As earlier indicated, I travelled past Kampala on my way to Nairobi, on a journey that would see me through to the land of the Masai (Masai Mara). But what started as a simple journey is taking so many twists. I am not sure whether it is the hand of the “gods” or just mere coincidence. Everywhere in Uganda, it has been raining cats and dogs and as a result, the road leading to the eastern border between Uganda and Kenya, so severely been hit by rains and their associated floods that, is in very bad shape. As we sped towards Mukono town (about thirty or so kilometres away from Kampala), word came by that the road had developed a bad crevasse like crack and all vehicles heading eastwards were ordered to stop and wait or divert their to the northern route, via Karuma Falls, Lira, Soroti and back to Tororo. Oops, that would mean taking a whole twelve to fifteen extra hours as a detour in place of the two hour or so journey. On enormous decision we decided to go back to Kampala and wait for the situation to clear up. Anyway, I got a thinking about the days of Field Marshall Dr. General Idi Amin Dada VC DSO MC, CBE, Chancellor of Makerere University and Commander in chief of the armed forces (RIP). During his regime, there was a general known as Musitafa Idrisi. This gentleman had hardly seen enough ‘blackboards’; I mean, he could have seen one, two or three of them and that was all. He was, a fool, oops, sorry, I meant to say “full” vice president of a nation. He had sanctioned for his son to travel to Europe for studies. As the travel date was getting closer and closer, the son still could not easily get the necessary dollars for his travel. Musitafa summoned one of his numerous aides and told him to go to the Bank of Uganda and find his son some dollars. The aide went without questioning, he reached the bank but was told that foreign exchange was a problem, and the reserves had run out. The aide, having seen no more ‘blackboards’ than his boss, returned to announce that, “Foreign Exchange” was not available to enable the young Musitafa travel abroad. This greatly infuriated the general. He ordered his driver and aide into the car, they drove off, went to Malire Mechanised Batalion where he got some of the best (most notorious) soldiers and ordered them to go to Bank of Uganda and arrest the man called “Foreign Exchange” and bring him to the vice president’s office - dead or alive!Now, back to my journey, don’t lose heart, I will make it to the Masai Maara, come rain or shine. I badly need to find out for myself the actual facts and way of life of this great people of Eastern Africa. Contact: Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm
