Ng'aali Inflight Magazine Oct-Feb Edition(2020-21)

YOUR FREE COPY DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

Keepers Of The Forest AFRIGO BAND
The Batwa Of Uganda Tried, Tested and Timeless

NAIROBI • MOMBASA • MOGADISHU • JUBA • DAR ES SALAAM • KILIMANJARO • BUJUMBURA • ZANZIBAR



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CONTENTS 76

Contents
DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021
12 CEO’S NOTE

SPORTS
22 THE STATE OF GOLF IN UGANDA

REGULARS 74

20 BUSINESS TRAVELLER Innovation and the IOT
26 HOW I TRAVEL
74 ANIMAL KINGDOM The Shoebill
76 CELEBRITY PROFILE Trevor Noah
78 CUISINE The Ugandan Rolex
92 ROOM WITH A VIEW
100 TRENDS Classic Blue
104 NG’AALI KIDS
115 BOOKSHELF
112 ROUTES

100

6 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021



CONTENTS

DESTINATIONS 38

38 UGANDA
46 KENYA
52 ZAMBIA
56 JUBA
58 MOGADISHU
60 TANZANIA
64 SOUTH AFRICA
68 ZIMBABWE
72 BURUNDI

FEATURES

28 AFRIGO Uganda’s Most Popular Live Band
34 MAPPING TIME A Corona Virus Diary
80 KEEPERS OF THE FOREST
84 GORILLAS IN OUR MIDST
88 THE LORDS OF THE SAVANNAH’S FAMED BEADWORK
96 KIARA KABUKURU

GUIDES AND TIPS 84

101 TRAVEL PACKING TIPS & TRICKS
102 SAFARI PACKING LIST
103 TRAVEL HEALTH AND WEATHER CALENDAR
114 TRAVELLER REVIEW
116 TRAVEL GUIDE
118 TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS

YOUR FREE COPY DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021 Ng'aali, the name of our inflight magazine, is derived from the local Luganda
name of the Crested Crane, which is the national bird of the African nation of
Keepers Of The Forest AFRIGO BAND On The Cover: Uganda. It appears on the flag and Coat of Arms and can be found near the
The Batwa Of Uganda Tried, Tested and Timeless country’s many lakes and rivers.
Gorillas In Our Crested Cranes stand over 3 feet tall, with a wingspan of up to 6.5 feet. They live
NAIROBI • MOMBASA • MOGADISHU • JUBA • DAR ES SALAAM • KILIMANJARO • BUJUMBURA • ZANZIBAR Midst (Pg 84) up to 22 years, but hatch in 30 days and reach maturity in 3 years. These majestic
birds practise monogamy - they remain with the same breeding partner for life.
Literature has it that if one is widowed, they stay single until they die. They are
omnivores, so like humans, they eat both meat and plants.

8 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

Contributors

KALUNGI KABUYE MARK STRATTON MARK NAMANYA KENNETH MUHANGI
Kabuye is an award winning writer Stratton is a professional full-time This acclaimed sports journalist Muhangi is a Lecturer of IP and
and photographer, and has been travel writer and radio broadcaster. has won multiple awards in his ICT Law, Partner at KTA Advocates,
a journalist for more than 20 years. Through his photos and words field. A former President of Uganda award-winning author and trainer
He has been editor of several he strives to immerse himself Sports Press Association (USPA), in IP and ICT. He also advises the
magazines and newspapers in in the experiences of travel, to Namanya's command of the sports Ministry of ICT on innovation and
Uganda. communicate through vivid language is unrivalled. ICT policy development, and is a
narratives, to inspire and engage consultant with the World Bank.
readers.

SOLOMON OLENY SARAH MARSHALL HASSAN SSENTONGO MARK EVELEIGH
Oleny is a creative, self driven Inspired by nature and wild places, Ssentongo is a writer and editor. Eveleigh, a frequent visitor to
professional travel journalist. He has Marshall is a freelance travel writer He lives in Kampala, and currently Uganda, has contributed 750+
worked with CNN to profile tourism and photographer based in the serves as Creative Director at full-length features to 100+
in Uganda, and is a recipient of nine UK. She regularly visits Africa as Satisfashion UG, an online platform international publications,
Tourism Excellence Awards since the part of her work for the Tusk Trust that celebrates fashion. He is including BBC Wildlife, BBC Earth,
start of his journalism career in 2008. Conservation Awards. passionate about fashion and food. Geographical, National Geographic
Traveller and The Independent.

Publisher Dora Barungi Writers Sales Executives The views expressed in
Administrator Doreen Kabatesi Adele Cutler, Kenneth Muhangi, Atukwase Clare Murekyezi, Ng'aali are not necessarily
Mark Eveleigh, Kalungi Kabuye, Irene Kaitesi, Diana B. Tayebwa, those of the editor, staff or
DESIGN Sarah Marshall, Solomon Aggie Ninsiima, Peter Kusiima publishers.
Designer Esther Nabaasa Oleny, Mark Namanya, Hassan Ng'aali is the registered
Ssentongo, Sasha Martin, Mark Social Media Management trademark name of the
EDITORIAL Stratton Premier Advertising & Media Uganda Airlines inflight
Editorial Consultant Adele Cutler magazine.
Copy Editor Pamela Nyamato PHOTOGRAPHY Website Management
Web Editor Solomon Oleny Peter Hogel EBC - Epic Business Consult CONTACT US
www.ngaaliinflightmag.com
ADVERTISING AND SALES PUBLISHED BY: Tel: +256 782 555 213
Sales & Marketing Director Address
Richard Senkwale Acacia Mall, 4th floor

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 9





CEO’s

Note

elcome aboard Uganda Airlines! I greet you at a time
when the impact of the coronavirus and the multiple
government travel restrictions are being felt throughout
the world. It is no surprise that our industry has been hit
the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic having had airports,
borders and markets closed since March 2020.
After six months of flight suspension, we are back in the skies,
fired up and ready to reclaim lost time on what we set out to
achieve in our strategic plan. We remain committed in our quest
to connect Uganda to the rest of Africa and the world and to make
Uganda Airlines your favourite world class airline.
We resume operations with COVID-19 still active, which calls for
concerted efforts from all of us to manage and stop it from spreading.
At Uganda Airlines, we are committed to keeping passengers safe and
healthy through strict adherence to approved Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs), in compliance with national and international
guidelines for safe air travel.
We appeal to our passengers to abide by the guidelines issued by airports
across the world, which include the wearing of face masks, temperature
checks at various points, frequent sanitisation of hands, and social
distancing as far as possible. Passengers will also be required to present to
us proof of a negative PCR test result for COVID-19 before being processed for boarding. The test
must have been taken no more than 72 hours prior to the date of the planned flight, from a health
facility accredited by the host government from which the first flight is taken.
As we restart our flights, we are conscious that the health crisis has affected demand for air travel
and so we have adjusted our schedules and frequencies. However, we shall continue to add more
flights to meet your needs. As we make these changes, we shall endeavor to inform you ahead of
time through our website, facebook page, twitter handles and our network of sales offices and travel
agents, so that our passengers can plan and book their journeys with us.
Uganda Airlines continues to be about our travellers. We will continue to offer you a welcoming,
friendly and courteous customer experience across all our touch points from the first contact and
booking, through ticketing, check-in, on-board service, arrival and post arrival processes. Our
schedules are designed to offer you convenience and flexibility across our growing regional network
and we will continue with our plan to add more cities to our network including Johannesburg,
Lusaka, Harare, Kinshasa, Goma, Lubumbashi, Khartoum, Kigali, Addis Ababa and others.
We are looking forward to receiving our two Airbus A330-800neo aircraft in December 2020 and
January 2021, to be used to launch inter-continental flights to Europe (London), Asia (Guangzhou)
and the Middle East (Dubai). Our systems are being upgraded to allow for global connectivity and
the implementation of a framework of alliances, interlines and codeshare with partners across the
industry. Even after COVID-19, our shareholders continue to support and invest in the business and
we are well positioned for the future.
Thank you for making Uganda Airlines your airline of choice and we look forward to being of
service to you again soon. Please sit back, relax and enjoy your flight with us.

