Kaboozi with The Muchwezi, A Group Writing Stories From Local Ugandan Folklore

[Muwado Community Management]

The Muchwezi is a group of Ugandan writers and friends who inspire to write captivating stories based on local Ugandan legends and folklore. They recently completed their first tale, a 33 part series on the Kintu, the first man on earth, and how he ended up with his goddess wife, Nambi. You can read the entire series here (http://muwado.com/members/themuchwezi/snax_posts/)

Join the conversation with them on Friday 14th August at 12 noon GMT +3 as we chat with them about their writing and what it means to them. You can participate by using the form at the bottom of the page to ask a question. To respond to a thread, click reply on the contribution you want to comment on and use the form to reply so it’s easy to follow. Feel free to leave your question for them before the session date and they answer it when they see it.

UPDATE: The Kaboozi session with the Bachwezi has officially ended. Massive thanks to everyone that participated. But if you chance on this and still have questions, feel free to leave them and The Muchwezi will be checking in once in a while to answer them.

[Nakato]

How did you all know each other and get to writing together? And where can I read your individual works?

[The Muchwezi]

This project was started by Mugabe who consulted friends and a few relatives who he believed in.
Generally, we are now friends with a common mission.

[The Muchwezi]

How we met…? ? Victor found Susan’s English assignment from senior 4 lying around…? Then he secretly read through it.

Then Wilson met Victor in high school. He was in the process of writing his first book (White Walker). Victor suggested the death of the main character and they argued over it till this day. ?

Guess that sums that up.

[The Muchwezi]

Mugabe Victor writes on Muwado as VictorTheMuchwezi. He also draws and writes for the Brain Bro comic

Wilson Mutebi has published his book on Amazon. ? Hope he checks this out and send a link ?

[Nancy]

Hi TheMuchwezi. Interesting choice of name. Why TheMuchwezi? And who are the group members?

[The Muchwezi]

Hello Nancy
The name was inspired by the”Abachwezi”, who influenced Ugandan history broadly. Despite their roots in Bantu culture, we aim at basing on their stories to prove the interaction between various ethnic groups and tribes in Uganda. Keep following our stories to see how Uganda is one.

[Agaba Brenda]

Interesting. And the original bachwezi themselves, what do you think of the legend about them. And some of more scarier ones about them haunting people. What do you think about African spirituality based on these folklore you are exploring?

[The Muchwezi]

@Agaba Brenda. Thank you ?. Much as most of the stories about the bachwezi have been scary, as I grew up, I some how found them fascinating. Legends based on them always enveloped in a lot of mystery and energy. It’s exciting. ?…

As regards to African spirituality, it is something that is a part of our history. Denying it is as good as denying the existence of our ancestors. Rather than being ignored, it should be further explored and in some cases, embraced

[Pius]

I like this answer. Seeing how petty the gods in your tales are, what are your various thoughts on religion and gods?

[The Muchwezi]

Religions and gods…Faith in general is a beautiful gift; so long as it isn’t used as an excuse to inflict any kind of hurt on others.

[The Muchwezi]

@Pius. Religion is one of the fundamentals of setting up a decent civilization, a ground for setting the boundaries of morality and a sector which has been known for flexing our creativity muscles ?. As much as people may deny it in this generation, religion is fundamental to the growth of individuals and communities.

As for the pettiness ??? the better for us story tellers

[The Muchwezi]

The current group members are Mugabe Victor, Mutebi Wilson and Aine Susan.

[James K.]

What challenges do you face writing as a group? And how do you keep the prose and continuity flowing? I imagine that was hard…

[The Muchwezi]

At the start, writing as group was difficult, however, with a couple of ? pizza meetings and Virtual clan meetings ?, everyone was able to capture the flow.

[Baale]

Learnt about theMuchwezi today. What you guys did with the Kintu tale is impressive. What about this story drew you to retelling it this way?

[The Muchwezi]

Baale, thank you for that compliment.
Positive feedback helps a great deal. This story is just the beginning. It is one that has been retold for ages, with limitless evidence and taboos surrounding it.
All these aspects convince us that there is more to it than oral tradition could let us know.

