“Your Cousin living in Muyenga and you think you are not rich?” she pondered as I poured the last bit of the Kafirifiri. Aware I was about to leave, she tried to extend the conversation. Looking blank but serious she said, “They have lost the war and are in a hurry to get out of Kampala. I think the bastard is using your bike to flee” and she turned to look at me, her eyes radiant before she burst out laughing loudly. “I never thought Amin’s soldiers would ever flee Kampala” “Tell me about it” I said and realised I was going to get drawn into a political discussion with an unknown lady in the slum of Namwongo in the middle of war, I decided to cut it short. “Anyway, I have to go” “What is your name?” she asked me abruptly. “Odong” “Oh Odong” she repeated “Yes, Odong Aquilinus” “Nice name, I am Harriet Nalunga” I thanked her and walked out feeling confident to face Oyo. The war intensified that evening. Not only did we hear the long range Saba Saba whizz pass us overhead, we followed its sound until it touched down around Mbuya Barracks and we were astounded from our vantage position at Muyenga. The fireball and then the awful thunderous noise, minutes later, lots of tyre screeching sounds as everyone tried to get away from Mbuya. Then there was another whizzing sound, we ducked instinctively to save our heads as we ran to the veranda, the sound passed us, leaving us with a sinister smile of the kind you see in the theatre. Then Saba Saba hit again. “Oh no” Oyo my cousin and the Chief Mechanical Engineer, trained in England, shouted out. “In trying to attack Buglobi barracks, they have hit a private house, Oh no!!” Oyo looked nervously at us rubbed his chin as if he was looking for a solution to the war and turned to us, “No one should panic. We are safe here. There are no barracks near here. We have expatriates and foreign diplomats here. They can’t blow up Muyenga, no they can’t” “There is also water tank” I reminded him. “That is right Odong” “The water tank I was forgetting that” Until now, the war from our vantage point, had been one sided. Saba Saba causing terror in and around Kampala and the only answer to it had been from small arms AK 47 Assault rifles. That changed when amidst panic and excitement we started to see some extraordinary images from Kololo Hill in the form of huge flash of lights followed by instantaneous bursts as the streak of lights from the explosion accelerated westwards to old Kampala and beyond. We were then convinced the Liberators had reached the outskirt of this most troublesome city and Amin, the self-proclaimed Field Marshall was taking his final stand but we wondered why he had taken that long. Still the sudden flash from Kololo looked mighty but the sound didn’t perhaps because it was just too near. What was clear was that Nyerere the Tanzanian President and a Teacher was teaching the Field Marshall some lessons here. The war had stared in Tanzania when Amin invaded Tanzania. Now he is defending Kampala! At the back of our mind the rumours that Amin had a mysterious gun which could surprise us all was looming large. It was said he was going to use it last but where is it, or could this be it and there were more flashes from Kololo and the big thunderous noise as Saba Saba pounded Kampala city. It had been a terrible night, bomb blasts, sporadic gun fires and all manner of other explosives throughout the night forcing us to sleep in the corridor, away from any door or window. In the morning, the fighting had seemed to die down and again Oyo asked me to get him some waragi in Namwongo. When an elephant cries coming soon
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 10:24:25 +0000
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