Cornwell Muleya
CEO Uganda Airlines

12 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021







Uganda’s First

3 Tesla MRI

The country’s first 3 Tesla magnetic resonance scanner MRIs use a magnetic field and radio waves to create
(MRI) for clinical use is now available in Kampala at cross-sectional images of anatomy. The magnet strength
Ruby Medical Center on Lugogo Bypass. is the key to image clarity - the stronger the magnet, the
The MRI brings with it important tools to help physicians clearer the image. The strength of the magnet iN a 3T
improve the accuracy of diagnoses and treatment of MRI is so high compared to magnets that pick-up junk
broad categories of diseases including stroke, brain cars. The latter have a strength of about 1.5T compared
tumours, epilepsy, musculoskeletol and heart disease. to the 3T, which is 60,000 times as powerful as the earth’s
magnetic field.
With a magnet strength of 3 Tesla or 3T, the new MRI is
the most powerful scanner available to patients today in The new scanner will also allow radiologists at the
routine clinical use. The technology used has been Medical Center to introduce a relatively new type of
eagerly awaited by physicians in the region, who often imaging called Funtional MRI, or fMRI. fMRI allows
refer patients to India or even Europe for more physicians to non-invasively conduct “brain mapping” or,
sophisticated imaging when the need arises. pinpoint to millimeters, areas of the brain that
generate specific actions like speech or movement. This
Dr William k. Olwit, a radiologist at the Medical Center, information is critical when planning any type of brain
compares the images produced by the 3T scanner to how surgery (for epilepsy or tumours, among others) that may
people might view a television show on an ultra-high impact brain tissue near vital movement or thought
definition television. It is this precise imagingthat will areas.
help physicians pinpoint disease at the earliest, especially
for certain types of cancers. Ruby Medical Center is now home to one of the most
advanced imaging available in the region.In addition to
“The outstanding image quality captured by the 3T MRI the 3T MRI, the facility also houses a CT Scanner,
will help to provide more accurate and timely diagnoses, digital X-Ray and a state-of-the-art Ultrasound.
quicker scans for patients, less likelihood of rescans, and
allow us to introduce new important services such as
Funtional Imaging,” he says.







BUSINESS TRAVELLER

&INNOVATION
the Internet of Things

Words by Kenneth Muhangi

“Google and Facebook
algorithms not only know
exactly how you feel, they
also know a myriad of other
things about you that you
hardly suspect. Consequently,
you should stop listening
to your feelings and start
listening to these external
algorithms instead. Whereas
humanism commanded:
‘Listen to your feelings!’
Dataism now commands:
‘Listen to the algorithms! They
know how you feel, when.”

― Yuval Noah Harari,
Sapiens: A Brief History of
Humankind

T he proliferation of the development world-over. and other end-devices on a communications
internet has ushered in This interoperability is what is now network. Along with advanced data
an age where we are all analytics, IoT-enabled devices and sensors
dependent on technology referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). are being used to do things such as diagnose
to think for us and carry out even IoT is the use of intelligently connected communicable and non-communicable
the minutest of tasks. While the devices and systems to harness data. This diseases, reduce air pollution, improve crop
internet has in most cases brought data is gathered by non-intrusive sensors yield, and eliminate traffic jam in large
about a number of challenges, and actuators in machines and other objects cities.
therein also lies a myriad of which, when connected to the internet
opportunities. via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other networks, In Spain for example, a citywide Wi-Fi
Confronting these challenges aggregate data that can be used to improve and information network linked to sensors,
requires political will as well as a all facets of life. software and a data analytics platform,
new approach to utilise the internet enabled the city of Barcelona to provide
and innovative technology not The Internet of Things essentially brings smart water technology, automated street
only for profit making and social together advanced software with sensors
connection, but for the good of
the human race. The link between
the internet and the devices that
simplify our lives is one such
connection that is now being
explored to spur human and social

20 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

BUSINESS TRAVELLER

lighting, remote controlled water irrigation in green spaces and In the energy sector, Fenix in Uganda launched ReadyPay
water fountains, “on-demand” waste pickups, digital bus routes, Power, an expandable, lease-to-own solar home system that
smart parking metres, and more. provides lighting, phone charging, TV, and radio; it is financed
to low income homes through affordable installments over
In South Korea, the emerging smart city of Songdo is being MTN mobile money.
built around expansive IoT networks designed to ensure that
its buildings, transportation system and infrastructure are as In Agriculture, the backbone of Uganda’s economy, IoT can
efficient as possible, helping to optimise its resources. be harnessed to develop smarter ways to increase crop yield and
develop more drought resistant crops. In Israel for example, IoT
In London, where up to 9,000 deaths per year are attributed has combined advanced cameras, sensors, weather stations and
to air pollution, Drayson Technologies has been testing the use artificial intelligence, to help farmers respond quickly to signs
of trouble such as crop disease, while boosting productivity by
of networked air quality sensors that are distributed to bicycle as much as a third.
couriers and a fleet of fuel-cell cars. The sensors, which transmit
data to smartphones via Bluetooth, allow the creation of real- In the medical sector, IoT has been used to help doctors gain
time maps showing air pollution levels around the city. faster access to health-related data from patients, collected
through continuous monitoring and measurement. Wearable,
In Oakland, California, an environmental sensing startup internet-connected sensor devices that track heart rate, pulse, or
called Aclima, partnered with Google, EDF and researchers even blood pressure are increasingly affordable, compact and
from UT Austin to create a highly detailed block-by-block map accurate.
of air pollution, using a fleet of Google Street View vehicles
carrying specialised sensors. Increasingly, technology is also helping doctors and other
healthcare workers monitor the day-to-day well-being of
patients who live independently. Sensors mounted throughout
the home, or in-home robotic assistants can alert caretakers via
text if, say, an elderly patient under their care has not taken
their medicine on a given day, or left the bedroom by a set time.

In 2015, during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Scripps
Translational Science Institute eased Ebola detection by using
integrated sensors to track heart rate, blood oxygen saturation,
respiration rate and body temperature.

In cancer treatment, those that detect lumps at the earliest
stand a better chance of suppressing it. IoT has been used to
track changes in temperature in breast tissue over time through
non-intrusive sensors implanted in the breast. The data is
transmitted wirelessly to the user’s mobile phone and shared
securely with a patient’s healthcare provider. By applying
machine learning and predictive analytics to this data, doctors
can identify and classify abnormal patterns indicative of early
stage breast cancer.

In Uganda, Malaria is combated with the m-Health
application to quickly and cheaply diagnose Malaria using
mobile phones.

The possibilities for utilising IoT are limitless. But, with
internet penetration at 41% in Uganda, there is still a lot
to be done to facilitate innovation. The Government has
taken commendable steps to improve penetration and spur
innovation through projects like the National ICT Initiatives
Support Programme (NIISP), which was created to facilitate the
creation of an ICT Innovation ecosystem and marketplace for
Ugandan innovative digital products.

