At the age of six, Jesse remembers the day his baby cousin was hit by Sabasabas as war wrecked havoc on his childhood home in Kisana village. For the elders in his village, Jesse was, at the time, too young to remember such a thing. His family brands him eccentric , and the village gossip predicts the little boy will become insane if he is not checked at a witchdoctor s.
At about the same time, Jesse develops a strong attachment to his little sister s nurse (maid), Helen, in a way that is beyond even his own understanding. A further justification for his eccentric personality. Through Jesse s young eyes and mind, we see the extent of the damage of the 1985 Liberation War on rural western Uganda, especially when Mbarara town goes up in flames.
The raging battle leaves hospitals and patients abandoned and Jesse treks six miles seeking to rescue his beloved Helen from the pangs of a pregnancy conceived through rape and the fangs of the war. From Helen s traumatic past comes an admirable personality that is keen to peculiarities and a jewel on which is engraved, Peculiar, parts, paths and purpose , a message that Jesse is not even able to read at the time Helen bequeaths the jewel onto him.
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