Last year on a day like this – 14th July 2015 – a 19-year-old girl pursuing a Bachelor of Science in speech therapy at Makerere University was found dead, throat slit and abandoned in a sugarcane plantations of Kawolo, Lugazi. Her family had been looking for her and a hashtag #FindDesire trended all over social media in a bid to find her. The search that started on July 10 had the most terrifying results. The girl had been murdered. Her name was Desire Mirembe.
I heard the news on social media while relaxing at home. I had made 21 on that day and I could not help putting myself in her shoes. I started figuring how agonizing her last moments could have been. Did she know her slithering murderer? Did she desperately talk him down, trying to push her inevitable fate as far possible as she could? What did she know that the world might never find out now? What if it was me? What would I have done? What would I have said, thought…would I have prayed for my soul when I realized I was in my final moments? Would I have thought about the agony my mom, dad, loved ones were going to face?
I was horrified! Thinking about such agony made the tips of my fingers so cold. For the longest time after that I thought about Desire’s family on and off. How were they holding up? How much damage had that done to them as a family? Did they see their lovely girl in their sleep? Did they even sleep anymore? What do you do with your daughter’s belongings? The pretty dresses, shoes. Do you pack them away in small sad boxes? Does the echo of her laughter ever leave the walls of your house?
A week ago I tracked Desire’s brother down. I got his number from my editor and sent him a WhatsApp message. Making sure I first made a little chit-chat, I asked him if he was fine with talking about the loss. He said it was cool.
I met Jonathan Ddamulira on Friday at Barbeque Lounge, Centenary park. The place is built-in a storey wooden form. People were having dinner and talking around tables outside. I asked a waiter where Damze DJ was and he showed me up the stairs of the wooden building. Jonathan is a DJ with Barbeque lounge. He also plays for Bubbles and Irish Lounge. He’s of fair height and possess a chocolate complexion. I can see his resemblance to Desire. He’s a pretty guy. I am shocked he doesn’t have dreads. I came expecting them. He is inside the bar section. He looks at me and continues for a bit, I think he suspects I am the journalist but is not quite sure. He is notified it’s me and leads me to a lounge with blue sofas. I notice he is putting on a striped pink and black t-shirt, faded blue jeans and gray snickers as I follow closely behind.
Jonathan slumps in his chair. He has a brown glittery watch and a white band on his left wrist. He tells me he’s 21 yrs old from Uganda Christian University doing Mass Communication. We bound. We are now not interviewer and interviewee. We are journalists having an interaction, albeit an emotional one.
I ask him when he felt the need to start looking for Desire
He sighs, crosses his arms across his torso, stretches out a leg and narrates;
He remembers that Desire’s phone was off on July 10 2015 and he thought the battery had died. He went to her hostel and still didn’t find her. He however asked her friends and Matthew Kirabo ( her boyfriend and major suspect in the murder) who all didn’t have an idea. He remembers going to her school and looking for her on Tuesday but all in vain. Confused, he had to carry on, let the family know. The #FindDesire hashtag started to trend. He recalls his father was just a week out of the country. He had gone to Germany. The mum was in USA where she works since about 1999.
That’s the thing about death. You can be going along with your normal day while, unbeknownst to you, death is dragging away your child. And you remain completely oblivious how your life is about to change forever.
“Tell me about the day you found out she was not just missing but dead,” I ask
It was July 14th, the family had earlier received a call from police about a girl they had found dead. The police said the girl was putting on small red snickers, was small, pretty and looked Rwandese. The description seemed to fit Desire. Jonathan says he was confused and his heart was hammering away under his chest. His Aunties and grandparents went to check on the body as he remained, left to pray, desperately begging the lord it wasn’t his sister they had found.
“I had never prayed loudly in my life but I begged God,” he says, “I told him repeatedly; God please let me find my sister okay. Please, God, let my sister be okay.” Unfortunately, his worst fears were confirmed hours later. Desire was dead, throat slit, murdered in shameless cold blood.
