Meet the Cow That Needs a Wife

The Observer (Kampala)

Simon Musasizi

1 June 2011

It sounds strange; the story of a young man who finds himself under pressure to raise money to buy a cow for bride price attracted international attention winning third prize of the 2010 BBC African Performance Playwriting Competition.

The 1986 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, Wole Soyinka, who presided over the competition, described the play The Cow Needs a Wife as, “…one of the zaniest plays I have ever encountered…. I loved its sense of mischief, its light-heartedness…. I thought it was a successful comedy,” and members of Kampala Amateur Dramatics Society (KADS) attending the annual general meeting in February this year recommended it for a wider audience.

After the expiry of the BBC’s copyright in December, Ugandans will this Thursday, June 2, have a chance to watch the 90-minute play written by our own Angela Emurwon. Based on a true story, The Cow Needs a Wife is the story of Mamboleo, whose girlfriend, venturing into a beauty contest known as Miss Matooke, gets pregnant and asks for marriage.

Under pressure to raise money to buy a cow for the bride price, the young man enlists the help of his wealthy uncle Motoka, but almost immediately after buying the cow, the prospective bride refuses to marry him after finding out that she wasn’t pregnant after all.

His family insists that he finds a replacement as he cannot have the cow without marrying, and thus unfold a series of hilarious events in his quest for a bride.

“When I first heard of the story, it seemed as if it was the cow that needed a wife,” Emurwon told The Observer.

Originally an audio/radio play, the play has been adapted for stage by Mary Kenny and will be showing at the National Theatre starting 7:30pm and on Saturday at 2:30pm for Shs 10,000.

Who is Emurwon?

She is a freelance writer who prefers “fiction to journalism simply because it gives me more literal licence; I can make things up,” she says. Born in Kampala to Peace and Paul Emurwon, Emurwon is the first born of four children. She grew up in Mombasa before returning to Uganda for secondary education.

She went to Tororo Girls School, Namasagali College and Bweyogerere Progressive Secondary School before joining Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya, for a bachelor’s degree in Communication, majoring in Broadcasting. She started as a church worker where she worked for a year before joining mission work in Mozambique for another year.

When she returned to Uganda, she joined the tourism industry for three and half years, before retiring to freelance writing.

The Cow needs a Wife is her first major writing project coming on the back of small skits for small gatherings. This talent was something she had previously ignored until she received an email from a friend who knew she admires Wole Soyinka.

“She told me Soyinka was judging a competition on BBC; ‘can you write something? He is gonna hold your script in his hands’,” Emurwon recalls.

“I said I have no time, but she kept calling me each day until I wrote this so that she could stop calling me – just to get this woman off my back,” she adds.

“I am honoured by Soyinka thinking my work is good. It would be hard for me to find an equivalent to this experience,” she says.

Emurwon, who is a member of KADS herself, will be working with people she has worked with before.

“It is a very exciting and new experience for me. For the first time, I will be directing a play, which is like a dream come true,” she says.

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