Kanungu, the peculiar land

By Grace Matsiko in Kanungu After a gruelLing and unpredictable two-hour journey, the driver of the Silver Royal Coach pulled up in what seemed to be a wilderness at around 8:00 pm. I heard the conductor yelling, “aba Kanungu” in Runyankore literally meaning –– we have reached Kanungu. I was relieved to reach my destination after travelling on one of Uganda’s most awful roads. From Rukungiri to Kanungu one has to travel over a 15km long steep hill christened enengo. A story is told of an MP who travelled to Kanungu one time and almost beat up his chauffeur accusing him of intentionally trying to throw the vehicle off the cliff. The cramped road has very sharp corners. If there is an oncoming vehicle, the safest alternative is to stop and allow it to use the available space. People who travel to Kanungu have for years, survived on the mercy of God because one would have expected the heavily loaded vehicles, to tip off the side of the mountain, down into the gorge below. The vehicles are loaded with anything from cows, pigs,, goats, sheep, foodstuffs and smuggled goods, no matter what the size of the vehicle is. The sight of the escarpments makes one’s abdomen rebel in apprehension. It was by sheer luck that the driver of the heavily loaded coach I was travelling in was alert. The driver made several sudden halts on very dangerous spots as he laboured to change from weak to strong gears. At one such point, fear swept through the crowded coach with children screaming on top of their voices when the man at the wheel halted and the bus went backwards in the gear maneuver episode. A solitary metallic bridge links the district to its neighbours. Kanungu, which came into the national and international limelight after the leader of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God cult, Joseph Kibwetere, reportedly massacred about 1,000 of his followers in the area. According to the Kanungu LC 5 chairperson, Josephine Kasya, the residents appealed to the authorities to have the route by-passing the bad segment of the escarpments repaired, but engineers said that the enengo had soft soils which would not support the type of road works needed. The engineers also said the proposed project was very expensive. The Kibwetere incident and the remoteness of the area were some of the reasons advanced by the locals to convince the government to grant them a district, an official told The New Vision. Kanungu town has few shops on the mountain slopes. Near the district headquarters is a grass-covered path to Kibwetere’s cult centre. Business here starts at 10:00am and ends at 6:00 pm. There is one sub-standard lodge in town. The moderate one is run by Kinkizi Diocese as a guest house. Here a traveler expecting to get breakfast before 10.00pm should forget it. Newspaper vendors sell the papers a day late. Boda boda cyclists who have become a household name in almost every part of Uganda are a fairy tale in Kanungu. The only, option is to walk from the main road. I could not get accommodation in Kanungu town, so I was advised to travel to Butogota town, 30km away. From Kanungu to Butogota, there is one bus plying the route after every two days and sets off at 4:00 am. Butogota is a small but lively town, about 8km from the Uganda-Congo border. We arrived here at 9:00 pm, an hour to the official closure of business as directed by the Assistant RDC, Samuel Alimundabira, following reports of subversive acts. At 10:00 pm, we were holed up in mosquito-dingy–infested rooms. Before we retreated to our beds, I heard residents complaining of harassment by the UPDF forces and the LDUs deployed to enforce the night movement prohibition. At 10:15 pm, I slipped out of my room and on to the only deserted street. There, I met a number of soldiers on patrol who held me briefly. After pulling out my identity card, they ordered me to go and sleep. At 4.30am in the morning, we hit the road to Kanungu town. The journey was long. There were many people jumping in and out of the vehicle at every point. I disembarked from the bus at around 5:55 a.m. when the town was still deep asleep. Up to 8:00 a.m, save for the school children who criss-crossed the lone street, shops and restaurants had not opened. The civil servants at the district, report for duty as late as midday. Kasya said she is always in office by 8.00 a.m to encourage other workers to do the same. Telephone services and electricity are lacking. Locals who wish to make a telephone call travel for over 10 kms to an MTN phone booth. ends