He looks into space, sniffs as his flu is intensified by the raw emotion. He rubs his nose and shifts in his chair.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he proceeds, “I couldn’t! I felt so down, so weak. I was devastated.” Comprehension was not possible. “Desire cannot be dead. I saw her last weekend! She was right with me at home! I saw her…”
He stops talking. Silence descends in the room like black fog. He shifts again and sniffs, touching his nose. I later recognize he sniffs more because of the flu than the tears. He is a strong guy. I sit back and stare. The music is now long forgotten as raw emotions fill the place.
“Do you remember the last words you said to her?” I finally ask
He remembers they were home talking about what they had sent their father to bring them from Germany. Desire had confided she wanted a beats spill. He had asked for a laptop.
I inquire how he felt seeing his sister’s remains.
He did not see her. He says no one saw her apart from the doctor that did the post-mortem. They say she wasn’t the same.
“Our Desire was killed with cruelty. Her throat was cut. They advised us not to see her. My dad was adamant;he totally refused to see his baby like that. We wanted her good moments to stick with us, not her disfigured form.”
Don’t you sometimes wish you had taken that last look?
“No, he answers almost immediately. “I think it was for the best.”
How were those first nights until the funeral like?
He can recall the curious crowd. People flooding his home; friends, family, acquaintances. He remembers his dad’s agonized questions “Jonathan, What do we do now?”
‘I remember standing next to my dad wanting, needing to give him support. When they brought her corpse he said;
“How can a person that used to bring herself home be carried back? There is no God,” He cried in agonizing pain. “My daughter has been in Him” he said as if to justify his statement.
But what do you tell a father that has just lost a kid, a part of him? How do you explain the mystery of death when you haven’t grasped it or comprehended it yourself?
The next day, Jonathan’s mother landed from Germany. She whipped hysterically begging to see her child. She wanted a chance to dress her. Is that too much for a mother to ask? They did not let her. With Desire deformed, it had become too destructive to do. Someone had to think about her, let her keep a good picture of her child.
“At least let me dress her up. I had bought her some dresses. Please let me” whipped the mom.
People cried. Friends cried. The mother cried. The father cried. There was a lot of crying in the house. Jonathan revealed;
“There was a lot going on. It was like watching things in a dream.”
Did you cry in this whole ordeal?
“I cried a couple of times, in private. I hated people being around me and I knew crying would bring them. I had to be strong for mum, dad. One of us had to be strong.”
“What were you thinking this whole time?” I ask
“I wondered who could have killed my sister. I thought about how my parents were doing, how to strengthen them, how to handle this whole thing and how I would be able to move on.”
The funny thing about the sun is that it always rises even after the darkest days. And the sun kept rising on the dark days that embraced Jonathan’s family, day after day.
How has life changed ever since?”
Jonathan thinks he is now a lot emotional. Some things get to him a lot quicker than they would before.
Do you ever go home and feel like something is missing?”
“Always!… Always,” he repeats as if in contemplation. “There is just me now. It used to be us,” He says.
Did you ever meet Matthew again?
He doesn’t say anything for a while. He shifts in his seat. “I saw him in court.” He simply says.
How did you feel towards him?
“I think I was angry,” he pauses “very angry,” he repeats “but after it just turned into this feeling of sadness.”
Do you think Matthew murdered your sister?
“I believe so without a doubt,” he answers.
We don’t say anything for a while.
When you think of Desire, do you wish there are certain things you had done for or with her? Do you have regrets?
“One day, she asked me to go for Phaneroo with her, It was a Thursday. She was to take me for dinner thereafter and later push me to 256, a hangout in Kampala where I also DJ. We didn’t go.
There is also this other time when she texted that she wanted to come see me at my place but I wasn’t home. I wish I was there both those times. How life changes!” he exclaims, sniffing again.
I thank him for the interview and he offers to show me out.
Mathew Kirabo, the main suspect in the murder of Desire Mirembe is still remanded at Luzira.
In Memory of Desire Mirembe, May her soul Rest In Peace.
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