Saints and sinners at Martyrs Day vigil

My journey to capture the mood, events and feeling, hours to the Uganda Martyrs D-day starts right at the chaotic Old Taxi Park, specifically at the Namugongo-Kyaliwajala stage. Time check 7pm.
This is not an ordinary day where taxi touts desperately scream their voices hoarse, literally pulling you by the collar to fill their taxi. Today, they are the “bosses”. They stand with hands akimbo, call it the taxi man’s swag, leaning against one of the commuter vehicles and watching with a sense of high achievement as passengers fight their way to Namugongo.
“Oh yes, we have made lots of money, otherwise one can’t ferry all of them,” the driver tells this writer. Ordinarily, he plies the Kireka-Banda route but since June 1, he switched to the more lucrative Namugongo-Kyaliwajala route.
The minibus is mainly filled by women and children carrying bags and mats with rosaries dangling from their necks, many looking as strangers in the city. The traffic jam is thick and it is only 8pm, when we arrive in Namugongo.
An instant atmosphere mixed with confusion, tension, ecstasy, suspicion and anxiety has clearly engulfed this place. I now believe one of the nuns, who earlier in the day told NTV Weekend Edition that, “We expect about three million pilgrims here.”

Strange but true
First is the blaring secular music from a beer promotion across the road, then the bee-hive of business activity booming like never before and yes, the long and thick queues accompanied by heavy police deployment.

This comes with a thorough check with constant reminders from a policeman speaking in a deep Luo accent, “Don’t trust the person behind you, five people have so far reported theft of wallets and phones.”

Finally in, I was confused where to start from. It is only 8pm but men and women in their hundreds lie on makeshift beddings, some chatting away, visibly tired and others dead asleep.

Groups bound by common language and origin sing their souls out. I join the Runyakore-Rukiga team, albeit only understanding the word Ruhanga (God). The vigorous clapping, hysteric stamping of heavy feet and thick calves on the littered ground and the passionate outflow of lyrics gives the night’s bitter coldness a beating.

As the music blasts from out, with Zambian sensation, Mampi’s Swilili piercing the air, the words ekitibwa kibe eri Katonda (to God be the glory) get a strangling. Some faithfuls’ minds have been captivated by Mampi’s fairly addictive lyrics as they nod and hideously hum along.

“You people should just be happy with this freedom in Uganda. If this was Rwanda, you would not do such nonsense. How can you have a big day like this one and people are having concerts outside, disrupting the holy day?” charges Joel Nziza, a Rwandan pilgrim with whom I chat about his experience as he admires the Bakiga energetic dance. This, I learn, is how they have spent the nights since May 31, but today, they dance till 6am.

“You can’t be awake all this time without putting in something,” one of them confides in us. He sips his Uganda Waragi, squints his eyes as the potent gin noticeably works on his throat.

As we stare at his rosary and whisper in amusement, he hastily retorts, “I am better off taking this one, you know what Jesus did at the Cana wedding, some people here even take njaga (weed) to stay this strong.”

It is a holy pilgrimage for many
The sight of women, both elderly and youthful, answering nature’s call with reckless abandon is as eye soaring as it is mind blowing. Strangely, some undress and ‘do it’ right there, outside the toilets.

It is now 9pm, off to NTV’s tent where hundreds have converged to watch news anchor Rachel Arinaitwe, elegantly dressed, broadcasting live.

Meanwhile, Fr Joseph Mukasa Muwonge, is giving a talk about the Uganda Martyrs. His enlightening talk is interrupted by announcements of people looking for lost phones, passports, identity cards and parents searching for children.

“Would you die for your faith the way the Martyrs did?” he asks the mammoth crowd upon painting graphic images of Mukajanga, Kabaka Mwanga’s chief executioner.

He then explains the points at which each of the martyrs died, starting with Karoli Lwanga. The one hour talk show is delivered mainly in Luganda. I move around, and see the spaces filled to capacity allocated to Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi, save for the space allocated to Members of Parliament where there is no MP. The Rwandese especially struggle to follow the sermon as the others look on. Their faces speak volumes of the language disadvantage.

In intended “broken English”, I pretend not to understand anything and ask one Congolese, “What is the man talking about now?” He jeers, points at the preacher and makes an offending sign, saying in anger, “Is he stupid? Can’t he realise that not everyone here is a Muganda? All the countries here, may be apart from Rwanda, understand Kiswahili, why can’t they translate? Is this how they are going to preach tomorrow?”

