UGANDA: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE

Recently, I was watching an episode of the show Adam Ruins Everything about myths and fallacies about giving. One of the topics he talked about is TOMS Shoes, where you buy a $60+ pair of shoes (that costs about $4 to make) and they donate another pair of shoes to someone in need (typically overseas, like Africa or Latin America). He mentioned that these free clothing drives to people in need overseas is a terrible idea, and introduced a guy from Uganda to explain why they don’t need free shoes: They already have shoes and shoe stores. Pictures of kids running around without shoes is using extreme cases as “poverty porn,” which implies the whole country is like that when it’s not. Plus free clothing and shoes disrupts their own textile industry, impacting thousands and thousands of jobs. Those aren’t even their high-priority needs (think bigger impact things, like reliable electricity, clean water, stable/safe jobs), and the best way to help is to send money through reputable charitable organizations.

The name Uganda comes from the Buganda Kingdom, which had its territory throughout most of the south-central part of the country. Uganda is actually the Swahili word for Buganda, and it was the British who used this name as the name of the protectorate.

This small-ish country lies in east-central Africa, surrounded by South Sudan to the north; Kenya to the east; Tanzania and Rwanda to the south; and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Much of the southeast corner of the country is covered underwater from Lake Victoria, a major water source for this part of Africa (the third largest lake in the world!). Its western borders also cut through Lake Edward and Lake Albert. Although several of these lakes are huge, they are technically a landlocked country. Because of its proximity to the equator, they have a warm tropical climate and their average temperatures don’t change that much throughout the year. Uganda has two seasons: rainy and dry, which generally alternate every few months. The land also tends to be more of a plateau surrounded by mountains.

Idi Amin

The earliest people to move into this area are thought to have come from central Africa as they were migrating south. Arab traders began working their way inland during the 1830s, followed by British explorers who were looking for the beginning of the Nile River. And you know who always follows the explorers: the missionaries. The Imperial British East Africa Company started negotiating trade deals in the late 1880s, but had to deal with people in Buganda fighting over religion. Eventually, the IBEAC decided they couldn’t work in that environment and left, which left Buganda to be taken in by the British as a protectorate. The British then brought 32,000 workers from India to Uganda to help build the Uganda Railway. While many left after the project, many also stayed. In 1962, Uganda gained its independence from the UK. And that’s when the problems started, and it’s complicated. Buganda was the largest kingdom, and its relationship with the federal government dominated their first days of independence. A few different parties were formed, so there were problems with how many parliamentary seats each party was to get. And some of these issues were basically a tribal divide showing up on a national level now, essentially a Bantu vs Nilotic fight (somewhat set up by the British, knowing the historical rivalry). One of the turning points was when one of the MPs called attention to Col. Idi Amin’s looting of ivory and gold from the Congo. Under the direction of Milton Obote, he arrested several members of the party in power and took over, and then he gave Amin even more power (sure, what could go wrong?) and abolished the constitution. When the Kabaka (their king) tried to stand up to them, Idi Amin is ordered to destroy the palace, and the Kabaka escaped to London. So, in 1971, Idi Amin kicked out Obote and took over power himself. (His name might be familiar to some because of the 2006 movie The Last King of Scotland, starring Forest Whittaker as Idi Amin.) He was really just the worst. One of his nicknames was the Butcher of Uganda for having slaughtered an estimated 80,000-500,000 Ugandans during his eight-year reign of terror. Things slowly started to get better once he was gone, and a decade later, the world was taking notice of the leadership changes happening in Uganda. It didn’t last long though, since they got caught up in the Second Congo War and struggled in a civil war with the Lord’s Resistance Army which killed thousands and displaced a ton more than that. Accusations of election rigging, nepotism, and responses to extreme anti-gay policies still create some political instability in Uganda.

The capital and largest city in the country is Kampala. Originally, this was the hill which the British set up their fort as they were creating the Uganda Protectorate. However, that hill was also where the king would also do his hunting, especially impalas (no, not the car, the antelope-like animal; but its logo makes sense now, doesn't it?). The city has expanded to cover seven hills now as well as being surrounded by wetlands, swamps, rivers and isn’t terribly far from the shores of Lake Victoria. There are several schools of all levels along with museums and theatres, sporting venues, restaurants, and entertainment. The country’s main international airport isn’t in Kampala; it’s in the suburb of Entebbe.

Sesame seeds

Some of Uganda’s biggest exports come in agriculture, and mostly as coffee, fish, maize, tobacco, tea, sugar, cocoa beans, sesame seeds (which I just now found out how sesame seeds look before it’s picked and processed), and other beans. They also have sizable exports in oil, base metals, cement, hides and skins, and flowers. Despite having found oil in the Lake Albert area, they’re still listed as a heavily indebted country, and even though they have some economic growth, they still have a lot of problems with poverty. Much of their problems lie in infrastructure: needing access to better roads, more stable electric grid, clean water, etc.

The vast majority of Ugandans are Christian. And of those, there’s a strong Roman Catholic following, followed by the Anglican Church of Uganda. There are a few other Christian denominations here and there as well as a significant following of Islam as well.

Swahili is the official and most widely spoken language in Uganda. However, English is also an official language after decades of being a protectorate of the UK. There are quite a few languages spoken in Uganda, and although the use of Swahili has created some tensions in certain parts of the country, it is often used as a lingua franca.

Working on catching tsetse flies to study the disease.

One of the things that stuck out when I was reading about Uganda's history was that between 1900-1920, there was an epidemic of African trypanosomiasis, or African sleeping sickness. Now that we’re in a pandemic ourselves, I’ve been reading a little bit about past epidemics. So, sleeping sickness is caused by a parasite spread by the tsetse fly. It starts out as fevers, headaches, joint pain, and itchiness, and then it progresses to confusion, poor coordination, and lack of sleep. While many can survive it, for some it can shut down your organs and kill them. But as we’re only five months into this with no end in sight (at least in the US), I looked at those dates again and realized they dealt with that epidemic FOR TWENTY YEARS. Granted we’re talking about a century ago, and now we have the advantages of modern medicine, but even at that, sleeping sickness is still a very real disease today. Especially in the rural areas of central Africa. I can’t even imagine--and don’t want to--living through a twenty-year epidemic right now.

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