[James K.]

The kintu series was well written. Which folklore will you be tackling next?

[The Muchwezi]

@James K. The next story being tackled will be The story of Kintu and his sons. ? A perfect tie in to the Kintu and Nambi story. It will be ?mwwaaa

[Tukei]

Nice work guys…keep it up…
So the muchwezi .. are the stories your writing based only on the Bantu history…or your doing a Ugandan based thing??

[The Muchwezi]

The plan is to make a Ugandan based thing. The one thing that’s for sure is that all ethnicities despite the so called colonial “tales” interacted in one way or another… Giipir and Labong probably knew Isaza at some point of time ?

[The Muchwezi]

@Tukei. Thank you

[Agaba Brenda]

Hi. What books/writers do you look up to for inspiration? What have you been reading lately?

[The Muchwezi]

Of late, Mugabe has been strict on nailing the next tale. The goal is to go for a psychological thriller kind of take on The story of Kintu and his sons… So the books we’ve been focused on are of that kind

Lately it’s been The silent patient By Alex Machiledes and Sharp objects by Gillian Flynn

[Pius]

Is this still happening? Thanks for then import work you are doing to retell these folklore. What were your biggest takeaways on the characters and the motivation for their actions?

[The Muchwezi]

Yes, Pius, and hopefully it will keep happening for as far back into history as we can get.
Gulu, a strict king hoping for his kingdom’s prosperity and his children’s empowerment.
His children, like many of us today, doing their best to live their best lives with the talents at hand.
Kintu, a man whose bliss is pulverized by so much knowledge at once.
The motivation behind all this is basically a search for something bighter in life – something most of us can relate to.

[Pius]

Any other writers or groups tackling other African stories in a manner similar to yours that you know of and we can check out?

[Nakato]

Hello. Apart from the versions of these tales and the Kintu one in particular taught in school and passed on orally, what other sources are you using for research to flesh out the stories?

[The Muchwezi]

Our sources are always as broad as possible. Ranging from Wikipedia to oral tradition. This particular story has different versions on various websites like bedsidereadings.com, http://www.buganda.com, among others

[Rolex]

Hi guys. Seems most of the good questions have been asked. From my end, thanks for a well written series that’s kept me entertained over the last couple of months and looking forward to more. For a question, I’ll go with where do you envision yourselves as storytellers in 5 years time? Where would you like to see the state of storytelling in the country/continent in the same period? Or, asked differently, what do you think should be changed about the current status of the sector currently?

[The Muchwezi]

Thank you Roland. In 5 years, we’d like to see Africa embrace their history. The way the world has embraced the Samurai sword as an epic tool of battle and myth, so should the African spear. As Uganda, we are rich in tradition and folklore, it’s potential that shouldn’t be ignored.

As writers we would like to grow The Muchwezi group with more writers. Plenty of stories lie I’m the wait and only 3 people are not enough to tackle them all.

[The Muchwezi]

As the questions seem to have calm down, we’d love to send all our thanks to those who participated.

Nothing in the past few centuries has been more entertaining than this. The Muchwezi will be sure to tell the next generation about this epic afternoon.

We’ll be on standby for any more questions and wait in hope that we’ve inspired more Bachwezi amongst you ?…

[The Muchwezi]

Thank you kaboozi session, thank you muwado ?

[Muwado Community Management]

Thanks for doing this The Muchwezi and for sharing insights into your writing and process. To everyone that participated, we appreciate you and will be organising more of these.

[Aloysius Kisitu]

Hey guys, sorry for my late submission but its never too late,the Kintu and Nambi story was tremendous work from The Muchwezi,I appreciate. Thanks to Suzan who kept me posted with the Kintu n Nambi story that has kept me company throughout the week. My question is, do you have plans of covering stories of other regions like the north. Stories like Gipiri and Labongo other than the Bantu stories?

Thank you.

[The Muchwezi]

@Aloysius matter of fact, we do. It’s our dream to cover all stories from each region of Uganda

[Author]

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