13 November 2009
Because death is the guaranteed physical end for each one of us, it is not something we obsess about in any noticeable way, certainly not collectively. The last few weeks have, however, been somewhat different. Sketchy evidence shows many people are talking death and dying. For good reason. First, presidential advisor Fr. Albert Byaruhanga died in a car accident on the Fort Portal-Kampala highway at the end of October. Vice President Gilbert Bukenya's trainee cadet son Brian followed last weekend, dying of injuries he suffered in a dawn crash on the same highway. Then there was a speeding Kalita bus that eventually killed eight after rolling over. Talk of one road being bloodthirsty. On Tuesday, a day before the bus accident, we learned of the killing of former army chief James Kazini in what appears on the surface to be a case of domestic violence gone wild. As of this writing on Thursday evening, reports indicate more than 14 dead in Mabira following a collision between a minibus and a lorry.
To be sure, people die in Uganda all the time. Anything up to 15 women perish daily as a result of complications related to pregnancy and delivery of babies. Malaria claims more than its fair share. You then throw in those felled by ailments such as Aids, tuberculosis, and respiratory infections. Sometimes Uganda feels like one big and busy graveyard with no one to tend it.
What is causing hushed and self-reflective talk though is the suddenness with which public figures or children of public figures have died within days and weeks of each other. Death that comes "out of the blue" seems to capture public attention in ways that maternal and infant deaths or even HIV/Aids deaths - slow and explainable deaths - do not. Sudden death, especially of a public figure, reminds us of just how easy it is for anyone of us to expire. More than 14 hours after Kazini had been killed, I went to a favourite pub. I do not remember ever seeing the "boys" (with a few "girls" admittedly) as concerned about life, or is it death, as that evening. Everyone was speaking in grave tones. Kazini's decidedly tragic passing had made death appear real indeed by giving it a real public face. "How can a general die just like that?" That was as much a question as it was a lament in personal terms. (If a general can die so casually, the quiet thinking went, then how about a mere me?) "Kazini, my darling!" the young woman behind the counter said softly. "There are two people I liked in the army and they are both dead now," she added. "They were [Defence Permanent Secretary Noble] Mayombo [who passed on in 2007] and Kazini." Never mind that this young woman had never met either officer. But that is the hold some people in the public eye have on the rest of us, thanks to the media. I will not even go into how many empathised with Veep Bukenya for losing a son - just like that - who could literally scratch his itching back.
These last weeks have truly been tough, even for your columnist. A man with a big smile and an even bigger heart left this world, not so suddenly for him, on October 28 in far away east-central Illinois. I met Dr Ibulaimu Kakoma, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in 2001. The agricultural economist Gabriel Elepu, now of Makerere University, introduced us. We went on hang out with Prof. Kakoma. I ate a sumptuous breakfast once at his house with a couple of other Ugandans attending a technology conference at the university. Good host he was.
I did not see him dance but I remember him picking Gabriel and I to go to a very groovy nightclub in Champaign that was frequented by black people. I had been around for nearly a year but that night was the first time I was encountering such a concentrated number of black people. It felt more like a Kampala club, especially the pulsating urban contemporary/hip-hop music. I am yet to see the shuffle dance performed by so many so perfectly.
Several times we simply lunched in town and talked about life in Urbana-Champaign, the twin university cities where he had lived since 1974 when he first arrived to pursue his PhD. We also talked about Uganda. Little did I know he had started a primary school in his village of Miseebe in 1987, which now offers an education to more than 600 pupils. I suppose humility got the better of him. The school was possibly part of the reason he regularly visited Uganda. I last saw him at City Bar in Kampala years later having a quiet lunch. For the man he was, for making the life of a breathless graduate student in a strange land less miserable, may his soul get good and lasting rest.
bentab@hotmail.com
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