16 Quotes by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

Nsuuta, every woman resists. Often it is private. Most of our resistance is so everyday that women don't think twice about it. It is life. Even the worst of us, like Aunt YA, who massage the male ego with "Allow men to be men" are not really shrinking but managing their men.

Promise me you will pass on the story of the first woman -- in whatever form you wish. It was given to me by women in captivity. They lived an awful state of migration, my grandmothers. Telling origin stories was their act of resistance. I only added on a bit here and a bit there. Stories are critical, Kirabo,' she added thoughtfully. 'The minute we fall silent, someone will fill the silence for us.

But me, I was not going to sit around waiting for him to steal a moment for me once a week, once a month. In the end,' she said in English, 'I supplemented him.''You suppliwhat?' Kirabo responded in English.Nsuuta was cynical. 'You know why you are shocked, Kirabo? Because women are brought up to treat sex as sacred while men treat it as a snack.

The belief at St Theresa's was that every girl needs that girlfriend, nfa-nfe, for who she would prise open the crack of her buttocks to check the pain up there without worrying about the ugliness. Because only a woman knows how to love a woman properly.

Nothing takes the sting out of a woman like marriage. And when children arrive, the window closes. Wife, mother, age, and role model - the "respect" that comes with these roles is the water they pour on your fire.

After lunch, mother and daughter sat outside on the porch to talk men. From where the world starts to where it ends, when women start to lament men the sun could drop from the sky and they would not realise.

Children do absolutely nothing on their arrival that warrants presents every year. If anything, they should give presents to their mothers, who come close to death.

For knowing and refusing to know.

Wind was in haste. As she turned into Nsuuta's courtyard the clouds started to spit sparse but sturdy gobs. They hit the ground hard and dried promptly. The earth emitted that delicious but fleeting scent, the one when the rain first touches it. She closed her eyes, but by the time she tilted her head to suck it, the wind had whipped it away. The rain came down as if being chased. She ran.