NIISP primarily aims at facilitating the growth and
development of software applications and the innovations
industry.

It is imperative that we constantly seek and discover ways of
utilising IoT if we are to keep up with the rest of the world.

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 21

SPORTS

22 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

In the past, Program for both inaugural edition of
almost every girls and boys to the tournament. While
non-golfer enhance and empower the there, the former Uganda
in Uganda would profess that pool of youngsters playing the Golf Union President, Innocent
the game was ‘for the rich’; too game. It was thus rewarding when Kihika, was elected Chairman of the
expensive to take up, with subtleties the National Junior Golf team made Africa Golf Region IV.
that made it difficult for some interested history by finishing second overall behind The Burundi victory was followed by
individuals to try out. Unlike most sports, South Africa in the All-Africa Junior Golf another one against Kenya in the two-
there are many inherent challenges Challenge. This runner up slot was enough nation Victoria Cup tournament that was
one must work their way around to to guarantee Uganda a slot at the 2019 played at the par-72 Uganda Golf Club
start hitting the game of sticks and balls. Toyota World Cup in Japan. course at Kitante.
However, today, more Ugandans are The Gems Cambridge International- Until last year, Kenya had claimed all
starting to take up the game all over the sponsored team comprised Joel Basalaine, three editions of the competition winning
country. Such a development can only Denis Asaba, Michael Alunga and 13.5-12.5 points in 2016, 14-12 in 2017 and
brighten the future of the game, for the Ibrahim Aliga. Although the team didn’t 19.5-6.5 in 2018. This time around, Uganda,
best golfers in the world were either make a big impression in Japan, Coach desperate not to lose a fourth straight
discovered young or took up the game at Stephen Kasaija’s youngsters showed the Victoria Cup, put up a resilient and dogged
an early age. world that the game is taking baby steps performance for a 14-12 triumph.
The Uganda Golf Union has made a in the right direction. With golf now recognised by the
deliberate effort to expand the Juniors Today, some of the leading amateur International Olympic Committee, and
golfers in the country are Joseph Japan 2020 going to stage the game four
Cwinya-ai, who was indisputably the best years after Rio de Janeiro successfully
in the country last year, Godfrey Nsubuga, hosted the first version of Olympic golf
Daniel Baguma and Rodell Gaita. The in 112 years, the news that the National
four were instrumental in guiding Council of Sports had awarded the Uganda
Uganda to victory in the Africa Region Golf Union their certificate couldn’t have
IV Golf Tournament held at the par-71 come at a better time.
Bujumbura Golf Club course in June Golf has not been benefiting from the
2019. The victory was Uganda’s second national cake, but that is because the game
in a row after the 2018 triumph at Nyali had not been cleared for the mandatory
Golf Club in Mombasa, which was the certificate from the government arm of
sports in the country. In August, 2019,
the team competed at the All Africa
Golf Championship but finished in
fourth place.
Yet again, Joseph Cwinya-ai was at the
forefront as he produced the best score at
the Mont Choisy Le Golf Course in Port
Louis, Mauritius.
Meanwhile, female golfers hosted the
5th edition of the East and Central Africa
Regional Challenge trophy at Entebbe

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 23

SPORTS UGU President on the
state of golf in Uganda
Golf Club in October 2019, but Tanzania was heads and
shoulders above her neighbours. They outlasted Uganda 40-year-old Moses Matsiko was elected the new President of the Uganda
by 26 shots to relegate her to second place with Kenya Golf Union, replacing the outgoing Innocent Kihika. He has set his eyes on
settling for third. Uganda was represented by Irene growing the game at the grassroots level.
Nakalembe, Martha Babirye, veteran Gloria Mbaguta
and Peace Kabasweka. The four lost to the Tanzanian As a father to an 8-year-old son, Banza, who is already showing huge
quarter of Iddi Madina, Angel Eaton, Neema Olomi and promise, it is easy to see why Matsiko has a special affection for junior golf.
Hawa Wanyeche.
Banza Matsiko plays off handicap 24 and his father, who plays off
The Uganda Ladies Golf Union is still searching for the handicap 5, knows Banza’s future in the game is well ahead of him.
next Flavia Namakula, whose skills couldn’t be used in
the competition after she turned professional. The next Matsiko believes that only nurturing and monitoring a generation of child
Namakula can only emerge from the juniors, but this golfers will stand the game in good stead.
requires patience, dedication and sustained training for
young female golfers. “When youngsters master the game early on, they hone their skills perfectly
and by the time they peak, they can match the best from anywhere. It is our
With the Lake Victoria Serena Golf Resort & Spa now belief as the management of the Uganda Golf Union that we must put a lot
an 18-hole course, local golfers can have a feel of what of emphasis on this because it’s the logical thing to do.”
a world-class course looks like. The putting greens are
a beauty, fairways smooth, and the hazards a creation Matsiko served on the previous executive of the Union as manager of the
of magnificence - when you aren’t falling in the water. national team and union competitions, and believes there is a lot of goodwill
Legendary Kenyan golfer Dismas Indiza told Ng’aali that from stakeholders for the game to go places.
he was in awe of the Serena Kigo.
He is keen on enacting measures to raise the level of the women’s
“I rank it among the best five courses I have played on in game and says they deserve an equal opportunity. Likewise, he believes
Africa,” Indiza observed in September 2019, shortly after professional golfers can be supported to raise their competitive levels
finishing fourth in the Uganda Golf Open. against their rivals from Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

With Serena, Kihiihi, Kasese, Entebbe, Lugazi and A member of Mbarara Golf Club, Kihiihi, Palm Valley, Entebbe and Uganda
Kitante, Uganda now has six 18-hole golf courses. Only Golf Club, he is advocating for a close working relationship amongst clubs all
Kihiihi and Kasese are located in far-flung areas of the over the country for he believes golfers are a ‘close-knit family.’
country, but there are other 9-hole courses in places
like Arua, Jinja, Tororo, Mbale, Mbarara and Lira. The “You may have noticed that some of the best amateur players in the
addition of the Uganda, Kitante and Entebbe Opens to country are from upcountry clubs, which is why I think we must work hard to
the Safari Tour of professional golfers in the region has uplift all clubs, particularly the ones furthest from Kampala.”
undoubtedly gone a long way in elevating the standard of
the game in the country. This year, the Union received a Certificate of Compliance from the National
Council of Sports (NCS) and Matsiko believes the government’s recognition
Brian Toolit, one of the Ugandan professionals on the of the sport will herald a new era.
tour, is convinced it leaves professional golf in a better
state. “The competition gives us a unique challenge of “When you have the government on your side, everything becomes more
playing among top golfers with varying techniques in or less solved because we can do with funding, support for the development
the region,” he told Ng’aali. “We get to play on some of side of the game, course preservation and maintenance, and so much more.”
the best courses in Kenya and also against golfers who
have played all over the world - we get to learn from the He also hopes to grow the profile of the Seniors Golf Society. “Seniors
best out there.” contributed to the present-day game and we must remember that we will
be seniors one day, so the competitiveness and vibrancy of their society is a
The Safari Tour events include Nyali Club in Mombasa, logical thing to foster.”
Royal Club in Nairobi, Muthaiga, Thika Greens and
Sigona, to go along with rounds at Entebbe, Kitante and
the Uganda Open.

