This is my frigging eye.
Yes, that’s how beautiful I am.
Now on to more pressing matters.
Like?
Like looking me in the eye. Yes you, Valder IKnowThat’sNotYourRealName Larka. Look me in my beautiful bug-eyed glory and tell me the truth.
The truth about whether you really were an adventurous Swedish teen introduced to Museveni’s war in Uganda in the 1980s. That as a misguided youth you truly served as the personal bodyguard of a head honcho in the Kenyan police. That you left the comfort of your father’s home and a place at a prestigious university to fight alongside the disparate gang of guerillas in eastern, (or was it) central, (or was it) northeastern Uganda.
Look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t lying when you describe crossing into Uganda from Kenya on a canoe down a long, winding river. And the massacre of the family of an undercover UN-worker-cum-guerilla-sympathizer. And your baby conceived somewhere in close proximity to a jacaranda tree. And the brutal slaughter of the Ugandan goddess who stole your heart.
And the wise bushman from southern Africa who spoke to you in proverbs and taught you more about yourself than anyone else. And the white South African mercenaries who fought on Museveni’s side, and the Ethiopian gunman, and …
Look me in the eye because there’s no way other way I can believe you.
You, Mr. Larka, provide me with neither the names, places, dates nor times that you allegedly fought with Museveni’s National Resistance Army in Uganda. A lone white man, fighting a black war; conspicuous, you would think. So why does no one know your name?
Who are you? How can I verify anything you say if all you provide me with are shadows cloaked in shadows cloaked in death? How can I believe you when almost everyone in your tale is conveniently killed or lost to the wind?
Look me in the eye. It is entirely possible you’re telling me the truth.
If you have read this blog post to this point, congratulations. Not you, Damn Lucky. Everyone else.
Here’s your prize:
Do not, even under the threat of death, read Valder YeahIt’sNotHisRealName Larka’s book, Damn Lucky.
Instead revel in the joyously depressing tale of loss, manipulation, victory and depth in Harare North from Brian Chikwava.
If for nothing more than it helped me heal from the intellectual massacre that was Damn Lucky.
