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It’s the festive season in broken down Kampala, and Philly Lutaya is on the air

Thursday December 14 2017
Kampala

A street in Kampala. The dominant sound you will hear in Kampala, besides the car engines and shouting hawkers, is Christmas music by our own Philly Lutaya, a heroic musician who passed away nearly three decades ago. PHOTO FILE | NATION

By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

Living organisms tend to develop coping mechanisms for adverse long-term conditions; Ugandans are no exception. Just walk through Kampala this December, or any December in coming years, and you will understand.

The dominant sound you will hear, besides the car engines and shouting hawkers, is Christmas music by our own Philly Lutaya, a heroic musician who passed away nearly three decades ago.

There may not be many other African countries that have their own enduring Christmas songs that are locally more popular than Jingle Bells and Boney M’s Mary’s Boy Child.

Since 1988, we have played Lutaya’s “Merry Christmas” and “Katujaguze” (let us celebrate) every December and they just seem to get more popular, unlike ordinary songs that we tire of a season after their release. This in a way is a coping mechanism.

Kampala

Kampala city is, well, the capital city of Uganda. It is also the nastiest capital city to live and work in in the region. We natives of course prefer Kampala for obvious natural reasons, in addition to the low cost of living.

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Apart from the atrocious property prices – a four-bedroom house on a tiny plot in a haphazard neighbourhood with neighbours of no known name can go for half a million US dollars – the other basics in Kampala are affordable, especially food.

But it can be as dangerous as it is cheap. There is the public transport –unregulated boda bodas, matatus driven recklessly and roads without signage.

The motorbikes fight for pavements with pedestrians, where already all manner of hawkers ply their trade.

Yes, fresh fruit and secondhand clothes are spread on the broken and dirty tarmac. Kampalans who have been to Nairobi, Kigali or Dar es Salaam in the past couple of years will say without prejudice that Kampala is the most primitive capital of the four.

Physical planning

We used to marvel at the Dar es Salaam Rapid Transport System. Now they are tackling the rest of physical planning and housing decisively.

Does Kampala have at least one urban physical planner? There is no evidence of him or her. There is a glaring absence of government in Kampala, with little regulation of business activity where it still exists.

In the so-called downtown, the masses move like lawless savages, 55 years after Independence. Maintenance of utilities is hopeless and you can’t move a kilometre in any direction without encountering a broken sewer.

On principal roads to the suburbs, cars drive on the pavements scattering pedestrians, matatus and VIPs with blaring sirens.

Amid all this savagery, December brings its soothing tonic of Philly Lutaya on the air. So we have something to be proud of even as we inhale the emissions of broken sewers and unregulated old motor engines.

Despite the choking disorder, we get compensated with the reminder that our nation once had a great singer and composer. Living organisms have wonderful ways of coping with adversity.

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