Golf, or any other sport for that matter, has never
been harmed by efforts to invest at the grassroots level.
As Zambian professional Muthiya Madalitso observed
after winning last year’s Uganda Open Professionals title,
“You must have in place a committed and structured
children’s program to build a bunch of young golfers who
can grow into a formidable bunch when they mature.”
There are no short cuts to success, and the Uganda Golf
Union is aware.

24 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021



trHaovweI l Babra Adoso

Babra is the Chief Executive Officer of MICE Uganda, a full service

Incentive Travel House specializing in Incentive Travel and Meetings

Planning as a Professional Conference Organizer (PCO) and Destination

Management Company (DMC).

What is your favorite destination in the world?
I have many but some of the ones that top my list are:
Santorini in Greece, Sibenik in Croatia, Casablanca in
Morocco and Singapore.
What is your favourite Ugandan dish and why?
Here too I have a few - I love matooke, kalo (millet bread) with
smoked fish in roasted peanut paste and greens, locally called
eboo in my language.
What particular item can’t you imagine travelling without?
My hand luggage into which I chuck a number of necessities,
my passport and credit card or cash.

Robert Lakin

Lakin is the Principal/CEO of Gems Cambridge International School,
Uganda. GEMS is a worldwide brand that has successfully nurtured
over 152,000 students in its respective campuses in Kenya, Malaysia,
Singapore, UAE, USA and Great Britain; GEMS truly is an international
global leader of education, fulfilling the mission of providing quality
learning to every child.

What is your favourite destination in the world?
My favourite place is Zanzibar, as it is where one of my
favourite music legends (Freddie Mercury) grew up. Secondly,
it gave me a first taste of life in Africa. That was about 10
years ago, a visit during which I was fortunate to stay at
a tranquil resort on the beach of Stone Town, Zanzibar’s
main city.
What is your favourite Ugandan dish and why?
Sweet potatoes, beans and chicken stew! I am not really a
fan of matooke (green bananas), having eaten a stable diet of
bananas for over 10 years. This was back in the day when I
was still an active rugby player.
What particular item can’t you imagine travelling without?
I have a red thermal hoodie that I always take with me when I
am flying. It is a perfect substitute for bulky suits. It’s so old
and getting worn out but I can’t imagine life without it, for
nostalgic reasons. I bought it in Paris on a very cold day out
with my wife and daughters.

26 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

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ENTERTAINMENT

Uganda’s most popular live band

Words by Kalungi Kabuye rehearsal, and the management (Sam Kawalya and John Below:
Words by Kalungi Kabuye Clyde Mayanja) had an announcement to make. “We’re The Cranes Band
sorry, but we’re closing the band. Things are not going as
I n April 1979, if you had asked smoothly as we want,” Matovu remembers Kawalya telling in the early 70s.
Moses Matovu the prospects of the them. “It came as a shock to us; we didn’t know what to do. Members were later
survival of Afrigo Band, he would We had been playing together for a long time, we were like to form Afrigo Band
probably have told you that they family. Where would we all go?”
were very low. It was a chaotic
time in Uganda after President Idi
Amin lost the war against Tanzania and
Ugandan exiles. Long suffering Ugandans
expressed their suppressed frustrations
and anger in an orgy of looting. Afrigo did
not survive unscathed.

“Because we had been playing at Cape
Town Villas, one of President Amin’s
favourite spots, all our instruments were
looted,” Matovu remembers. “We were left
with nothing - not even a guitar or a set of
drums. I believed then that it was the end
of the band.”

More than four decades later, Afrigo
is very active and arguably the country’s
most popular live band; a testimony of its
enduring ability to survive. It has been
a journey of surviving incredible odds
- reaching incredible heights of success,
then down to record lows, and up again!
They have seen band members murdered,
others fled the country into exile, and
others left to form their bands - but Afrigo
has survived.

By 1974, the Cranes Band was one
of the most popular in the land. There
was a rivalry with the then Tames Band,
led by Peterson Mutebi, but Cranes
was the people’s favourite. And then
disaster struck.

One day, in April of the same year, the
band members gathered for a regular

28 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021



ENTERTAINMENT Above: Moses Matovu

The ‘senior’ members of the band - Matovu, Charles They didn’t want to stop playing
Sekyanzi and Jeff Sewava - decided they would continue at Bat Valley since the proprietor
playing on their own. But how was a band without had been there for them through the
instruments going to operate? This was in 1974 when hard times. But nobody said no to
President Amin’s Economic War was in full swing, Amin. And they had to keep in mind
which meant that everything was either in short supply that one of the band members, Jesse
or not available. Indian traders, who owned all the music Kasirivu, lover to President Amin’s
stores, had been kicked out of the country; there were no future wife Sarah, had ‘disappeared’.
instruments to buy.

But, like it would happen every time the band was
seemingly at the bottom, a way out presented itself.
Uganda was due to host the OAU summit in 1975 and
President Amin bought new musical instruments for all
the bands that played at hotels where the delegates would
be staying. That meant that those bands’ old instruments
were available to be bought.

With their ‘new-old’ instruments, they started
rehearsing. They had to come up with a name, and
Matovu’s Africa Go Black Power took the day. “The 1970s
were times of Pan Africanism and activism, so it was
natural for us young men to choose a name that reflected
that,” says long-time Director James Wasula.

On November 5, 1975, the band played at Bat Valley
Bar and Restaurant for the first time. The audience easily
took to them because they had seen them play with the
Cranes Band. The name Africa Go Black Power was a
mouthful and was eventually trimmed to Afrigo. Then
came the gig at Cape Town Villas that would lead to their
instruments being looted.

As Matovu tells it, a friend that used to work at Cape
Town Villas arranged for the band to play on Sundays.
One Sunday, President Amin, who was at the poolside,
heard them play.“He enjoyed the music and we were
immediately informed that entertaining at the Cape
Town Villas was a permanent job,” says Matovu.

They didn’t want to stop playing at Bat Valley since
the proprietor had been there for them through the
hard times. But nobody said no to Amin. And they had
to keep in mind that one of the band members, Jesse
Kasirivu, lover to President Amin’s future wife Sarah,
had ‘disappeared’.

The gig turned out to be quite successful because there
were not that many places then that sold beer; up to
20,000 people turned up whenever Afrigo was playing.
There were some very unnerving moments, especially
when President Amin walked in unannounced and
wanted to play with them. “Amin would simply walk
in and ask to play the accordion,” Matovu says. “No
one dared instruct him which key to play. There were
times he simply ordered you to play a song you had not
rehearsed.”

