WHEN Nick Makoha was eight years-old he found himself dropped into a strange country, into a new school where he felt lost.
To compound the problem, he couldn’t get the hang of Maths. But a kindly teacher, Mr Patel, took him under his wing and in a short time, the schoolboy, who’d been born in Uganda, grasped the subject and his confidence soared.
However, soon after Mr Patel died of a heart attack. Little Nick was devastated.
“I remember sitting under a tree, in tears on hearing the news,” recalls the now father-of-two, “and I thought ‘What can I do for Mr Patel so he knows that he meant something to me?’ So I wrote him a poem and they put it in the year book.”
The story reveals much about Nick Makoha; a relocated youngster who cared enough to commemorate a man who’d made such an impact upon his life – yet chose to do it via poetry.
It’s perhaps no surprise to learn the young boy would go on to become a poet, playwright and a performance artist. It’s no surprise the natural storyteller’s new play is about identity.
The writer is set to bring The Dark, to Glasgow, and it’s features a section of his life that underlines concepts of belonging.
Makoha’s parents met while at university in Kampala, but split soon after their son was born. It’s a complex story but Makoha’s mother then studied in London while he stayed behind with his doctor father.
It’s not the ideal scenario for a young boy to grow up in, but events conspired to make it even worse. In 1978, Makoha’s mother learned of the growing crises in Uganda. Dictator Ida Amin was now well on his way to seeing half a million people murdered.
She decided she needed to remove her son. “This was a really stressful time for my mother,” says Makoha. “She needed to study, and yet left her family, her mother and sisters (and son) behind. But she now knew her country was crumbling, pretty much like Venezuela is right now.”
Makoha’s mother returned and in a dead-of-night operation he was smuggled out of Uganda. “She had to get me across the border into Kenya, but I had no passport. Nothing. And she couldn’t tell many people what she was doing. This was a country in chaos.”
Makoha and his mum then moved to London. Three years later he was sent to boarding school in Kenya. At one point, he lived with his dad and family in Saudi Arabia, moved back to Kenya and came back to London when he was 16.
“I lived in suitcases a lot,” he says, with a wry smile.
Not surprisingly, the theme of identity is ingrained into his psyche. “When you are living in one country and born in another, and at the same time you are a refugee, you ask yourself this question about being a ‘foreigner’ and what that entails.
“I wanted to get beyond the stereotype.”
This idea was developed into the play and Makoha went back to Uganda to retrace the steps his mother took to get him out of the country.
“The Dark is a play about different places of darkness. It’s about the darkness of the mind, the darkness of the heart, the darkness of thought, of the human condition.
“But I also wanted to ask the question ‘Where do I belong?’ You can move from country to country and feel you are part of wherever you happen to be - yet people ask me ‘Why are you here’?’ I’m always negotiating this.”
So where does Nick Makoha feel he belongs? “That’s the interesting question,” he says, smiling. “I have a European outlook, an English understanding, but a strong-rooted African sensibility. Both cultures exist inside me. When I’m in my mother’s house I’m in Africa.”
The play is especially relevant to a Scotland right now that is reliant upon foreign workers and immigration. “Countries are constructs,” says Makoha. “And human beings move around. But there are also disasters and conflicts which force people to move.
“Yet, at the same time, modern society seems to aspire to the self. But we have to think at what point are we connected to others.”
The Dark isn’t just about identity. It’s also a story of how a welcoming Maths teacher can alter a young boy’s life.
“It is,” says Makoha, smiling. “I felt had to be told.”
The Dark, The Tron Theatre, Glasgow, February 15-16.
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