Strategize and Plan Your Journey

Traveling up country is one tedious journey, especially where the destination is so many miles away. A journey, especially to the north is riddled with long travels across majorly a good road with some bad stretches.

Living Luwero and headed towards Nakasongola up to river Kafu Bridge, the road is exceptionally good by East African standards but after Kafu on ward, the road is narrow, mapped with potholes up to Karuma falls.



Karuma Bridge overlooking the falls



One does not see the greater danger of the road until there is a heavy truck with a stubborn driver who cares nothing about other road users and drives right in the centre of the road. Often one is forced to swerve off the road to redeem ones soul from a calamitous death.

Depending on your destination, often, after Karuma, you either travel through the Murchison National Park towards West Nile or to the northern Uganda districts of Gulu, Lira, Kitgum, Apac through Kamdini.

Such long distance travels can be tiring but when one is travelling especially by private means, it becomes rewarding chiefly when you set time lines and particular places where you can stop, refresh yourself, rest, besides the pleasure of eating the delicacies from these major stops, they are major points to always start all over again.



Vendors selling merchandize at Kafu



Normally when travelling from Kampala, a major stop can be at Luwero where you can purchase some fruits like pineapples and bananas. Some other major stop is at Mijera just after Nakasongola, a fuel station and a supermarket where most long distance public buses stop. Here people normally purchase first foods, packed beverages and ease themselves.

Another major stop is river Kafu. There is a T- junction of the road branching to Masindi. Here, vendors of various roasted edibles ranging from muchomo for beef or chevon or chicken are found. The major delicacy at this stop is roasted cassava. There are these amazingly long white fresh cassava often sold when hot to travelers through the windows of the vehicles they are in.



Pakwach Bridge



Bweyale and Karuma are also other stops majorly for roasted maize or even fresh maize. Other stops are Pakwach, majorly known for angara (salted bonny fish) and other types of fish for those traveling to West Nile and what is normally called corner Kamdini for gweno (live Chicken).

These stops are not just famous for the items a voyager could find and purchase while travelling; they are markers of progress, accomplishment and a celebration of the triumph as kilometer after kilometer each traveler approaches their destination. They are an unconscious strategy or plan of movement; a goal of sorts that the travelers seek to attain as they fulfill their vision of the journey.

Life is a journey, a long one at that where each of us must reach our destinations. Great achievements in this journey ought to be celebrated, marked and clearly rewarded. You will not realize how far you have gone when you do not strategize and plan your life’s journey. Sit down and strategize and plot the journey of your life.

The boda boda spirit

Boda boda is a major transport means in Uganda. It normally is a motor cycle or bicycle used to offer the haulage services. You must have used them or seen them all over the country running up and down the streets and nearly all village paths.

picture from google photos
 

Bodas as they are commonly called, are handy and quick to use especially when one is on a hurry to go somewhere during rush hours. They have information of locations and it is alleged that some also act as intelligentsia or at least informants for the state security organs.

On an iniquitous note though, they are notorious for breaking traffic rules in their attempts to save time and thus are among the leading causes of deaths and orthopaedic complications in and around the whole country in the transport sector.

In jams they are always looking for the next available opportunity to breakthrough and forge forward. When stuck in between cars, they manoeuvre and squeeze their way out sometimes scratching people’s cars and hitting side mirrors. Whenever there is an opening and one manages to get through successfully, the rest follow almost thoughtlessly and effortlessly through.

It was a Thursday morning; I was caught up at the Jinja road traffic lights. There was a swam of boda bodas convergent on all the four junctions; everyone focussed and some with as though a foolish curiosity ready to take off.

From an onlooker’s standpoint, a semblance of a suicidal mission at the verge of execution could be gathered from the vestiges of facial expressions of concentration and alertness of the riders and the general traffic.

The daringly energetic approach to their work, with almost insurmountable courage to try even amidst riskily blunt obstacles; the faith that I can breakthrough if I try; the positive attitude of always looking out for the quickest and available opening are some of the nuggets to learn.

So it is with life. One always just has to have a boda boda spirit to go on. Never looking back but forging ahead, making the most of every window of opportunity; being willing to take risks, even life threatening ones at times, is the only way you can be of relevance in Life.

Acres of green

Working in and living off Kampala exposes one to such strenuous environmental pressures. The jams, the noise, the fumes, the steam and the speed of life are simply exhausting.

Once a while, sneaking out to other parts of the Country a far off Kampala is good; thanks to the village and home town I come from.

As part of work, moving up country almost becomes inevitable; more so journeying to Arua, my traditional, original home town.

The town is gradually growing with lots of buildings coming up in various outskirts. Talking to different people, you can feel and see the optimism the people have as they look forward to the grand idea of the eco-city. Some business fellows and ordinary people alike all in anticipation are seemingly saving their monies to acquire a portion of this ingeniously magnificent city.

