Rukeribuga has seen it all at Source of the Nile

There are things you only hear about and then there are things Agatha Rukeribuga has seen. Her chilling tales of battling pits of snakes at the then bushy Source of the Nile are ribald, and you would feel for her when she speaks of the leg she has lost fighting to keep her business running.

The Source of the Nile, the longest river in the world, is a global attraction, not just for tourists out to discover the idyllic geographic location but, Rukeribuga says, even spirits and those who believe in them.

After losing one night guard after another, each quitter saying they were not ready to endure cold nights with bizarre voices of invisible persons who converge in the dead of the night to float on the river, Rukeribuga mustered the courage to confirm it for herself.

“I was determined because I had already seen a lot keeping this place, as others closed for the day and went home, I stayed. On this particular night, locked myself inside a kiosk and waited,” she says.

Around 3am, the sounds picked up. She could hear bottle tops being popped and people making merry. But, there was no one even in the moonlight.

For those who do not believe in the spiritual world it is easy to rubbish such claims; one could even say fear of the night make one ‘see things’. But then, there were those that did not require spiritual discernment.

‘There were shrines under two Mutuba trees, the ones for making barkcloth… people used to come from all parts of the country to do their native spiritualism here,” Rukeribuga recalls.

One of the first opposition to setting up of the current leisure and hospitality service at the Source of the Nile came in the form of native spiritual dealers. Development and nativity do not co-exist. What Rukeribuga had set out on with here leisure and hospitality business at the Source was a direct affront to the ‘Jajjas.’

They fought back.

“One day I came around as was planning how to start setting up the place, one of them (spiritual dealers) said, ‘you woman you are planning to chase us away from here, how much are you  willing to take to leave this place alone?’”

But Rukeribuga, set up her kiosk and as business picked up, it attracted dozens of others. Unfortunately, ‘well-connected investors’ were also attracted.

But whether it was former Supreme Court judge George Kanyeihamba, snakes, spirits or local politicians and corrupt council officials, Rukeribuga was not ready to bat an eyelid in front of them.

Tailor-made for hospitality

There was no prior appointment when Sunday Monitor turned up at the Source. Everything just happened, like some force cascading with the water currents a few metres from where we sat for the interview willed it all.

“I’m 69 today,” she says, before bursting into a hearty laughter when asked if it was her birthday on the day. ‘Today’ was just an expression.

Rukeribuga took a bench in front of her artisanal kiosk, her son Victor who had brought us to her provided plastic chairs for us. He took one and buried his head into his smart phone.

Victor has grown up at the Source of the Nile, went to school and came back here. He was a toddler when his mother was battling snakes, spirits, water currents or even the stiff opposition of her husband John Michael Doii (deceased) to set up the place but now, he is a tour guide.

Clad in a black dirac dress with patterns of leaves, Rukeribuga is everything hospitality. She speaks with warmth that at some point, we looked like  her childhood friends she had left in Kisoro in 1969 when she took a bus to Kampala before finding her way to Jinja.

Her speech is punctuated with grins, chuckles, and laughter, and then tapping one on the knees. She seems so infectious even when asked about what her best and worst memory of working at the Source.

“The best thing I can ever remember about this place is I lost my leg fighting for this place,” she says, tapping the prosthetic that is now her right-lower limb, but not without chuckling, the faint wrinkles around her eyes wearing into creases.

There was only one thing Rukeribuga held on; the detail of what cost her a limb. Otherwise she talks like she is competing with the water flowing nearby.

There is no trace of southwestern accent in her speech. The dark shades in her skin complexion cannot mask the light skin she was born with in 1953.

“I came here when I was very tall and young, I have now grown old,” she says, licks her lips as if to signal that she is starting on a fresh verbal execution of her life story.

Rukeribuga played golf back then. Her husband was doing well at Uganda Leather Tannery in Jinja and she ran a wholesale shop on Lubas Street in town.

The golf course at the time, swept all the way to the riverbanks and Hole Number Two was around the present Source of the Nile leisure and hospitality site. Rukeribuga was getting one off a bunker when two vehicles pulled over and one of the foreign tourists who had just arrived chided the natives enjoying golf.

“You African don’t know how to do business. When you come here, you do not even get someone selling a bottle of water,” she quotes the tourist as complaining.

Rukeribuga did not need another invitation. She had mulled over the remarks and was convinced almost immediately of what she had to do.