Then came the war, and the band was back to
square one, without any instruments. Wasula and
other directors decided to buy whatever instruments

30 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021



ENTERTAINMENT

Left:
Joanita Kawalya

performing with

the Afrigo Band

Right:
Rachel Magoola

(centre), with
Afrigo dancers
Jacinta Wamboka
(left) and Sarah

Nansikombi
(right)

they could find on the black market. “It them to play at President Yoweri Museveni’s then Uganda
was laughable,” Matovu says, “Most of the Patriotic Movement (UPM) rallies. “Experience had taught us
instruments that we bought were ours – the not to get involved in politics, and the band did not compose
same instruments that were stolen from us. any political songs,” says Wasula. But the tough times caught
Uganda was a controversial country in those up with the band, yet again. Most of them were arrested and
days.” imprisoned during the Obote II regime. At one time, all the
band members were arrested and it took the intervention of
In December 1979, Afrigo started playing at Gen. Oyite Ojok, who was their fan, to get them released.
Slow Boat Bar over the weekends. Because of the
security situation then, they would play from It was not until late 1986 that the good times returned
2pm to 8pm - it was not safe for anyone to stay for the band; they went back to perform at Bat Valley, now
out late into the night. “We went from playing renamed Little Flowers. The country’s top musicians, most
to a crowd of 20,000 people to less than 50,” returning from exile, played with the band. Those were heady
Matovu says. days, and the song Afrigo Batuuse was an apt celebration of
the good times and sense of freedom that prevailed.
The 1980 elections provided the band with an
opportunity when Ruhakana Rugunda hired But again, disaster struck. The band was too big and their
success led to a breakup that resulted in two separate bands
“It was laughable...most - Afrigo I and Afrigo 2. They were fighting for the same
audience. Eventually, only the core of the band remained, and
of the instruments that they moved to Fairway Hotel for a forgettable period.
we bought were ours
– the same instruments The band went through an unsettled phase, playing at
that were stolen from different places like Sheraton Hotel, then Ggaba Beach and
Calendar Guest House in Makindye. They eventually settled
us. Uganda was a at House of Entertainment at Crested Towers for another
controversial country in golden period that lasted from 1993 to the year 2000, when it
moved to Club Obligato on 2nd Street, Industrial Area.
those days.
Over the years, many members left, and only Matovu
” remains of the original band. He is joined by Saidi Kasule,
one of the original members of Cranes Band in the early 70s.
32 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021 Joanita Kawalya and Rachel Magoola joined in the 80s and are
still with the band.

Afrigo Band made it full circle in 2009 when it moved
back to Little Flowers, renamed the New Club Obligato. On
weekends, Uganda’s longest surviving band can be found
here, playing its unique ‘semadongo’ sound.

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DIARY

MAPPING

TIMEA Corona Virus Diary

The start of global lockdown (March 2020) found me
in Charlottesville, Virginia. A graduate student, I was
knee-deep in thesis work and could not appreciate
the sentiments of those – expressed via Twitter – for
whom time seemed to be playing a trick. Vanishing.
But once the semester was over, and once I’d handed
my students’ grades in, things started to change. My
labours behind me, I began to have the sensation that
I was a complete blank: that my mind was empty, the
days – which often I couldn’t fully recall – were empty,
and the only time I remembered I existed in a physical
way was when I felt pain somewhere in my body. It
felt like I was just an empty apartment of flesh.

Words by Khaddafina Mbabazi

34 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

I would only begin to understand DIARY
what was happening – that time had
disappeared from me, too – when one year old Canadian ice shelf that just melted into
evening, a fed-up friend rang me and the Arctic; and the bushfires that destroyed 18
said these words: “There’s just no end in sight.” million hectares of Australian land, and a billion
She was lamenting, but she had also unwittingly of its animals.
worked something out on my behalf, something
I had been attempting to resolve: the problem To brood over this – this incineration of life, is
with this time, what I’ve taken to calling to see that here be dragons indeed.
Pandemic Time, is that it arouses the sense that
we are living not just in something unknown, It is August now. And for the moment –
but in something without edges or borders. A perhaps by crossing time zones or swapping one
world, to borrow from the Book of Common clime for another (the wet and heavy heat of
Prayer, “without end”. Virginia, for the more charitably cool Kampala)
– time has returned to me. (Or maybe, if I may
Something to think about borrow from the Polish writer Bruno Schulz, I
am once more aware of “the passage of (my) own
We contemporary humans are natural private time.”)
cartographers. Each day, around the world, we
make maps of our daily lives using a variety of Speaking of writers, I can’t help but also think
tools: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, of the Argentine Borges who, in 1941, wrote
Tiktok. We have continued to do this – I imagine an essay about time (“Circular Time”). Writes
we’re doing more of it – throughout this crisis. Borges: “I tend to return eternally to the Eternal
But if one were to map this inchoate world – the Return.” There’s a larger point to be gleaned here,
vast and borderless world of Pandemic Time – and I’ll come to it later, but I’ve been thinking
what would one name it? Terra Incognita? As about Schulz and Borges because I’ve been
an idea this feels insufficient somehow – to reading (as well as thinking about) books. Earlier,
me at least. But I think the impulse to borrow I mentioned how we contemporary humans
from ancient Roman cartography is a useful map our lives, map time, using social media. But
one. Because unlike we – modern people with our ancestors mapped their lifetimes with the
the knowledge of so much of the world at our tools of their time. I’m not thinking of history
fingertips – these ancient mapmakers ran books, but of art and literature. To understand
into the problem of unexplored lands more something of a Nigerian woman’s experience of
frequently and so developed a lexicon to denote the 20th Century, one could read history books,
them. There is another phrase that cartographers sure, but one could also read Buchi Emecheta
used on maps of the unknown: hic sunt leones. (perhaps beginning with The Slave Girl, a novel
Here be lions (or: here be danger). In the early set in Nigeria during the time of the Spanish Flu).
16th Century, this idea underwent a mythical Similarly, to fathom the ways in which apartheid
mutation when it was borrowed by European deformed both its victims and its perpetrators,
cartographers for the Hunt-Lenox Globe. There, one would do well to go beyond the history books,
on the southeast coast of Asia, one finds a and to step into the work of Nadine Gordimer. A
different inscription: hic sunt dracones. Here year ago, reading Thomas Mofolo’s works for the
be dragons. first time, I wondered what they might tell us
about the Basotho of that age. History is a map of
As I write this – the dead are nearing 800,000. time, but so is literature.
Of the living, over 19 million have contracted the
virus. There are those who have recovered – 13 I wonder, then, what literature this modern
million of them – but scores of them, on online pandemic will beget. More precisely: what fiction
forums, mark their post-virus lives as terrains or poetry. Elizabethan England suffered its
of damage, of suffering, and of psychological share of plagues and produced two writers who
unease. We are many months in, with no vaccine, dealt differently with that reality. On the one
and no end in sight. And let’s not forget the hand, the playwright and poet Thomas Nashe,
myriad other singularities of 2020: the explosion who in 1592 penned the poem “A Litany in Time
in Beirut; the billion-locust plague destroying of Plague”:
East African crops; another plague, both old and
new – the plague of anti-Blackness; the 4,000 This is a poem that gazes directly at the plague
and yields to it (“I am sick, I must die”). On
the other hand, there is William Shakespeare,
whose work doesn’t yield to the reality of
plague at all, and instead gazes away from it.
(I bring Shakespeare up partly because much

