The Kabaka

The guide at the parliament building demonstrates the appropriate greeting for men to make to the king, and Emerson helps out too.  Women kneel and use their hands to swish back and forth on either side, instead of their head.  It is rude to show your back to the king, so you conclude by backing away.

After our tour of the palace, we came back to "the office" to look at different artifacts and pictures of the royal family.  That might be boring to a small boy, but apparently the "don't touch" mantra of western museums doesn't apply here, and far from telling him not to touch, our guide showed Emerson how to wear the old wooden sandals, mix things in pots, and even how to fight with the traditional spear and sheild!  Little boy heaven!

The Kabaka

Emerson keeping himself busy with the camera.  This was fairly early in the day, when he was taking pictures of things that were actually interesting.  He documented the palace very well.

Yesterday we went to the Kabaka's Palace and Parliament, and a few days ago we went to a site near here which is specially reserved for the Kabaka's boats, and is another one of his palaces.

Our trip a few days ago was fairly confusing and disappointing.  After bussing and walking a ways to the port next to ours on Murchison Bay, we were expected to pay Ush 1000 to go into a cordoned off area.  Inside, it was full of cars parked all over, and people sitting on plastic lawn chairs or the ground. Apparently it was a giant neighborhood party, and anyone could come and sit on the gravel near the beach, and waitresses wandered around serving sodas and other snacks.  For our group, it was not very entertaining!  In the far back, we found a little gated area that looked green beyond, and thought that was perhaps our destination.  Indeed, it had a ceremonial-looking entrance, with a gate going into a little stone tunnel of an entryway, with a small fire burning in a built-in stone hearth.  A man nodded at us and said "you are welcome," so I figured we could go in.

Once in, nothing much was more clear.  It was a grassy area with a couple of thatched huts, one of which was only a few feet high.  It became marshy down towards the lake, where one could land a canoe, but there was no indication of any special landing place.  Goats and chickens meandered around, and someone brought in his manicuring kit and a customer sat happily in the grass.  After a while the man who welcomed us, came over, introduced himself, and eventually asked if I wanted the tour.  I agreed, at which point he told me random and disconnected things in a halting manner.  It seemed to be that there was one fellow who knew something about the site, but possessed very little English, so he called over a buddy, who knew a little bit of English but apparently not much else.  He told me the huts were for the goats and the buildings above were a hospital; I don't know if he was just stringing together the few words he knew, or he simply felt he had to say something, because these answers were obviously not the actual facts.  Goats in Uganda don't get thatched huts; if they are lucky, they are tied to the inside of someone's fence at night!  Meanwhile, they ate corn off the cob, one kernal at a time, with much smacking and chomping, and stared at me.

Eventually a woman who had been near the huts wandered over and rescued us.  It turned out that she knew quite decent English and cared a great deal for this place, which is officially called a "palace" for the king but is basically a collection of shrines for the semi-gods (as she called them).  She told us the name of each semi-god, what they are in charge of, and what offerings you can bring to make them happy when you ask them for things.  The small hut was for the father semi-god, and the larger hut seemed to both be for one of the women gods and also a place for penitents to sleep when they wanted to come a pray for "two days, or four days."  Most of the other gods simply had fireplaces ringed on three sides with stones, and the remnants of bottles and plates with offerings left (perhaps burned?), although the hunter god had spears placed all around his fireplace, and one of the female gods had a mat in front of her fire.

I assume that this woman was here to pray to one of the female gods, perhaps the one who takes care of women's interests such as "if your husband doesn't give you any food, or he beats you, or he will not let you have the money to get food for your children," or you know, ordinary female problems like that.  This is just a guess on my part, because of her repartee.  Our unofficial guide had a lively and luminous personality, and she was teasing me to find her a husband -- "a nice American man, very rich, because these African men, they are no good, they never work and they never do anything, so I want an American man now."  I replied that I knew some rich American men, but they were all married already, and she responded smoothly that that didn't bother her at all!  Later I pointed out Emerson, and said that was the only American man I had around, and he was very small.  She said she wanted an old man, not a small one -- perhaps my father or grandfather instead?  I replied my grandfather was dead, and my father was very tall but not rich at all.  She pooh-poohed that; she needed a rich man!

