Ernest Bazanye
This road from Jinja Road Police Station (where you go when your sins catch up with you) to UMA show grounds (where you go in October) is undergoing a makeover.
The Kampala Capital City Authoriy (KCCA) are planting these pretty gardens in the traffic islands. We have pretty grass, cute flowers and pretty cute black and white concrete slabs to prevent all but the blindest drivers from slamming into it and, in case I forgot to mention, a lot of prettiness and cuteness.
It warms the weary heart to behold such beauty as it pumps blood to the calf muscles which walk down that road.
Roses: And that heart has a lot to be weary about because the walk down that road is treacherous and mean and fraught with peril. It is everything that is the opposite of pretty and cute.
For example: Around Lugogo Stadium’s gate is what only the most cruel liar would call a pavement. It is just a lip of cracked murram which a snake would have trouble getting through.
Grown men often have to take this part of the journey on tip-toe and in the dark it is even worse, because you will not see the gulley you are about to fall into until you have already completed your descent.
You could just walk on the tarmac road itself, but drivers who are enjoying three lanes tend not to drive slowly. They could easily kill you and only apologise later when both it and you are too late.
Butterflies: The parts of this mbu-that-I-hear “sidewalk” which are not too thin for proper perambulation are still hazards to the foot. At last count there were three open manholes there, occurring at random. I think they actually move, because each time I dodge one, I am sure it was not at those coordinates the last time.
These holes look more sinister each night. I am positive we are about to see the hands from Hades shoot up out of them and grab passersby by the ankles.
Rainbows: The other side of the road is only slightly more pleasant. The same issues affect it — open manholes, jutting rocks, jagged gulleys and trenches, and the constant possibility that either a snake or a rapist will leap out of the shadows and attack you.
But as you struggle to survive the trip down this hill, you can look at the middle of the road and see the work of the KCCA; the flowers are so pretty, the grass is so cute. If it were not for the KCCA stormtroopers who, word warns us, will wrestle us down if we dare set a toe on their immaculate grass, we would love to walk to Nakawa on those gardens instead.
So, to recap: We have money being spent on flowers and grass which we do not remember asking for. But we have no money being spent on pavements which we actually need. Someone somewhere is not thinking things through.
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