President Museveni being helped to get back to his feet by Ban Ki Moon, UN SG This year, I spent almost 5 months in Africa. I was privileged to attend the civil society symposium at Hotel Africana in Kampala for 2 days, on 27 and 28th May 2010. The aim of the symposium was to set their agenda for the main Review conference the following week. On Sunday 30th May 2010, I also attended a football march at Namboole stadium that had president Museveni on one side and the UN general secretary on another. That is the day I realize Museveni after all was human and was vulnerable! What the multiple party politics has failed to do in 25 years, football did within 15 minutes! He was tackled and brought flat down on the ground, and the stadium cheered!
Those two events preceded the United Nations Rome Statute Review Conference that took place in Munyonyo near Kampala for 2 weeks. It attracted nearly 4,000 delegates. I also attended the Conference as rapporteur for the civil society, and spent most of my time at the People’s Space, where civil society was holding exhibitions, presentations and discussions. The conference took place between 1 – 11, June 2010.
UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon opens People's Space by writing on the Wall of Fame
After the conference I travelled to Rwanda for a couple of weeks before returning to Uganda to await the arrival of my family. My wife and children where travelling from Amsterdam to Entebbe on 15 July 2010 accompanied by a family friend called Johannes van Hoven for a one month holiday in Uganda. It was Johannes’ first time to travel to Africa and he was excited about it.
They arrived on Friday 16 July 2010 aboard Emirates Airline. I was at the Airport to meet them. It was still light when we drove to Kampala around 5.00pm. That is the time when traffic is at its slowest, with vehicles bumper to bumper because of the traffic jam.
Johannes was surprised with what he saw! Having been bombarded with negative images of Africa on television back home, he confessed to me that what he was seeing was not what he expected! To him traffic jams were associated with the West, where there were many cars on the roads and not Africa where people were supposed to be dying of starvation, war, disease and poverty! He was expecting murram roads with few Cuba like vehicles sharing the road with animals and malnourished people.
Brand new cars, tarmac ked roads, traffic jams and well dressed people were things he assumed he had left behind in Europe and forget about in the next 2 weeks! That was not all; we passed through Kampala city, a town of 3 million inhabitants almost 4 times Amsterdam’s population. He saw skyscrapers, shops with modern goods and the many boda bodas (motorcycle taxis).
We had 2 beautiful apartments in Mbuya near Kampala. There was a beautiful gate manned by a gatekeeper who helped to unload our stuff and take it into the house. No one had done this to Johannes all his life. He was used to carrying his own stuff without assistance!
To be continued
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