The long Journey to the Capital City. - EPISODE 1
Born in Budondo Kibibi Parish, lived my entire life dreaming of the day I would board a lorry and see the life of Kampala and its effects because we grew up seeing every person who traveled to Kampala from our village came back not knowing at least how to speak Lusoga well, you would hear words such as “nja kukuba eibale”, so somehow we all thought after crossing that bridge there was some cleansing when it came to the lifestyle.
Ye bana how do I forget that girl Zaina hoo, Zaina left our village when she was around 16years for a housemaid Job across the bridge, every year she traveled back home for at least one week, especially during the Christmas season, she was the first young girl I saw with painted nails leave our local one “ina”
The red and yellow makeup made all the energetic boys feel like lifting her and the five-liter Jerrican every time she came to the village borehole, her walking style had changed to “catwalk” forgetting the old Zaina who used to move as if she was being chased by some local spirits, her perfume only made all the village girls envy her, she used to smell like melted ghee.
Those days talking to Zaina was not that easy since you had to be among those boys with some little swag, masculine body, and somehow you could balance the buggy pants, some broken Luganda was a must because it was the only mark that you had ever crossed the Bridge.
If any person wanted to know about Kampala life, Traffic lights, and music videos, Zaina was the best person to ask, that one Christmas week made Zaina feel like the Princess of the Village. Until recently all those years we grew up believing Zaina was a Kampala girl only to find out Buikwe district where she used to work from was not even that close to the Capital City “aye abaana imwe tituli basonigha” hooo I will tell you more about Zaina but for now back to the really Journey to the Magnificent Kampala.
As the saying goes, as long as you are still alive never curse yourself, everything is possible, one day our Kampala uncle came to Budondo, and every time he passed by it was a sure deal, next day breakfast had to be served with bread not forgetting blue band, and we had to keep all those empty blue band tins because it was a sign of being well-off.
Unlce Kambuzi asked mum as we were taking breakfast if it was okay with her to travel back with me to Kampala, before he even completed the sentence I was on my knees thanking him, mum was extremely happy and she also went on her knees thanking God because finally, her son was going to cross the Bridge, at that time no one was bothered with what I was going to do in Kampala because the goal was to leave the village.
Episode 2 The Kampala Road Trip............
NB: Not edited work .. just vibes