Manchester United's secret fanbase (continued)

Last week Manchester United won the Champions League title. I witnessed a delirious fan rip off his shirt and pour an entire beer over his head.

But this report from yesterday’s New Vision takes the cake:

Fans of Champions League winners Manchester United based in Masaka held a two-day bull roasting to celebrate the club’s success. The fans under the Nakayiba-Nume Manchester United Development Association later had a transnight disco.

Sipi kids

To Sipi Falls and back again

At one point on the way to Sipi I counted 25 people (including small children stuffed into gaps here and there) and 2 live chickens in the matatu, a small minivan that by law would only carry 12 back home. Squeezed against the window, somehow I even fell asleep. There is something oddly comforting about the total lack of personal space in Uganda, as if you are somehow less alone.

Along the way any momentary pause in a town resulted in masses of hucksters thrusting meats, fruits, newspapers, and grilled corn (delicious) through the windows. In some sections of road there were more potholes than asphalt. All the while the poetry of the Ugandan landscape rolled by. I leaned out the window, feeling a bit like I had finally arrived. Lush greenery against red dirt, thick jungle and then stretching plains, interrupted by small villages with brightly coloured buildings, mud huts and locals cooking, selling and loitering.

When we finally got to Sipi, I pointed out to Zou, my Morrocan traveling mate, that we had only traveled 250km in 8 hours. Zou shrugged his shoulders. “T.I.A.” TIA? Putting on his best Leonardo DiCaprio from Blood Diamond impression, he intoned “This Is Africa, mate.”

The next day, on the way back from Sipi, upon reaching the outskirts of Kampala we found out that the bridge we intended to cross was shutdown. We took a detour through a small village, only to get stuck in some thick mud and had to backtrack. We tried another way, but gridlock dictated otherwise. So we took another 2-hour detour, the sun fell, and the impatient matatu driver roared through the African night.

When I finally got home to Kampala, the power in our house was out. TIA!

Yellowed wigs

I went to visit the Supreme Court of Uganda with some of the local law clerks at my NGO. We were supposed to be watching a murder case, but due to some scheduling mishap we ended up in a mind-numbing session on electoral laws. Here are the notes I took, before I started to nod off:

Sitting in the Uganda SC. Smallish, non-descript courtroom. Nothing remarkable about it except the faded country crest. Rickety ceiling fans spin. Water stains. Waiting for trial to begin.

The judges enter! Ha, they’re all very old men with the white wigs from colonial times. Lavish (but slightly dirty) red robes with gold embroidery. “My lords” says the lawyer. His client hasn’t even shown up and he awkwardly and vainly scans the audience behind him. A couple wigs are yellowed. You can tell who’s been here longest.

Judge begins drawling away, reading judgment about some electoral issue. At one point he motions sternly for a clerk to come pour a glass of water for him, from an already pre-opened bottle right in front of him. Some roosters are crowing outside.

Rain break

When it rains, Kampala grinds to a halt. Bodas scurry off, and denizens huddle under awnings. During the dry season, the weather usually clears soon enough. So they wait, betraying nary a hint of impatience, keeping to “Africa time,” until the skies open and then the hustle and bustle suddenly springs back to life.

I woke up the other morning to a downpour. My roommate urged me to wait it out – no one would be at work yet. I puttered about the house for a bit, but, being naturally impatient, I decided to set out. As I got on the boda, the rain suddenly picked up and I arrived completely soaked, 2 hours late for work. Barely anyone was there, just the lucky few with cars. They had a good laugh at my expense – the silly, over-ambitious Westerner who would have to sit in damp pants all day.

Manchester United's secret fanbase

As far as sports go, English Premiership soccer dominates local fandom. Last week I went to a local hole in the wall with Norman to watch Manchester United’s last league game. The “bar” was packed tightly with plastic chairs and rowdy spectators. I was definitely the only white man in the joint. One guy asked me, incredulous: “What are you doing here when you can be back in Britain watching the game there?”

When ManU won, the celebrations were so loud I could barely hear myself. The speakers starting pumping out a song in Luganda (one of the many local languages) – “Manchester fans, stand up!” And so they all stood and waved their arms, with me awkwardly joining in for fear of standing out even more.

With most Ugandans being ManU fans, tomorrow’s Chelsea-Manchester Champions League final is bound to have a World Cup atmosphere.