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 35

DIARY

ADIEU, farewell, earth’s bliss; of Pandemic Time. No surprise there. “We
This world uncertain is; go to literature”, says Ben Okri, “for that
Fond are life’s lustful joys; which speaks to us in time and outside time.”
Death proves them all but toys; The same can be said for other art forms.
I am sick, I must die. Presently, I’m in thrall to Middlemarch, the
Lord, have mercy on us! 19th Century beauty by the novelist George
Eliot. An early passage reads: “Certainly these
Rich men, trust not wealth, men who had so few spontaneous ideas might
Gold cannot buy you health; be very useful members of society under
Physic himself must fade. good feminine direction.” At a time when
All things to end are made, the world feels besieged by male populists
The plague full swift goes by; (Tanzania, Brazil, Britain, the US, the list
I am sick, I must die goes on) this sentiment feels apposite. But it is
Lord have mercy on us! also simply funny. Like Middlemarch itself, it
brings me joy.
was made of Shakespeare in the early days
of lockdown, and on his productivity during Something else: like many a spectator
16th Century quarantine. You remember the around the globe, I’ve gobbled up the
tweets – Shakespeare wrote King Lear during television series I May Destroy You. A
quarantine. What are you doing, you lazy creation of British Ghanaian actress and
dunce? – as well as the inevitable backlash these writer Michaela Coel, it is a deep and complex
tweets produced.) consideration of sexual consent amongst
millennials (though it is also more than
So far, I’ve come across a smatter of pandemic this). What I admired most about it was its
poetry penned by writers from across Africa dispensing with this fidelity to moral purity
and the globe. Published in a literary journal that’s in vogue now and that’s unrealistic in
based out of Kampala, the poems have provided daily, lived life, as well as deforming in art. If
me with comic relief more than anything you find yourself stuck in Pandemic Time
else. I’m yet to read any of the pandemic and trying to escape– I highly recommend
fiction in this same journal, but I intend to. these two major cultural artefacts.
Just as I intend to read The New York Times
Magazine’s Decameron Project, in which 29 Let me return, briefly and one last time,
authors – several prolific African ones among to Borges, as well as to the question of time.
them – have authored stories “inspired by the When Borges wrote “Circular Time” in 1941,
moment”. I suspect most will take the Nashean two great plagues were marching forth:
route – penning worlds of pandemic horror – Nazism and The Second World War. In the
but I’m more curious to read those works that essay, Borges opines that time is circular, that
tread through the present terrain more lightly. what has been will be again, and that this is
a good thing. “In times of ascendancy,” he
There is another reason why art and writes, “the conjecture that man’s existence
literature are at the forefront of my mind. In is a constant, unvarying quantity can sadden
addition to travel, certain cultural artefacts or irritate us; in times of decline (such as
helped to lift me out of the horrid emptiness the present), it holds out the hope that no
ignominy, no calamity, no dictator, can
impoverish us.” This is Borges in 1941, but it
is also the author (or authors) of Ecclesiastes,
thousands of years before Borges, and
hundreds of years before Christ.

That there is, to quote my friend, “no end
in sight” does not mean there is no end at all.
That the dragon looms over us, still, is a fact
not a fate. Time will disappear again. But we
can be sure it will return.

This article was first published by
www.voxpopuli.ug

36 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021



Panoramic view of a crater lake in the Rwenzori Region of Uganda, near Kibale

DESTINATION UGANDA

38 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

DESTINATION UGANDA

PearlTrulythe
oAf frica

Spanning the equator with an irresistibly beautiful landscape of sun-dappled
savannah, tangled forests and great lakes, Uganda is famous as one of Africa’s
greatest safari destinations. Mark Eveleigh crosses the equator (several times) to

experience the great diversity of ‘The Pearl of Africa’.
Words by Mark Eveleigh

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 39

DESTINATION UGANDA

S itting at a cafe six directions depending on where you stand,”
kilometres south of says a young man who’s beckoning me
Entebbe, I am fleetingly from beside the whitewashed arch that’s
wondering whether it will marked ‘N’ and ‘S’.
be more effective to stir my
While the phenomenon, known as
strong Ugandan coffee in a clockwise or the Coriolis Effect, is very real, scientists
claim that it is weakest at the equator and
counterclockwise direction. that the experiment appears to function
merely because of the shape or tilt of the
I realise that I’m pondering the same basins. There is another myth that it’s
possible to balance an egg on a nail as long
sort of senseless questions that a visit to as you are standing absolutely on the
equator but, take my word for it, you can
the equator provokes no matter where you scramble a lot of eggs trying it no matter
where you are on the planet.
are. The equator bisects the landmasses
Nevertheless, there’s a definite
of eleven countries (seven African), thrill in standing with one foot in each
hemisphere and few visitors can resist a
and Uganda’s equator monument

abounds with the same pseudo-scientific

experiments that I’ve seen at several

others in South America and Asia.

“We’ve got basins set up so that you

can see how the water drains in opposite

photo opportunity here. But then Uganda
has more than its share of spectacular
geographical claims-to-fame. If Entebbe
often strikes first-time visitors to this
landlocked African country as a ‘beach
town’, it’s for a good reason; it’s built on
a sort of peninsula in Lake Victoria, the
world’s second-biggest lake (after Lake
Superior).

Uganda is also home to the spot where
the world’s longest river, the Great River
Nile – father of African Rivers – begins its
record-breaking 6,650km journey to the
Mediterranean Sea.

For anyone with a fascination for
geography, and let’s face it, the subject is
an obsession of almost every keen traveller

40 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

DESTINATION UGANDA

Opposite page: The Uganda Equator
Top, Left and Bottom: Beautiful shots of
The Rwenzori Mountains
Extreme Bottom: A silverback gorilla in
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

– Uganda is hard to beat. Who can resist from Rwanda at the start of a month-long
the spark of adventure that’s kindled by safari through the country’s ten national
names like Bwindi Impenetrable Forest parks. Feeling slightly intimidated by my
or the fabled ‘Mountains of the Moon’? first overland crossing from a left-hand-
In fact, these mountains, known today drive country to a right-hand-drive one,
as Rwenzori Mountains National Park, I’d negotiated the Land Rover cautiously
inspired Greek geographers as far as 2000 through the swarms of motorcycle
years ago. The so-called impenetrable taxis that are known all over Uganda as
forest is surprisingly accessible and boda-boda (from the word ‘border’). When
attracts large numbers of visitors to watch I parked an hour later at the foothills
wild gorillas in their natural habitat – but of the Virunga Volcanic Range, it was
even today the glacier-cloaked peaks as if a welcoming committee had been
of the Rwenzoris are accessible only to organised: Uganda is one of Africa’s best
expeditions. bird-spotting locations, and it was the
courtship season for crowned cranes (the
I first fell in love with the country that country’s national bird). All over the
Winston Churchill called ‘The Pearl of plains, hundreds of these truly regal birds
Africa’ when I drove across the border

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 41

DESTINATION UGANDA

I never knew of a
morning in Africa
when I woke up that I

was not happy

Ernest Hemmingway

could be seen strutting with their golden Elizabeth II National Park where herds
headdresses glittering in the sun. of a different sort awaited us. Queen
Elizabeth, the flagship of Uganda’s
At only 33.7 square kilometres, savannah parks, is known for its vast
Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is numbers of buffalo and elephant as well
Uganda’s smallest national park but as for its predators. Entering the park, we
it falls within the great Virunga also found another equator monument –
Conservation Area, stretching also into this one remoter and, for once, devoid of
Rwanda and Congo. An hour’s drive scientific blandishments.
to the north, Bwindi is home to about
459 mountain gorillas, almost half the I was spellbound by the vast expanses
world’s population. At almost ten times of rippling savannah, tanned the colour
the size of Mgahinga, Bwindi is very of a lion’s hide, that sloped down to the
likely the best place in the world to Kazinga Channel with its immense pods
see one of the world’s most iconic and of hippos and then climbed upwards
endangered species. again to where the distant Rwenzori
peaks were lost in the clouds. As a classic
“The more you learn about the dignity safari destination, Queen Elizabeth has
of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid it all; savannah, lakes and forests that are
people,” wrote Dian Fossey, the famous home to 95 species of mammals. These
American researcher. include ten primates, and the Kyambura
Gorge area is one of the best places in the
The more we began to travel through world to walk among wild chimpanzees.
Uganda, however, the more I enjoyed
contact with some of the friendliest and Uganda’s ‘wild west’ is a spectacularly
most hospitable people I’d met in Africa. beautiful wilderness region dotted
Wherever we drove, it seemed that we with forest, savannah and a chain of
had to keep one arm constantly out of serene lakes that make you want to
the window ready to wave at passers-by. spend enough time to get to know them
Traders waved at us in the villages, and on first-name basis: Edward, George
on the highways, boda-boda riders tooted and Albert.
their horns. Frequently, we passed
herds of majestic Ankole cattle with At Murchison Falls National Park,
their impossibly soaring horns rising the feeling of tranquility explodes as
like spires above the clouds of laterite the full might of the Nile River injects
dust, and the herdsmen always yelled in itself at a rate of about 300 cubic metres
greeting. per second through an eight-metre-wide
chasm to explode into the ominously
Eventually, we turned off the highway named Devil’s Cauldron. This is the
onto the wilderness trails of Queen

42 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

DESTINATION UGANDA

Opposite page:
Motorcycle taxis, known all over Uganda as
boda-bodas, are a commonly preferred quick
means of transport.