Driving through the town itself, you cannot fail to capture the old infrastructure littering the new or at least renovated structures. People mingling in the heat and dust as they ride or walk down and up the streets making money or ends meet.

Busy, would be close to an understatement. Yet quite truthfully, busy, one can get in such settings even several hundreds of kilometres away from the capital city. Most often one misses out on the simple things and even the need to truly enjoy life.

Tacked off the edge of the main town is Arua Hill atop of which is a hotel that overlooks the site of the soon to be eco-city situated at Borifa. Together with a friend, I took a deliberate stand to find a place and sit to rest, take pleasure in a soda and praise God for the good things he creates for us to enjoy as I gazed at the green forest.

Off a desistance of about 2-3 kilometres, you see a patch of clear land toward the edge with no trees but containers, a portion the district leaders were once attempting to reclaim from an alleged land grabber. Further still, you capture the roof of Emmanuel Cathedral.

Towards the south east side, you gaze into some houses at the edge of the green. To the south, you see structures being built and green roofs appearing on long stretched structures which occurred to me is the site of the new Muni University.

The further you gaze, the green fades into blue and deeper blue turns misty and then horizon sky blue. All the while thoughts of beauty, grandeur, and hopeful imagination filled my mind of the eco-city soon to sit in the acres of green.

After nearly two hours of sitting on this hill, refreshment, renewal, restoration and tranquillity are but few of the feelings evoked from within. It’s always beautiful to pull off the busy spaces of life just to unwind and enjoy life quiescent. You sure do need to!

It is what I call myself that matters

It was a slope, straight into the heart of the averagely populated town basking with the steam of sweat and pants of breath under the hot sun.

No steep humps but few potholes to be afraid of as he rolled into the busy town. His dream was to be someone important and of relevance and so he adopted a code of conduct and dressing which predisposed him to smartness. Always jolly and amiable as he confidently and comfortably took his poise with a resolve to make the most of his day; Good morning! Good afternoon! Good evening!’ he retorts as he does the African thing, or rather the Ugandan thing, greeting everyone who cares to hear and in turn greet him.

Looking at him from afar, many people’s attention would be skewed to his wheelchair which effortlessly, gently and yet surely snakes its way across the road almost surmounting any barrier. This was not just a wheelchair, it was a part of him; his legs.

Off a corner, a man gasps in a loud whisper to another at a side gaze of him as though one who cannot govern the pressure of his presumptive exclamation, ‘that mulema is very rich!’ as they keep tweeting, watching wheel chair forge its way on! He smiled to himself pretending not to have heard and rode on!

Following almost aimlessly as he gazes in admiration, a young boy drawn by his childish curiosity, fascinated and so absorbed by the three legged miraculous machine and after a kilometer, he shouted disrespectfully, ‘how are you mulema?’ and then run away.

Almost in a split second, shouted another man, ‘ombere, ikini mivini tayi su indi ‘diniya? (Lame man! You also want to put on neck ties?) The local intonation and context suggesting he was not a real person deserving to do so. It cut him to his heart! He could not hold it. Tears mingled with anger, pain, regret, despair and anguish, fell from his eyes. All alone, dejected and unwanted he felt.

They always called him ombere; they never knew his real name and didn’t even care or want to. They knew him for his looks and what he seemed not to have.

But he smiled again and mattered, ‘it is not what they call me, it is what I call myself that matters’ So he let go the pain and in a sigh as though of relief, lifted up his face like he remembered something significant; he said it loud and smiled away to his real name.

Oku –nyoia

Anyoia is an Alur delicacy, a fusion of boiled beans and maize. A typical ordinary Alur breakfast or lunch, as far as I have known, would be endowed with this intense synthesis of a meal which is often served with a cup of black tea and in moneyed settings with milk tea. 

The same dish is called ‘githeri’ among some tribes of Kenya and ‘nyoyo’ in another. Whatever name it is called, its ingredients are basically the same staples. Having eaten it from different cultural settings before, you can almost feel the slight variation in the taste; thanks to the cultural differences or may be the names.

Okunyoia, is not a verb in Luganda. In fact nothing like that exists. It however is an imaginative concoction by a friend I shared the said meal with, this time round in Kenya a few weeks ago. The concoction arose from a question on what the process of preparing anyoia is called leading to the invention of the word ‘oku nyoia’.

It was supper time, around 10:00pm in a small village in the western Kenya. We had all washed our hands ready to eat. It was rice served with anyoia this time round. Never had I eaten anyoia as source with rice before; however, the two served independently was familiar taste. What I had to add up was the taste of these two solid foods mixed on one plate.

Amen! And down went the first spoonful of this jumble into my mouth as I meditatively chewed to discern the autonomous and joint taste in my mouth. Not too bad, in fact a good taste it was. The only challenge that I faced in fact was just that I had never had this mix this way before.