Democracy shmocracy

“[This is to] make sure good leaders like Brother Museveni do not leave power simply because of elections” – Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, describing a recent trip to Libya of some pro-Museveni activists for training in “revolutionary” tactics. (The Daily Monitor, May 13, Kampala)

Uganda is what you might call democratish. The President, Yoweri Museveni has been in power for over twenty years since he staged an armed coup. Recently he had the Constitution amended to abolish term limits, and won another 5-year mandate to rule until 2011.

Despite this, there seems to be a healthy quasi-free press. There is the government-owned rag, the New Vision, that pumps out sunny headlines about Uganda’s bright future. But other papers, like the Daily Monitor or the Independent, offer up often scathing criticism. Then again, many journalists, like the editor of the Independent Andrew Mwenda, get rung up on manufactured sedition charges.

While Museveni is widely considered to condone rampant corruption, it seems to be assumed that even if the 2006 elections were rigged, he would have won anyway. He has, in the end, brought 20 years of stability to a country that before his ascension in 1986 had been torn asunder by decades of war.

Shakedown

I was taking a rather lame picture of the old Kampala railway station when a man tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me sir, do you have permission to take that photograph?” What do you mean, I protested, this is a public place and I had just taken photos of the Parliament and other surely more sensitive buildings. “How would you feel if I came into your home and started taking photos everywhere without your permission?” he responded sternly. We argued for a while, and then he produced an ID claiming that he was a “POLICE OFFICER.” His ID reminded me of a 19-year old trying to get into an American bar. He was dressed in plain clothes.

He insisted that I come with him to “chat” with his superior. I decided to call his bluff and abruptly turned around and walked away. He did not follow, and only plaintively yelled out “Er, ok, ask permission next time!”

I was left a little angry and discouraged after so many friendly encounters with locals. But when I told my roommates, who have been here for a year, and even some locals, they only said “Get used to it. Welcome to Uganda!”

Quaint crimes under the Ugandan Penal Code

s. 40 – sedition

Sedition is often used to prosecute uppity journalists. Dozens are currently on trial, including the editor of the Independent – one of the few publications often critical of the government – for merely publishing a quotation from a former government soldier claiming he had been ordered to masquerade as a Lord’s Resistance Army rebel and commit massacres to discredit the movement.

s. 53 – Defamation of foreign princes
s. 118 – Writing or uttering words with intent to wound religious feelings
s. 165 – Chain letters
s. 168 – Rogues and vagabonds.
s. 266 – Cattle rustling

Boda boda

Warning to my mother: do not read this.

In the first 15 minutes I saw Africa in daylight, I feared for my life. I went to work with my roommate on a boda boda, a motorcycle taxi, the most common mode of transport in Kampala. I hopped on the back and before I could even figure out how to stay on the narrow seat, we were roaring off. The driver winded through rush hour traffic at high speed, sometimes right down the dividing lane as cars zipped past on both sides. I arrived with dust in my eyes and adrenaline pumping, and a little excited, as if having taken a rickety rollercoaster that only cost $1.

“Road safety” is an unknown phrase in Uganda. There are maybe two traffic lights in the entire city, but they are never on. I like to imagine they were the result of some colonial imposition, long since abandoned as impeding the natural chaos of urban Africa. Traffic accidents are said to kill more people on the continent than any disease or war.

I have started taking the bus to work.

Planet Obama

On the drive from the airport, Norman fired through conversation topics at high speed: Ugandan corruption, landslides, the war in the North, the orphanage he had founded. Sometime just after I realized that there were no seatbelts and Ugandans actually do drive on the left side of the road, Norman wanted to talk US politics: “It is getting hot there, no? So very hot!”

Norman is an Obama supporter, along with, by his estimation, 85% of Africans. No surprise there. What did surprise me, though, was his knowledge and clear interest in the Democratic primary. His take on the race – Hillary’s policies are good, but she is only in it to win power. Obama has a vision for the world and has the ability to speak to the globe. Right on the mark, if you ask me.

Clearly far more than just “bitter” working class whites in Pennsylvania have a stake in Election 2008.

A New World

Africa! My first time on the continent.

In a Nairobi airport bathroom, a booming voice from behind startled me as I zipped up my pants: “Hello sir! How are you today?” The janitor smiled broadly, and went back to cleaning.

At the Entebbe airport, Norman – a contact of Siena’s who neither of us had met before – greeted me with a big hug. He had invited three of us his other friends to make the 1-hour drive from Kampala, just to say hello and welcome little old me.

My Lonely Planet travel guide tells me that Ugandans are “smiling and friendly, with an openness absent in other places – truly some of the finest folk in Africa.” I guess they did their homework.