So that was our visit to the first Kabaka's palace, and I left thinking that I could understand how the European explorers could think that these African people were backwards and had no understanding; if you compare a vague, scruffy lawn like that to the grand palaces of Europe.  But it turns out that at least in this small corner of Africa, I am wrong: the Europeans were very impressed by the local people and their creations.

The country of Uganda is the British representation, via Swahili, of the main tribe of the area.  The Baganda tribe had dominated this region centered around modern-day Kampala, about 30% of current-day Uganda.  The tribe (or area -?) is Buganda, the language is Luganda, and the people are Muganda; this language works with prefixes more than suffixes!  When the British arrived, the Buganda had a complex and efficient governing system that sounds remarkably British itself, with a king (kabaka), prime minister, parliament, chiefs, and heads of villages and families under that.  It had divided the kingdom into counties and protected them with armies.  In fact, it basically sounds like the British subcontracted the entire rule of Uganda to the Buganda themselves.

The first Kabaka had realized, upon meeting the colonizers, that no amount of force would hold them back.  He chose instead to make an ally of Queen Victoria, and from what I have read so far, the British and Buganda continued to be allies, so this area and culture was not wasted and subsumed by colonization.  Apparently other African cultures were almost lost during that period, but the Buganda remained strong -- losing some of its independence, but gaining knowledge and weapons that allowed it to do a better job of taking over its neighbors!  After independence in the early 1960's, the first Prime Minister of Uganda was the current Kabaka.  This was probably a logical move insofar that the largest group already admired his leadership, but it did present problems in ruling the entire country of Uganda, which has four other main tribes.

The country did not have long to figure out this balance of interests, before the Prime Minister Milton Obote ordered his military leader, Idi Amin, to storm the palace and take over the government by force.  There followed several years of a dictatorship by Obote, followed by the famous despot Idi Amin, and then after he fell Obote returned to office and continued in the bloody footsteps of Amin.  It was not until the mid-80's that Uganda had its first chance at democracy.  In the west, it is easy to raise our eyebrows at the legitimacy of a presidency which has already lasted 27 years, but while here it is easier to understand it.  The people I've spoken with don't particularly like Museveni, but they shrug their shoulders: during his rule, they are no longer afraid of being beaten or killed by soldiers in the streets; they can run their businesses and make some money; their friends are not tortured and raped.  All things considered, that seems like a pretty good deal!

Yesterday we went to the Kabaka's official residence (it sounds like he has several palaces and he lives in a different one and the queen lives in another yet) and then to the Buganda Parliament building.  That sounds straightforward, but actually it was pretty complicated to get there.  There must be a better minibus between the main bus stop and the Mengo area, but the one we found involved a lot of walking, and the sun was very hot.  There are quite a few cultural sites around where we were, but we only managed those two.  Both of them had excellent guides who were able to tell us a lot about the historical context, as well as interesting stories.

The Kabaka's palace was a fairly nice building on a very large grounds.  The palace is all closed up and no one goes inside unless they have an appointment with the Kabaka.  When Emerson heard that, he immediately wanted to make an appointment, and he keeps reminding me to write to set one up!  Emerson was particularly fascinated by the cannon in the grounds, and he crawled around it pretending to make it go for a long time.  In the hot sun, it felt to me like a really long time!  

