The Queen is coming!!!

It has been almost 3 weeks since I have been back in Kampala and since that time the experiences have been filled with the tastes, sounds and scents of Uganda in all of its fullness.

It all began as my KLM flight landed from Amsterdam.  A rainstorm had just come and gone. The smell of rain rising from the warm tarmac permeated the air.  A long line of people moved toward a building separated from the normal airport.  The main building was being renovated for one of the most important events in the history of modern Uganda, “CHOGM” or in its full version “Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting.”

From the airport with its temporary immigration and baggage facility while the main terminal is being renovated to road leading to Kampala that is being re-paved, Uganda is preparing for coming of the head of the Commonwealth - the Queen. 

On the roads leading to Kampala, there’s a feeling of a feverish frenzy as hundreds of people beautify the Ugandan landscape.  You see men and women with machetes and hoes working on the side of the city streets preparing for that five day event when Uganda will showcase itself to the world.

Round-a-bouts have been removed; new traffic lights have been installed.  A new high-tech solar street light system, much to the chagrin of President Museveni, is not working thus enveloping portions of Entebbe Road in darkness!

Contractors’ heads are rolling if their jobs are not being completed on time!  Government officials keep stating over and over again in the press, that Uganda is ready for CHOGM and that Uganda embraces it and the 5000 delegates coming from all over the world and especially the Queen.

Never has there been so much paint been used in this country, but the soil, the red clay of Uganda, of Africa has a way of always leaving its mark.  A week later the red dust once again has covered all of the newly painted buildings with a light film reminding mere mortals such as myself that Africa’s earth is still there…no matter who is coming to Uganda, the red dust of its soil will still permeate all long after the Queen and the Heads of Governments have departed Uganda.

CHOGM fever is everywhere; even the Catholic Church in Uganda is urging its members to embrace this event.  One could think that Uganda’s future depends on this one event if you read the papers and listened to the news on radio and TV.

Many Ugandans are excited and hope for the best, the like some of the improvements taking place and are willing to put up with temporary inconveniences such as lengthy traffic jams that are the result of roadwork, road closures due to roadwork.  You cannot escape the construction everywhere, the sounds of it, the dust of it, it is simply there

All of it seems to be to the beat of and that beat goes on day after day ”CHOGM and The Queen is coming”  In all of this, I find that something is being overlooked.  That something has been lost in this intense process of beautifying Uganda.

Just this morning I spent a few hours with hundreds of children in Kampala.  Children who told me their stories of having lost father and mother, of living in circumstances beyond comprehension, and yet…There was always that smile on the face, there was that radiance and inner joy, there was a beauty that defied the ugliness that some were experiencing in their lives.

It came to me afresh this morning as I looked at the radiant faces of Ugandan children that this was where the real beauty of Uganda is to be found.  It was not in fresh paint, new asphalt or even more, newer and taller buildings.  The real beauty of Uganda was in its people.

What will impress the Queen and the Commonwealth Heads of Governments is not the fresh paint, not the fresh asphalt on the roads, but the heartfelt welcome of its people.  That inner beauty that becomes visible in the eyes of the children that I was with, those radiant faces that literally extend greetings of the heart. 

This morning there was a little boy by the name of Moses who had become ill.  I put him into the car and drove him home to where he lived.  We turned off the main road into a slum, nothing but a path, barely wide enough for my car.  When I could go no further, he told me that we there.  His older sister came out, a smile on her face…her words “your most welcome.”  I thanked her and soon thereafter drove back down the winding road through the slum reflecting on the genuineness of that greeting.

Uganda is being prepared for the coming of Commonwealth Heads of Governments, for the coming of the Queen…just maybe Uganda’s people have been ready all along…new flowers, new paint, new buildings, new street lights, new roads, new traffic lights…all very nice and very much appreciated….I just hope that the Queen will hear what I heard once again today…”You are most welcome” in its genuine way, that she might herself be reminded that at the end of the day…its always people over things… jon…by the way…have brought my suit in case the queen invites me…jon

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