“Oh, you come from Uganda? I have heard of Idi Amin”. Then you would go, but, but … Now it appears many of that generation are vanishing. We can introduce ourselves to be coming from Uganda without worrying that our entire being is going to be reduced to someone who lost power 44 years ago.
But is our image improving outside Uganda? Certainly yes, our mountain gorillas are known by more people. Every time I am outside Uganda, I am engulfed by two competing forces. One is that I always miss the country. Of course, I miss it because it is home, even when it may not be so homely.
Many Ugandans working abroad that I have spoken too really miss being here. Many were chased out by the difficulty to survive, by dreams that could not be met here, some by political persecution. But they long to live with their relatives and friends here. They miss the rich foods. Those little things – rolex, beans, nsenene, pancakes, royco, etc. They miss the generally good weather. Every winter they curse that they had to choose away, though they may not wish to return to stay.
They miss subtle things that are otherwise irritating while in Uganda: like the disorder that takes on the form of normal. It is boring to be serious and organised all through the year. Life becomes so predictable and robotic.
I imagine some tourists come to Uganda to break the boring monotony of sanity. You sometimes want to be part of the messy transport system, to watch government cars being driven as though by our cousins from Bwindi forest. You want to jump the queue without feeling guilty or stupid, because you are either more important or richer.
Living in those countries where order has sucked life out of the everyday, you miss hearing someone ask: ‘Do you know who I am?’ Or making a call and asking a person performing their duty to speak to someone above, so as to negotiate special treatment or to walk out of an offence.
You miss the sight of obese men and women in neat suits, presiding over a shabby otherwise rich country with no remorse. Ruling a country that has secured a permanent place among the poorest countries in the world. But that doesn’t stop them from putting on weight.
When Ugandans travel, they try hard not to weep – if at all they care. You see, being in one place without exposure, you easily convince yourself that you are doing well. Baganda tell us that a person who hasn’t gone beyond home is often in praises for their mother’s cooking.
When you go outside Uganda and see how countries (including deserts) are making progress, you seethe with helpless rage and anger. You feel stupid, on well-organised trains and buses. You feel dehumanised in well-facilitated healthcare systems.
You feel abused, recalling that your leaders travel too (on your taxes), see all that is happening elsewhere, and come back to focus on their private wellbeing and accumulation. We have always boasted to the world, in our Ubuntu talks, of how we are a community of caring for each other unlike the individualistic West.
That our social philosophy is ‘I am because we are’. The thieving politician recites this too. The one who steals medicines from public hospitals recites the Ubuntu creed as well, capping it with ‘For God and My Country’.
A person without a sense of shame is a shell. Many of our leaders wouldn’t have been able to roam cities abroad without struggling with guilt. I doubt any serious politician or everyday person would respect the. But instead, they walk heads high, coming out of their VVIP ghettoised countries. They castigate diaspora countrymates for embarrassing them at foreign gatherings. They feel that their importance is not appreciated.
They find no problem in all of them seeking for treatment abroad after abandoning their own hospitals. Foreign doctors must be marvelling at the lunatic spectacle, not to mention how we build their economies – with sweaty money from poor taxpayers. Brutish selfishness of this kind must be equipping those who argue that there is something amiss with the reason of our race.
Nevertheless, these ‘leaders’ still expect dignified treatment, for being thoughtful humans – clad in Ubuntu garments. They confidently stretch out their massive bodies on foreign hospital beds for basic examination, as they prepare for a speech on Ubuntu and to beg with dignity.
They take photos on massive foreign developments, and frame them to be hanged in their palatial homes. They smile for the camera in neat foreign city parks and at magnificent bridges. No shame that their one or two old colonial bridges are guarded by soldiers, criminal to photograph. Yet they get shocked at our reactions when they are packed together in a van in Britain.
If it was up to them, they would have flown with their convoys, to emphasise their importance. You can’t fail to miss all this drama while away from home. You miss the boda boda chaos. You miss the unending fundraising invitations. You miss the new roads that are already old enough to produce potholes and grandchildren.
You miss being updated on what new thing the Twitter General has tweeted. Never know, one day, we might wake up with an idea of annexing South Sudan to Uganda.
As I am writing this article, I am watching a speech by the President – promising to crush the corrupt people in government. I actually believe he will one day crush corruption, the same way I believe that mermaids exist in Lake Victoria. I miss these things whenever I leave this place!
The author is a teacher of philosophy.
inarticle} inarticle}
