As my Wheelbarrow Empire grew, life became more bearable to me and my family but the war between the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) and the guerrilla forces of Museveni, the National Resistance Army (NRA) also intensified. As a result, less and less of my porters turned up with money. The excuse, on the face of it was obvious–– being due to general instability. It was not until one day I came to the yard to collect the money that I found something most unusual. Most of the porters had assembled and were waiting for me. It was unusual sight. All bare chested and sweating and a complete contrast to me in a neat tie and shirt with nice trousers and shoes. As I walked towards them, all being my employees, I felt good and lucky. I was just looking forward to the money I deserved. As I approached, they got up one by one and I was surrounded by them. They were all trying to speak to me at the same time. I had an instant problem as I could neither speak Swahili nor Luganda a fact which seemed to irritate most of them. Yet what they were trying to say was that business had collapsed and that if I didn’t believe them, I could have the wheelbarrows back to myself. And so one by one, they started pulling their wheelbarrows towards me. I was horrified by their classical strategy to paralyse me. It was obvious that there was no way I could push even one of those wheelbarrows to the slum of Wabigalo. With my back to the wall, I opted for negotiations with the renegade workers. It turned out that all of my wheelbarrow workers had been Rwandan Refugees and they had been hatching a living out of all sorts of manual works. The wheelbarrow, being the lowest and less appealing to most, was ideal for them on the periphery of life. As Museveni neared Kampala, we saw terror but they saw opportunity. On the other side of the conflict, they learnt that their brothers in thousands were marching onto Kampala. to them it was just a dream come true and one by one they disappeared living the wheelbarrow behind and me near bankrupt. Without my business and the increased rumours that most of my workers were on the other side fighting to overrun Kampala, I was in a nightmare scenario. My second son, John helped me to make up my mind when a bomb felt on Kampala. Although the bomb blast was not as heavy as the Saba Saba which fell on Jinja road during the war to liberate Uganda from Idi Amin, this one was more threatening because this time around, being an Acholi, the guns were aimed at me and my family. As I bend my head down, John started to cry, “Dad, I don’t want to die here, take me home”. From The Manuscript When an elephant cries
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:12:41 +0000
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