As we ate, commentaries on various foods began with funny descriptions of the feelings aroused in ingestion them which all together made the supper time a joyful and exciting one. We talked of Chapatti and how that most men love it; we talked of sukuma wiki, a gracious vegetable delicacy enjoyed with Ugali in Kenya; and we talked of anyoia, its various names as far as any one present at the table knew. 

To my mind came the thoughts that we need to learn to blend and accommodate each other’s differences. Just because another person does a thing a little different from you or looks different shouldn’t divide us. 

The staples that blend us are the same. What differentiates us as cultural values, upbringing, training or languages that we adapt are minor compared to our common heritage and value as human beings.

Accepting those small differences and seeking to enjoy the taste of what makes us human as we mix with other peoples, tribes and nations should be our common goal.

The Economics of the Storm

Suffice it to say, normally in Kampala, especially in the rainy seasons, after a stormy down pour, all streets, subways, run ways, even walkways too get thickly jam-packed with cars, and some stuck for being deficient in fuel or mechanical evils. One often wonders where and why all this swarm of vehicles that congests our tapered infrastructure leading in and out of the City come from after the gracious rains.

Sitting in such a ram of cars killing time, snailing a meter or two per every ten to fifteen minutes is nearly idyllic. Crisscrossing of vehicles in junctions, round-abouts or even walkways is cluttered; with some knocking each other further adding salt to the injury.

Kampala has this heavy jams that sometimes necessitates a little more knowledge of some extra ordinary roads, closes, or even panyas stretching down into galleys, valleys; windings, turnings and twists, ins and outs from gaudy buildings neighboring putrid slams. In a grand attempt to navigate ones way out of it, the beatitude ‘blessed are the drivers who know many roads for they shall escape jams’ releases its true holiness.

In the midst of this iconic mystification, most especially when the drizzles are light or its just sultry, vendors of all sorts retailing various kinds of goods ranging from air-time, electrical appliances, mechanical tools, personal effects to grocery and even some artifacts profit as they bazaar their merchandize from one car window to the next.

‘This has been it for ages!’ one can safely assert. Even when the regulatory authorities of the City tried to clamp down on it, somehow these merchants have kept at their trade unabated. For those exodused into some organized affluence of modernism this is a state of lawlessness while to others that have known this as the biggest and best of all cities they have ever been to, it’s normalcy.

The convenience this trade brings to occupants of a vessel in such critical hours is to explain for its continuous flourishing. From vehicles needing fuel, to fixing of mechanical tribulations, satisfying a hunger or quenching thirst, to making an emergency call, to finding an alternative escape route and many more are the desires engrossed in such clatter.

Talk of the economics of a wrong or evil or immorality and all such things as are communally condemned, here is the proof. I guess it’s true, every coin has two sides. Your best Kampala street preacher would say it, and like an Amen to it affirm that ‘there always is a good in your storm’. Take the merchants view of things.

Fond memories of this wealth around me

Waking up early is one of the things I like and especially to do something that fits in and reduces the burden of my work in the day. Given that it is quiet and serene it is one of those moments of time to catch.

Today was one such day and this time round I had this grand privilege to write out invitation cards to some of my friends I am calling for my wedding due to happen soon.

The excitement nearly died out because I realized that when it comes to friends, it seems I am wealthy. I have them in all shapes, colors, sizes and of different backgrounds, opinions and beliefs. Some are acquaintances and there are really core ones who I would call real friends.

So I wondered who deserves these cards! Real friends or acquaintances? Which of these real friends do actually deserve invitation cards and which ones don’t?

It dawned on me that my true friends actually do not need a card to come for my function. Actually the culture of where I come from bails me out nicely. People often and always freely come for functions as long as they get to know about it. They do not need a special invite.

So I thought for those who do not get any card or who are accustomed to cards this other side of life where my culture is almost shelved, feel free, you are welcome. I know there are some who will deserve a card because of their caliber or some other value embellished in them by some sort of responsibility they hold. To these a card is more than deserved.

But you see, it is only today that I appreciated that culture of mine. It defines in no uncertain terms who your friends, those who love you, your relations and enemies are. In fact functions such as these reveal your real wealth, the people in your life. You know it for the selflessness and the burden they are willing to shoulder because of you.

Therefore you do not limit, let alone by a card who wants to love you and be there for you and be a part of the happenings in your life. After all the functions that shape a life most often are the obscure and the attendants are not invited most times.

The truthfulness of this culture is that the real people who come into and are a part of your life are not invited per se. They are there somehow; they just come; not because you invited them or gave them anything of benefit at all. Life maybe I should say God places them where they need to be and when they need to be, freely.

So today I go to sleep refreshed by some of the fond memories of all this wealth around me; ever determined to cherish every moment and reminiscence of all who have fashioned me by being there for me.