Whirlwind Tour of Kampala

Last Saturday, Lisa, Judith, and I decided to go on a bodaboda (motorcycle) tour of Kampala. We figured it would be an efficient way to see many of the sites in the city, and for a minimal fee of ~$25 we each had a bodaboda, accompanied with a driver and a helmet (yes dad, I bought a helmet). We started around 11 a.m. and ended around 7 p.m. Talk about a packed day, we toured mosques, churches, palaces, government buildings, etc. It was quite an overwhelming experience.

Uganda is known as the spiritual capital of East Africa because it is accepting of all faiths. There are places of worship for: Christians (protestant and catholic), Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahá'í, and various traditional religions. Many of the places of worship are located atop one of the hills of Kampala. Supposedly, Kampala is a city of seven hills, like Rome, but it is a well-known fact that Kampala has more than seven hills.

The day we went out, there was a bit of a haze. Aside from Los Angeles, I think Kampala is the most (air) polluted city I have ever visited. On a clear day, one can see the expansive size of Lake Victoria, as well as the Rwenzori Mountains from a Kampala hilltop. We weren’t that lucky, but the views were still extraordinary. It became more apparent to me that I love places with variable topography and landscapes, a characteristic that the city of Chicago lacks (and Mombasa to a certain extent as well).

A few weeks ago, I received an e.mail from a Human Rights Program intern describing her experience at the Genocide Memorial in Rwanda. I found the e.mail chilling, and empathized with her eerie realization about the human capacity for destruction and violence. The nature of my research forces me to confront this reality endlessly, so I am well aware of the unnerving feeling of being confronted by such an event. That being said, I was completely caught off guard during our bodaboda tour when we visited the Royal Palace. I was not aware that we would be seeing Idi Amin’s (and later Obote’s) torture chambers, where it is suggested that Amin tortured and killed over 300,000 civilians.

As we walked down the path to Amin's “arsenal” (its purported function), it looked like an old railway tunnel, but with no tracks. The path was covered with abundant foliage, including vines with heart shaped leaves, and the walls of the path muted the hustle and bustle of the city. Whenever I go to the scene of an atrocity, I realize that the prefatory information affects the experience I have, but it is difficult not to imagine the first and only time that one of 300,000+ people walked down that path. The feeling is beyond disturbing.

Each of the three rooms could hold up to 300 people at a time, enough room for each person to stand. The rooms did not have light or air circulation, as the “arsenal” had been built into a hill, underground. It can be assumed that there were no amenities: water, food, or other necessary facilities. People were caged, left to be tortured and to die. Outside the rooms lay a shallow pool of water. When the rooms were at capacity or when new “prisoners” needed to be admitted, the cell doors opened, and the prisoners were led to believe they could walk around. Once in the water, an electric current would be discharged, electrocuting all who stood in the pool.

Inside the rooms, the only things that remained were messages written on the walls, engravings, and bats. The guide claimed that the bats were the souls of those who died in the chambers, confined to the chambers as a result of their unjust deaths.

On Sunday, I moved to Gulu, a small municipality in the northern Uganda and former home of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). At the moment, Gulu is quiet and safe, and hasn’t experienced armed conflict or organized banditry in several years. However, the past is very real and the memories of the violence are very much alive in this community. Despite this, optimism that the conflict won’t return as it has so many times before permeates the town. Children race their tire tubes down the streets, the bodaboda discuss the talk of the town, and the women roast their corn on the side of the street. I guess we can be both astonished by the human capacity to commit atrocities and amazed by the resiliency and strength of a community to persevere.