“I packed up my golf items and my friends asked where I was going. I said: ‘to Jinja Club’. But I went home and wrote to Jinja Municipal Council… by that time the mayor Joel Kafuko and the town clerk was [Charles] Katarikawe from Kanungu, who was also member of Jinja Club and was friend of my husband.

“Katarikawe told me, ‘Madam Agatha, they will kill you there, just do your business on Lubas Road’ but I wasn’t even listening,” she recalls.

She insisted and her next attempt was even more difficult. Doii could not understand what had possessed his wife. He dismissed her proposal on the spot.

“I knelt and said: ‘you know we have these eight children, but as you are a civil servant the salary will not be enough. I will be in position to pay for all these children’s school fees. You will be paying for electricity and water only’. He laughed and agreed on condition that we shall make an agreement on what I had [to engage in].”

The next day Doii wrote to the Council confirming he was okay with his wife’s desire to venture into leisure and hospitality at the Source of the Nile. Rukeribuga this time laughs out loud as she reminisces the Council’s response. They had agreed to her request but the clincher was in the disclaimer.

“They wrote saying they would not ask me for any money to operate in the place for five years because they were sure I was going to die here,” she says.

The clean-up involved bringing her pastor, Sam Kasango of Jinja Christian Centre, to remove “native landmines” at the Source. Overnight prayers on Fridays became the trend. The traditional healers were displeased but they held no licence for exclusivity in the place.

She, then approached Nile Breweries to connect power and water to the Source and construct washrooms in exchange for her selling their products. The company, she says, was okay with everything but put a condition: No sale of rival products.

Rukeribuga found that limiting. She asked the Jinja Town clerk for consent to look elsewhere and days later she was at Uganda Breweries where she knew people such as Beti Kamya [current IGG was marketing manager at the time] who had previously worked with her husband.

“The managing director, a mzungu, told Kamya that if you know this woman, drive to the Source of the Nile with her and look into what is needed and let me know.”

Meeting Museveni

Three decades later, Rukeribuga can now look back with a tinge of pride.

“I have worked here for over 30 years. This place you see has supported and provided for my entire life. I paid school fees for my children and I have grandchildren now who also come and work with me on some days,” she says.

Before a string of other services set up alongside hers, Rukirebuga had the goldmine all to herself. But now, there are competitors and her revenue has dwindled. But she has no qualms, just wishes.

Uganda Breweries, she revealed, is looking into investing more funds improving the Source for tourism and when this comes to pass, Rukeribuga would like to see a children’s amusement park.

To her disappointment, too, there is no hotel at the Source of the Nile. A source at the Council intimated to Sunday Monitor on condition of anonymity that the expansive land mass at the Source could have long had world class hotels standing around but that corruption always plays away with such development ideas.

“We should have a spot for children, swimming pools, accommodation and restaurants to complement this good scenery. This will sell the Source of the Nile even more to tourists,” Rukeribuga says.

“I heard of the conventional glass bridge for tourists to be able to view more lively the real Source of the Nile which is where you see the water current starts over there,” she adds, pointing at a spot about 30 metres away with water almost gushing.

Rukeribuga says she constructed the tarmac road that winds from a gate and the building erected for collecting toll fees up to the Source site, with Shs280m support from Uganda Breweries.

And the challenges?

“Lack of regulation over the so-called tour guides. They are spoiling the business by diverting tourists to other places, and over charging the tourists here,” she says.

“These tour guides instead of promoting the place by ensuring the tourists eat in the restaurants established here, they divert them to the hotels in town in exchange for commission ranging between Shs9,000 to Shs10,000 when they bring tourists to someone’s restaurant and event to those in the water sector tourism sector.”

But a place like the Source will always have land grabbers rubbing their palms due to the immense tourism potential it holds. Rukeribuga has battled several such and there is no end to it although she is now confident in President Museveni’s intervention.

Years ago, Museveni was in Jinja when he queried the rumours that some individuals were interested in grabbing land at the Source and the town clerk introduced Rukeribuga as the cog in the transformation of the site. For this, she received a presidential handshake and with it, a bit of recognition among the top movers of the country.

“From then, the President’s office started sending invitations to me in Jinja to some big functions. The President could point at me asking how the Source of the Nile was doing and ask those who want to view the Source to contact me.”

As we took photos, she asked her son to provide drinks. Water and soda. We had moved into one of the thatched bar and restaurants that appear to have recently had fresh work on the roofing.

“There is more work to do,” she says, pointing at the roofing of the twin structures measuring about 10mx18m – the last place you can be at before you are in the river itself.

The twin structures hold Rukeribuga’s livelihood, her life story, and her everything.