Let’s see, a month ago where was I? Ah yes…in the back of our car with James getting jostled along the Junction-Napenenya freeway. Mzee Asiyo had asked for a ride to the Museveni rally so mom was driving Mrs. Wright, Amy and Lomongin and us there. And let me tell you, that was one of the smartest parties I had ever seen. Even fancier than Huruday! We were surrounded by a sea of yellow t-shirts with President Yoweri K. Museveni’s head, decked with the usual wide brimmed safari hat, printed on them. The words “Stability and Unity”, which were printed on the back of the shirts, jumped out of the yellow sea like black dolphins.
People were dancing in the streets, bells on their knees, beads on their heads and black and white Colobus monkey tails raised high over their heads. Some people held posters on sticks, others waved dried banana branches in the air, and others just waved their hands over their brightly crowned heads in praise. There were people all around us, still dancing and singing, but only half as much as they had been before they noticed us. White people AND the president. What a day! We made our way down the slope into the valley. The crowd got thicker as we neared a large tree under which were grouped approximately a million soldiers, AKs in hand. One of the soldiers, spotting us, came toward us quickly and pulled us out of the line. He apologized repeatedly and then led us towards the place through which the entire crowd was funneling. It was a metal detector. Like you would see at an airport. Under a tree. In the middle of Naturum. The shiny metal arbor looked more out of place than we did. We were then given the mzungu treatment which means that everyone else had to stop and wait as we cut in line. They asked to see our phones, wallets, purses, cameras… I thankfully had nothing on me of importance so I was free to look back at the hundreds of people lining up to walk through this thing. They all had metal bracelets halfway up their arms and legs. I watched as a boy walked through the metal detector and freaked out when it beeped. A woman soldier walked over to him and searched his pockets. He had a little tin box of math instruments in his pocket. She took it away, looked through it, and then gave it back. He snatched it from her hand and took off towards the brightly colored tents that were set up to welcome Museveni. We followed suit.
You know, being a mzungu has its bad points. Sometimes I wish I was black just to cut back on the racial discrimination. But it also has its handiness. We were spotted in the crowd and given seats under one of the three tents. In front of us sat Mzee Asiyo. It’s understandable that he should be given a front row seat for he was once a member of parliament and ambassador to the Congo and he and Museveni were, according to him, old chums. But that we should get a seat behind him basically made my day. We wouldn’t be able to see anything if we were in the crowd.
So we sat and we waited. And waited. And waited. Groups of singers from different villages came in, village at a time and sang and danced songs of greeting. At one point the nephew of Museveni came forward and shouted that in order to get more votes, they brought a gift. Now I noticed the stacks and stacks of cases of water bottles. These were passed out, first to those in the tents, then to the rest of the people. As Museveni’s nephew chucked them into the crowd, people scrambled all over each other, punching and fighting to get the bottles. Boy am I glad mine got handed to me.
In the center of the clearing a man hacked away at what used to be a small tree. When it had been whittled to his liking, he called to a man who brought out the Ugandan flag and a coil of rope. It was a beautiful sight, the black, yellow and red stripes dancing with the wind and the crested crane actually looked like it was flying, or at least flapping very energetically. A big truck with a water tank on it then drove through the clearing, a man walking behind it with a hose, spraying water all over the ground, drowning the dust that could dirty the flag and the president.
Finally he came. He climbed out of the car and went to sit in the cushioned chair that had been set on the red carpet next to the little table with the tissue box on it. There was a wastebasket behind him and a bunch of flowers on the table. A girl started singing the national anthem and I joined in feeling very patriotic. A truck with a podium on the back of it drove up in front of the flag and with great pomp and ceremony, the president made his way to the top.
And what a speech that was! He said that the only problem in Karamoja was the guns. He said if there were no guns, then there would be no fighting and everyone would keep his own cows and allow them to reproduce and there would only be profit for everyone. After explaining the problems of Karamoja and how to fix them, Museveni went on to promise the same thing he promised at the beginning of his last term, and the one before that. He said that he will pave the road from Mbale to Tokora to Moroto. He said the reason he didn’t do it last term was because in order to merit a paved road, there must be at least 200 vehicles traveling that road per day. But there aren’t. And this is all due to the cattle rustling and guns in Karamoja.
Yoweri K. Museveni made a lot of promises that day. He promised among other things, paved roads, 800 mill shs for Namalu water supply, a hospital for each district along with 200k worth of immunizations, increased commerce, and last but not least, to put Karamoja on the power grid. To hook up power lines from Mbale to Nabilatuk to Moroto. Then he took a sip of tea from his white china cup and said “I would stay longer to discuss this with you but I have to go to Amudat. I will be back.” He climbed from the podium, and turned to leave, but first he had one last stop to make. He made his way over to his good friend Edward Asiyo, shook his hand, exchanged a greeting, then left to the sound of hundreds of people singing his praise.
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