Anti-clockwise from left: A herd of elephants
cools off in the Ishasha River, as a pod of
hippos takes a swim in the Kazinga Channel,
both in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
However, the buffalo herds here are dwarfed
by the vast numbers along Kidepo’s Narus
Valley. Crested cranes are a sight to behold as
they dance and flirt during their mating season.

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 43

DESTINATION UGANDA

most spectacular waterfall in East Africa and as Clockwise from top:
you stand at the top of the falls, you can feel the At the Murchison Falls, the full might of the River
thunderous power vibrating up through the rock Nile injects itself through an eight-metre-wide
like an earthquake. chasm to explode into the ominously named
Devil’s Cauldron. An adult lion strolls by a lodge
‘I never knew of a morning in Africa when in Kidepo Valley National Park, whose stunning
I woke up that I was not happy,’ wrote Ernest views can be seen below from Apoka Lodge, and
Hemmingway, who had some notoriously left from a kopje.
dramatic adventures in this area in the 1950s.
Waking up at Apoka Lodge, in the gorgeous
Kidepo National Park, I could share the great
writer’s sentiments. I’d woken in the early hours
of the morning to listen to the guttural roar of
a lion, seemingly right outside my chalet. Sure
enough, I’d walked cautiously outside in the
morning to find a huge pugmark imprinted deep
into the sand within a few metres of my door.

One of the marks of a perfectly designed
lodge or camp is how not only humans, but
also wildlife interact with it. Apoka Lodge is
appreciated as much by the natural inhabitants
of Kidepo as it is by visitors. While I ate breakfast,
I watched zebra and hartebeest at the waterhole
and a pair of waterbuck sipping from the
swimming pool, and the staff told me that lions
regularly used the lodge buildings for shady
vantage points over the plains.

The words of another Africa writer came to
mind: ‘You know you are truly alive when you’re
living among lions’, Karen Blixen wrote in her
book, Out of Africa. This was not my first visit to
Kidepo, and the park had been the setting for all
my most dramatic lion encounters. I had been
camping here in Land Rovers, with a couple of
South African friends several years earlier, when
I looked up from atop the landrover to see no less
than seven lionesses lying along the top of a long
boulder. They were contemplating me with the
sort of lazy curiosity that made me realise they
had probably been doing so for quite some time,
but were too satisfied by the numerous prey
to eat me.

There are an estimated 120 lions in Kidepo,
and they are known for the power and tactical
skill that is an adaptation to hunting the vast
herds of buffalo that roam here. Even the buffalo
herds of Queen Elizabeth National Park were
dwarfed by the vast numbers along Kidepo’s
Narus Valley when ranger Philip Akorongimoe
and I drove out to explore that morning. A group
of aged askari bulls – ‘Old Generals’, as Phillip
called them – watched us with resentful eyes
and horns lowered as a vast herd of females and
calves speckled the scrub behind them. There
seemed to be buffalo in mind-boggling numbers

44 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021

wherever I looked. “There are an estimated
thirteen thousand buffalo in the park, but
the herd we’re looking at here probably
adds up to only about four thousand,”
Phillip told me.

From Uganda’s far southeastern corner
(touching Rwanda and Congo), I crossed
the equator and travelled to the country’s
far northwest tip, and the frontier lands
of Kenya and South Sudan. In an article
I wrote last year for CNN – a roundup
of eight of the ‘best safari destinations
in Africa’ – I stated that this Ugandan
gem might be the most beautiful park on
the entire continent. That afternoon as I
watched the ever-changing light playing
across the acacia-peppered savannah
and across the flanks of sacred Mount
Morungole, I was pleased to see that I
hadn’t exaggerated Kidepo’s majesty.

How to Visit Kidepo National Park CONTACT US:
Great Lakes Safaris (www. greatlakessafaris. Website: www.ura.go.ug
com) offers a 4-night Kidepo Safari by Email: [email protected]
road from $2390 pp sharing including Call center/ Customer care: 0800 217 000, 0800 117 000
accommodation, daily game drives,
nature walk and a visit to the Karamojong Follow us:
community – expect a 10-11 hour drive
from Entebbe International Airport.

Where to Stay
Apoka Safari Lodge (www.wildplacesafrica.
com) – the finest accommodation option
in Northern Uganda – offers wonderfully
situated chalets overlooking the valley from
$471 pp (based on 2 sharing), including all
meals, house drinks, park fees, game drives
and walks. Locally based Buffalo Safari
Camps (www.buffalosafaricamps.com) run
a 7-Day Murchison Falls and Kidepo Valley
tour with 4x4 vehicles from $950 per person.

Kidepo’s Safari Highlights
Kidepo Valley National Park is home to 500
bird species and 86 mammals, 28 of which
can be found nowhere else in Uganda,
including caracal, lesser kudu, mountain
reedbuck and Guenther’s dik-dik. Along
with the largest population of buffalo of any
park in Africa, there are an estimated 700
elephants and about 120 lions.

DESTINATION KENYA

MAGICALencounterswiththe
shy and reclusive

Black Rhino
A quiet corner of northern Kenya offers East Africa’s first black rhino tracking experience. Sarah
Marshall visits the pioneering community-owned project and goes in search of one of the
world’s most endangered species.
Words and pictures by Sarah Marshall

C rushing my body tightly against a boulder, I’m
frightened to even breathe. Like the final moments
in a thrilling blockbuster shoot-out, I know at
some point I’ll have to move; the question is not if,
but when.
Behind this haphazardly stacked kopje sits 50 million years
of natural history embodied in almost two thundering tonnes
of flesh - the size and power of a BMW car with a notoriously
volatile grump at the wheel.
An intruder in someone else’s wild, coarse environment, I know
I’ll soon be rumbled. Yet as I peer over rocks into a crumpled face
mapped with more contours than an ancient mountain range, all
I want to steal is a glance.
Being within arm’s reach – and trampling distance – of one
of the world’s oldest and most critically endangered species is
humbling. And when heavily pregnant Nadungu detects my
presence with her acutely-tuned antennae-like ears, bolting away
in a cloud of ochre dust, I’m soberly reminded of how fragile a
black rhino’s existence has become.

A species under threat

Between 1960 and 1995, poaching caused a 98% decline of
the species, and although the situation has slightly improved,
conservationists estimate that less than 5,500 black rhinos
survive in the wild.

