Let’s fight poverty with our weather

Last week, team Uganda left for motocross African championships in Kitwe, Zambia which is about 375 kilometres north of capital - Lusaka where we landed aboard Rwanda air.
Our flight to Kigali, Rwanda was about 35 minutes and our waiting time before boarding for Lusaka was above two hours.
Rwanda international airport is experiencing massive growth because of their national carrier Rwanda air.
I couldn’t believe the lines of arriving passengers from the UK, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
I can’t wait for Uganda airlines to start soon so we can experience similar numbers at our only international airport, Entebbe.
We were pleasantly surprised by Rwanda air hostesses and hosts singing a birthday song for one of our younger riders Milton Akaki Obote.
They served him a beautiful well decorated cake on both flights. Lusaka airport clearance on arrival of our riders went very smoothly without any challenges unlike the experience we got while entering Botswana last year same time and yes, going for same Africa motocross championships.
We were stuck at the airport for more than two hours because of the demands but luckily enough, our consulate in Gaborone intervened and later they allowed us into their country for the competition.
I can’t say there was much to write about regarding Kenneth Kaunda international airport.
I think it’s an old airport that needs serious work. It makes Entebbe look really nice but to their credit, a new massive but very beautiful airport is being built next door which will put Zambia on the world map.
Zambia in general has more than 20 airports and six of them have scheduled flights unlike Uganda.
Am hopeful that when our national carrier Uganda airlines starts, many of our small aerodromes will be upgraded to bigger airports because traffic to Uganda will definitely grow both domestically and internationally.
Kenneth Kaunda international airport was officially known as Lusaka international airport before being renamed in 2011 in honour of Kaunda, the nation’s first present.
I also observed that Zambians seem to honour their former leaders. We saw lots of sign posts of their current and formers leaders and I guess that helps in peace building.
Anyway, we arrived at Kenneth Kaunda international airport at about midday on Wednesday the August 15.
We had two omnibuses waiting to transfer the whole team to Kitwe via Ndola and yes, this was very tiring especially for the youngsters.
Thankfully, they had two full days of relaxing before taking on the big players in the motocross championships.
The rural Zambia definitely looks poorer than the rural Uganda something my son also observed. The urban centres are far more developed than many of our urban centres and the quality of life in them seemed higher than ours. That said, I still believe that no country beats Uganda when it comes to weather and food.
We went all out looking for local food in some of their best eating joints and yes, we were disappointed. How I wish we took advantage of both our good food and great weather in fighting poverty.
The registration of riders was done on August 17 and then we started to freely interact with people from other countries who had turned up for the competition.
I was there as a rider parent which means my son was riding in the competition.
People who know me, know me for tourism mainly and I am sure some were surprised.
As a parent, I have taken my responsibility seriously and that goes beyond providing food, shelter, school fees and cloths. I do everything possible to be physically present because that is very critical in their development as children.
My son’s extra hobby of ridding has given me great networking opportunities.
I have made very important friendships both within Uganda and elsewhere in Africa especially the ridding countries such as Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Outside Uganda, this sport is for the rich people but in Uganda, average parents such as myself sacrifice and invest in our children through training, buying ridding gear, bikes which are very expensive etc.
While in Zambia, I discovered that quite a number riders and their parents actually arrived on private jets while the team Uganda endured the long connections and bus rides.
The very rich in Uganda do not want to risk their kids but I have seen so much value in children ridding motocross.
Team Kenya for example is full of grandchildren of Uhuru family, Kibaki family, Moi family etc and yes, it is true we have the Obote family ridding in Uganda but I think more rich people would invest in their children in similar sport and that would be nice for Uganda.
Team Uganda was a very big threat in Zambia because we fielded good talent. The Orland family clearly stood out because they gave us a good number of meddles and great presence on the podium.
They rode so well that South Africans and Zimbabweans had to ask leadership to inspect their bikes something we protested.
Uganda came 2nd in 65cc category, 2nd 50cc category, 85cc category and 2nd in 125cc category and unfortunately we did not have any riders in family only races, veterans and seniors.
The lower categories represent the future and I hope we can field more riders in the next championships which are going to happen in Zimbabwe and hopefully, Uganda hosts in 2020.

The writer is an investment expert
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