Explaining history
The lake, as Fr. Muwonge explains, was once used as a source of water for laying bricks used in the construction of Uganda Martyrs Boarding Primary School, in the 1950s. When the Pope John Paul VI was visiting Uganda, the late Cardinal Nsubuga ordered for its expansion and thus the Martyrs’ Lake was born. Its water is unusually cream but the faithful here religiously fetch and use it for spiritual rituals.

As the hour of 10pm approaches, Fr Muwonge ends his talk by throwing light into the martyrs’ shrine (church). “Cardinal Nsubuga”, he explains, “instructed Roko Construction Company in its first ever project in Uganda to build a church in form of the African hut.

“The altar has the remains of Lwanga who was burnt alive,” he adds. The martyr died at 25 years in a slow fire from foot to head. Here lies a gigantic artistic impression of him with three of the Kabaka’s pages holding a panga and sticks, looking on as he burns on logs of wood. I stay here till midnight, watching with keen interest as the pilgrims flock in, murmuring a few words, some weeping silently and dropping an offering, a coin or two.

One Tanzanian man, dressed in a linen shirt with pictures of the martyrs comes, pulls out his rosary and rubs it gently on the fore head and chest of the martyr. He then turns to one of his killers, holds the stick and says a short but passionate prayer.

Where good and evil meet
The emotions coming therein after can only be overcome with a visit to Monzter Events camp where secular music is booming. Along the way, I bump into a lad being manhandled by two policemen who have pulled him to a dark corner.

He pleads with them as they check his pockets – they pull out Shs5,000. His crime? Selling calendars outside the designated market area which comes with a receipt. They make a sign of the cross with a pen on his left palm and assure him, “That will act as your receipt, show it to any officer who arrests you.”

“You are slow man! You should have given them Shs1,000,” his peers tease him as they laugh at the handwritten sign of the cross said to act as his receipt.

At the Monzter tent, it is entertainment business as usual; loud music, food, nyama choma and beer flowing. I join in the bonfire and sit next to one man sipping both water from the lake and a glass of beer. He is now drunk and speaks whatever his mind churns out saying, “I am waiting for tomorrow (Martyrs Day) but I cannot bear that coldness. Just as Lwanga was burnt, let this fire and booze burn me, I may become the 25th martyr.”

With some attention won, he goes into tribal sentiments, “I heard on radio that it is the Banyankore leading this year’s celebration. But why do they want to rule us even in our own land?” he goes on with insults till one of the affected parties promises him a beating so he sobers up. A few metres away, a demon possessed woman is being chased by scouts and policemen, as other officers battle with a pick pocket resisting arrest.

“This is Uganda for you, people never stop being evil,” the policeman I moved around with in the before dawn notes as he points at used condoms littered outside the bathrooms.
Announcements in their hundreds keep streaming in. Some pilgrims like Nzinza make the first round to the lake for blessings, then head to St. Charles Lwanga’s shrine for more blessings. Other pilgrims who have moved since dawn purposely for the day’s mass join him. “The martyrs’ day must find me pure,” he says, as he recites the rosary.

On the sides of the Martyrs Day celebrations

Police men extort money from petty offenders: In an area where over 300 police officers are deployed, survival for the shrewdest comes to play with a bribe as low as Shs1,000 buying one freedom for offences that range from selling outside the market area to appearing suspicious in the judgment of the officers in uniform.

Fights over trivial issues: At the lakeside, one Congolese elderly woman almost exchanged blows with a man in his 30s for stepping on her mat, which was on the walk ways. Most quarrels, albeit prevented from breaking into fights, were among women, especially over belongings.

Drunkenness: At dawn, the police call for safety didn’t forget to caution pilgrims against drink-driving. Now, that message came way too late as the beer companies had done what they do best, interestingly to the point of hiring space within the church’s premises!

Sex binges in isolated areas of the venue: If ever the Uganda police: civilian ratio deserved credit, this year’s martyrs’ day was that time. But trust morally crippled Ugandans to beat the security and indulge in sex acts in the wee hours of the night. Unconfirmed reports indicate some couples bribed policemen to watch guard.

Answering nature’s call outside the toilet facilities: Yes, these things happen even among staunch believers. When the sphincter muscles could not be patient, the moral conscience and sense of guilt too, let loose and there you had mothers and fathers of the nation, in full view of street lights, take short calls even outside the crowded toilets.

Secular music outcompeting the day’s sermons: Spain is not Uganda indeed, and neither Rwanda. The reason the disco halls outside the church and even beer companies promotions blared their music alongside that of the church.
Ivan Okuda

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