Roots

The entire time we’ve been in Uganda so far, we’ve been trying to find out where Kamuli and Mbulamuti are (yeah, imagine trying to say those without even knowing how they are spelt…) – our families used to live there before Idi kicked them out in 70s, but everyone here has been telling us there is no point going, there is nothing there, yada yada yada… anyway, we finally got the basic directions – just fall the road from Jinja past Bujagali falls for about an hour. Around 12pm we come across a sign ‘Mbulamuti County’ – absolutely nothing there but a mud hut… but after about 5 minutes we came up on a small town (if you could even call it that) – there were about 3 or 4 rows of one story buildings. we weren’t sure where to start walking until we spotted the the only two story building which was obviously a JK. Over we went, took our shoes off and walked in. It was pretty sad, the second floor had caved in and in general it was pretty bad shape. When we came out there was an Imam standing there who got upset at us – ‘Who are you?? Who gave you permission to go inside??’ – so we told him our name and explained ourselves and suddenly his demeanor changed and he got excited and told us about the JK – apparently it was opened by our grandfather! The imam showed us where the plaque for the opening was and just barely you could read our grandfather’s name ingraved in it. We then walked over the rows of houses and the imam showed us which one was which – ‘this one was your uncle’s, that one your other uncle’s’, so of the three rows of houses, our family pretty much owned two of them! A little while later, the old mayor of the town came to greet us and to ask about our family. It was all very surreal. I’ve always been proud of being Canadian, but always bore the fact that my family was from East Africa on my sleeve. Until now though, there was really nothing concrete to show – almost like Africa was just a transitory step (albeit nearly a century long step) from India to Canada. Now with the concrete building there, I definitely feel more of connection with Africa than I think I ever will for India.