Home to just under 1,000, Kenya is one of the Eastern black
rhino’s biggest strongholds, and efforts are underway to preserve
and grow that population. What’s more, tourists are now able
to observe the animals at a much closer range than ever before,
thanks to a pioneering project to return them to a rugged, tribal
territory in northern Kenya – uniquely driven by requests from
indigenous people living there.

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DESTINATION KENYA

Launched at the beginning of 2017, Walking With Rhinos is
the first black rhino tracking experience in East Africa and the
first community owned and managed project of its kind on the
continent.

“When many of our staff were children, poachers would offer
them sweets and ask where the rhinos were,” recalls Sammy
Lemiruni, lodge manager at the Saruni Rhino Camp. “They’d
innocently point to a few, hiding in the bushes.”

By the mid 1990s, black rhinos had been wiped out completely
from this remote sector of Samburu County, which now forms
the Sera Conservancy. But in 2015, with the help of Northern
Rangelands Trust, Kenya Wildlife Service, and conservationist
Ian Craig, black rhinos from the nearby Lewa Conservancy and
other national parks in the country were translocated to a fenced
41sq mile sanctuary within Sera. The birth of Nadungu’s calf a few
days ago raises the current number of residents to 12.

Owned by Italian writer and safari guide Riccardo Orizio, the
Saruni stable was exclusively invited to set up a lodge within
Sera, six miles from the Sanctuary. Although foreign owned,
the intimate three-banda (stone cottage) enclave is staffed by

Samburu swathed in handsome shuka blankets and a rainbow
of beadwork, making this a business very much rooted in and
respectful of its surroundings.

A place that’s still wonderfully wild

A few days earlier, I’d arrived in the neighbouring Kalama
Conservancy via a 50-minute bush flight from Nairobi for an
overnight stay at Saruni Samburu, a six-villa hilltop camp
drowning in views of enormous skies and burning red plateaus,
crowned by Mount Kenya on a clear day.

At night, stars swelled every available corner and the Milky
Way billowed overhead in a long, inexhaustible plume. It was
pure, undisturbed wilderness – but only a taste of what was in
store.

Driving initially along a tarmac road, we soon turned off into
the bush for a 45km journey to Saruni Rhino, passing only goat-
herding pastoralists and camels with bells clanging around their
necks. Villages were a collection of mud and animal hide huts
clustered together, and the local ‘school’ constituted a gathering
of wide-eyed children sheltering below the shady, protective
arms of an acacia tree.

By the time we reached our final destination, the modern
world had disappeared almost completely. Hidden along the
banks of a dried-out river bed, where stooping doum palms lazily
sweep their fronds along the sandy floor, Saruni Rhino is remote –
even by Northern Kenyan standards – and wonderfully so.

Sitting in the hull of an upholstered wooden canoe, I watched
an elephant family parade to a watering hole, followed by a
Somali ostrich wiggling his pom-pom tail feathers like a cabaret
dancer in the Folies Bergère. Tracking rhinos is the obvious focus
for guests, but there’s so much more to see here besides that.

www.ngaaliinflightmag.com 47

DESTINATION KENYA

Tracking rhinos on foot A community caring for elephants

Rhinos within the sanctuary have been fitted with microchips The return of black rhinos to this region of Kenya is
in their horns, allowing rangers to monitor movements and track more than a conservation effort and revenue generator – it’s
their whereabouts. Shy and reclusive browsers, black rhinos thrive also a source of pride for the Samburu people. The same is
in the thickets and can be notoriously difficult to find, but using a true for the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, another pioneering
telemetry device almost guarantees a sighting. community owned and managed project in neighbouring
Namunyak Conservancy, part of the Matthews Range where
A fleeting glimpse of Nadungu has whetted my appetite for further one of Kenya’s largest elephant population resides.
encounters, and on our second outing into the sanctuary, we go in
search of another female, Napanu. Standing on top of a rocky mound, Opened in August 2016 to rescue and eventually release
rangers Thomas and Anthony take turns at holding aloft an aerial, abandoned and orphaned elephants back into the wild, it
hoping to detect clicks from chip 16; each rhino is numbered and has was set up with funding from various donors including
its own frequency. Prince William’s beloved charity, Tusk Trust, with a view
of returning the animals to their natural home rather than
Once Napanu has been located, we travel by foot, led by our guide other parks in the country.
Sambara who uses a sack filled with ash to gauge wind direction.
Although a rhino has poor eyesight, its senses of smell and hearing Arriving early in the morning after a two-hour drive from
are astounding. Sera, we’re the only tourists privileged to watch a writhing
throng of eager trunks reaching for their bottles at feeding
Weaving through fairytale turrets of termite mounds and spiky time.
commiphora bushes, I painstakingly watch every step, tip-toeing
through a minefield of brittle twigs and jagged quartz rocks, trying There are plans to release some of the 13 elephants into
not to make a noise. their northern Kenya home range towards the end of 2020,
along with Reteti’s only rhino, three-month Loijupu, who
While closing in on our quarry, we reach a stand-off, frozen for 45 was abandoned at birth.
minutes as she grows suspicious of our presence. When she finally
moves into the valley, we position ourselves at the base of a hill and A bundle of wonder and hope, he curiously stumbles
marvel as she trots slowly towards us, every fold, crease and skin towards me and – perhaps naively - I allow him to get much
rumple visible in glorious, magnified detail. closer than his elders. Nostrils flared and bottom lip curling,
he is unbelievably cute. But an instinctive defiant foot stamp
This time, there’s no rock to hide behind and with only metres of is a firm reminder that he’s wild, belligerent and, above all, a
air between us, her breath almost touches my neck. One camera click fighter – like every black rhino today should be.
results in a mock charge, causing Sambara to intervene by shouting
and clapping, leaving me drunkenly dumbstruck as one of the
world’s few surviving black rhinos hurriedly scrambles away.

48 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021



DESTINATION MOMBASA Don’t forget to enjoy…

Mombasa

Dhow Sailing Tour of Kisite Marine
Park and Wasini Island

Mombasa, known as the white and blue city of Kenya, has a population of 900,000. Its Enjoy a full day at Kisite Marine Park for
beachfront hotels appeal to travellers in search of sun, sand and surf, while its blend of dhow sailing, dolphin spotting, snorkelling,
India, Arabia and Africa can be intoxicating. Many visitors find themselves seduced by swimming, sunbathing, and a mouth-watering
East Africa’s biggest and most cosmopolitan port. Can’t find a taxi? Travel by tuk-tuk, a Swahili seafood lunch on Wasini Island. Get a
three-wheeled auto rickshaw. glimpse of local culture while visiting Wasini
Village. Duration: 7 - 8 hours.

Eat @: Stay @: Tsavo East National Park and Salt
Lick 3-Day, 2-Night Safari
Jahazi Grill Restaurant Star Villas Nyali
Explore the famous Tsavo East National Park
Sitting within a Swahili dhow - that’s the The villas are located in the Nyali Beach and Taita Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. Spot herds
feeling inside this beach restaurant inside area of Mombasa. A perfect environment of red elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, hippos
the Serena Beach Hotel. They have a fish and with excellent service, the caretaker Felix and rare bird species. Duration: 3 days, starting
seafood based menu; try the tuna appetiser, will make your stay comfortable. Great for time 8:30am.
the grilled snapper, and the crab cakes. The families, the service, security and amenities
service is attentive and the food excellent. are top notch, and the rates are friendly.

50 NG'AALI DECEMBER 2020 - FEBRUARY 2021