Below the palace was a large grove of trees and bushes filled with the things that Ugandans eat: cassava, papaya, maize, sweet potato, and matoke (cooking banana, the staple food of this area).  Deep in the grove was a secret prison of Idi Amin, then used by Obote.  Apparently 200,000 prisoners entered, and no one left with their lives.  They were shoved into concrete underground cells the size of an ordinary room with 500 other people, and left there with no food, water, bathrooms, or ventilation.... I won't go into the other gory details of the place.  It was worthwhile to see, to better understand this very real part of Ugandan history, but I felt bad that Emerson was along with us.  He has trouble understanding Ugandan English, but he some part of the prison discussion must have sounded familiar and he started asking questions. Judging from his description for Daddy later that night, he understood about the prison situation far better than I would have wished!

(Looking from the Parliament building down the straight road to the palace.)

The palace and the parliament are about a mile apart, with a straight road connecting them down one hill and up another.  An interesting note is that it is vital that the Kabaka go straight to the Parliament for his official duties, and there are two roundabouts for traffic in the road.  The roundabouts therefore have a paved path through the middle, gated off in ordinary times, so only the Kabaka can take the direct route.  Apparently one day the road is supposed to be lined with grand trees on either side, which will be lovely, but right now it involved a lot of digging and is just a very messy walk.

Before we could take another tour, we needed some lunch, and we found our first really genuine Ugandan cafe.  We have eaten in places where the Ugandans eat, such as in shopping centers, but they have been more "fast food" types than small family establishments.  This was just a small room, with one square table and one long one, and a bucket with a spigot on a stand at the front for washing your hands.  I think the women cooked in the courtyard out back, and kept the food in some kind of hot pots.  When we entered and were welcomed to sit down, the question was "meat or beans?" and then what we wanted as our main starch, and "one plate or two" for Emerson.  I think the cook figured that I was indecisive, and gave me a little bit of everything!  We each got a bowl of soupy beans cooked with a little tomato and eggplant, and then my plate had a big pile of mashed matoke, rice, posho (cornmeal mush, kind of like white polenta), yam, cassava, and for vegetables there were Irish (white potatoes) and pumpkin.  It was so delicious!  We have not yet had a chance to try matoke, because I haven't wanted to cook it before I have had a chance to eat it.  It was very slightly sweet but pretty bland on its own, but it tasted delicious with the beans and sauce.  Emerson had beans, matoke, and rice.  He was excited about the matoke, so his first comment was that it was very good and tasted kind of like squash, but then I noticed that he didn't eat any more.  We each had a bottled water with our meal ("cold or hot?" they always ask, meaning room temperature).  And the bill for the whole meal for both of us?  Under $4.

Then we went up to the Parliament building.  Again, this is the Buganda Parliament, not the Ugandan one, and I am not exactly clear on how they work together.  In the mid-90's Museveni allowed the tribes to re-establish their tribal identities and government, and all of these cultural sites and systems have been created or remodelled since that time.  Our guide told us that the other four major tribes of Uganda are "not very interested" in their heritage, and that maybe they have kings but no one cares and they are "dormant, like they are just sleeping."  I would like to hear an opinion about this from one of the members of the other tribes -- perhaps in the region where that tribe actually belongs! -- but it was interesting to see how powerfully the Muganda still today identify with their tribe and their king.  It is obviously still a central part of their lives and their identities, even here in modern-day Kampala.

The tour guide of the parliament building was very interesting, but the tour involved standing in the middle of the parliament chambers while she told us stories.  Emerson was very tired at this point.  He tried running around madly, as the room was bigger than most places he has to run, but then he got bored of that.  I gave him the small camera, and he took dozens and dozens of pictures of the ceiling, the carpet, our feet, his tummy, etc etc etc, but eventually even that charm wore out.  There might be a debate on whether digital cameras have improved photography in general, but there is no debate that they are much better for entertaining small children!

I also bought a book that the tour guide recommended, about the adventure of the current king on the throne, through his many years of exile and the re-founding of the Buganda kingdom.  I am sure that it has a lot of excellent information that I will appreciate knowing, but the book is pretty dense and not very well written, so it is slow going.  I have been reading a couple other autobiographies that have been just fascinating, and the stories and information there is enough to start conversations with local people, so I am starting to feel like I begin to understand the people and the life here.