end of the phone-line anymore. There's no more 'How are you, Boss?' or 'Chief, watagwan?' or 'Obulamu bugamba ki, dirham ne dollar ziriwa?' (boyish banter) from him. No more of that!!! And it’s painful. Very painful. The pain starts as a thick lump in my throat as I try to imagine why he had to be taken away from us so soon. The pain gradually finds its way to my eyes, welling up tears that I didn't know I could still shed. And as the tears cloud my vision, I have to take off my glasses and clear my eyes with the back of my hand to finish typing this. Only God knows if I will be able to read it again while holding myself together. Rest in peace my friend, Brian. I will miss you. All your friends miss you. Brian Bukenya. 1983 - 2009. In loving memory.