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From an Impala, Kampala is now a kinawolovu
What you need to know:
- A true Ugandan is a chameleone, a creature of many colours, diverse, able to change with the pace of events, adaptable, agile, and able to mask in, and say the ‘right’ things in the ‘right’ rooms. And the true Ugandan can critique things – the same Ugandan will indulge in those things.
- The people who are wedding, where are you going? Where do you find the audacity to find love in this city? ...I hope and pray that when my time comes, the gods of Nkokonjeru and Mityana save me from a content wife. How will I put up with all the battles on X? Battles started by my content girlfriend.
Jose Chameleone has always intrigued me. Why is it that Ugandans love him so much? Why is it that Chameleone was given lifetime amnesty? Then I realised that Chameleon embodied everything that Ugandans stand for. He embodied our values. He is the symbol of a true Ugandan.
A true Ugandan is a chameleone, a creature of many colours, diverse, able to change with the pace of events, adaptable, agile, and able to mask in, and say the ‘right’ things in the ‘right’ rooms. And the true Ugandan can critique things – the same Ugandan will indulge in those things.
So why did we love Chameleone? He held the mirror to us. For the first time, in one man, we saw what it meant to be Ugandan and live as a Ugandan. Ugandans are great people, but they will also try hard to always undo their greatness. Ugandans are talented, but they will wake up and piss on their own talents. The very idea of our greatness tortures us, we fight it. We crack at it. In every Ugandan, you find this dialectical struggle of opposites. The things we thrash in the morning, we caress in the evening. There are no permanent desires and interests in Uganda, we are all beautiful chameleones.
That brings me to this beautiful city – Kampala – the one named after an impala. From being a fast-paced city, it is now curtailed by traffic gridlocks and the curviest of potholes. Our potholes are curvy, with depth, gaping holes of many dreams. Then came this girl Nandor Love. You know she had an earlier hit, Empologoma, but you people did not jump so much on it.
It is Kinawolovu that has sent you crazy. Nandor Love has also confused many, the Simon Kaggwa Njalas of this world that could not tell, “whether to call her Mr?” She has a presence. But in ‘Kinawolovu’, she pinpointed and psychoanalysed Kampala to the point. Because this city, once named after an Impala is now a Kinawolovu. In Kampala, you never meet the same character twice. In Kampala, we love our truth veiled, with some mascara.
In Kampala, we love to listen to Fred Ssebatta’s Gologosa where he complains to the wife about his wrinkled shirt. In the same Kampala, we do not love to be told about Omuningo we Gulu by Gravity. Because, one is grave, one has veiled the truth. In Kampala, people are not thieves but bagezi, nothing is said directly here. Everything needs some colour. Our languages love that colour. We do not call people bakadde, we say, Mzee. Because Mzee has colour, it has some flavour.
That is how Kampala behaves. It wallops people with potholes and comforts them with Bandali Rise. It spits on them with sewage and floods, and caresses them with nsenene, and mmere yonna. Mmere yonna is the greatest innovation in the world. For the first time, Uganda produced something not witnessed elsewhere in the world. You know, there are certain things Mzee cannot touch, those things would see him packing. Among these, mmere yonna and nsenene. The day we wake up and you cannot have mmere yonna in Kampala, Mzee will not be here (eiisssh where am I getting the boldness to say these things).
Because why do I say Kampala is now a Kinawolovu? Where do people get the audacity to say they are now almond milk people? Since when? This almond milk that just recently arrived. Now you are all almond milk or nothing. The ‘no sugar but honey’ people. Really? Who taught you these things? Why would you play dodgeball with potholes and still go looking for almond milk? Mbu simanya body butter. Your skin that handled mwana mugimu and fansida cannot do without serums and body butter? You people are all binawolovus.
You know the millennials of Kampala? That is the real problem of Kampala. They are the emblem of this kinawolovu concept. But I respect that cohort. This cohort has lived through existential crises. It is the cohort that has lived through many things. They lived through the six killer diseases, they lived through ‘yabwe’, and measles. Their mothers had to feed them on a recipe of enkejje. Now that they have arrived, they do not understand why someone should be travelling economy when business class exists?
On another note, the people who are wedding, where are you going? Where do you find the audacity to find love in this city? To do what with it? They even have a saying mbu “the wedding does itself”. But I hope and pray that when my time comes, the gods of Nkokonjeru and Mityana save me from a content wife. I cannot imagine a life of forcing life in Kampala and managing a content girlfriend. How will I put up with all the battles on X? Battles started by my content girlfriend.
On a sad note, my aesthetic of female greatness, Nikki Giovanni transitioned from this world. If only Kampala could do some magic out of its Kinawolovu character and produce more Nikki Giovannis. Oh what a soul! What a spirit!
Where do people get the audacity to say they are now almond milk people? Since when? This almond milk that just recently arrived. The ‘no sugar but honey’ people. ..
X: @OrtegaTalks
