From Tanzania Corespondent Lute Wa Lutengano…..

I am now in Kampala, the land of Kaguta the son of Museveni. I seem to have begun my life in this city of Bodabodas, as the thousands of motorcycle taxis are known here, from the wrong foot. On my arrival on the night of last Saturday, I checked into this favorite hotel of mine along Kampala road. I immediately rushed into the hotel pub cum restaurant to have a snack before I could hit my bed.

Inside the joint I was pleasantly surprised to meet a Tanzanian colleague of mine, actually a former Arusha resident, one Mfinanga, who was in Kampala to attend some regional conference. As he was leaving early in the morning for Brussels he informed me that I am lucky as my young brother from Arusha , Suk Chat, was also in town. I promised I would look for him the next day.

After my morning official duties I began looking for Suk Chat in all the other establishments in the city. The last I heard of his whereabouts was that he was the previous evening seen at Speke Hotel. Late in the afternoon I returned into my hotel only to be told by the hotel management that actually Suk Chat had all the time been staying in the same hotel I was in. To make matters worse he had now checked out sometimes around noon and left for Arusha.

I was demoralized and decided to proceed to the Grand Hotel Imperial where on Sunday afternoons there is some live band music on its Coffee Terrace bar. There I met more Tanzanians attending the several conferences taking place in this city of many hills.

It was here that I also met a long lost Kampala Cab Driver friend of mine. He is an elderly man who is a Baganda. I engaged him into some conversation, by first wondering why there were now fewer Bodabodas on the streets of Kampala than during my previous visit two or so years ago. There is a major crackdown on the errand Bodabodas in town, he explained.

For many years, I was told, the Bodabodas had violated all traffic rules known to mankind. Enough is enough, the Government decided to arrest the situation. Actually the Kampala Traffic Police do literally ambush the Bodaboda cyclists. This has sometimes led to some comical tragedies whereby the driver jumps off his motorbike and disappears leaving behind the hapless passenger to his or her own peril.

The name Bodaboda, I was told, was coined in line with the history of the origins of this mode of transport. It is said that some many years ago they were actually the major means of ferrying people across the no-man’s-land between the Kenya and Uganda border – that is Border to Border.

Now this mode of transport is catching up back home in Tanzania. Unfortunately it is taking a more tragic mode, as criminals of all types are now using it to rob and even kill their victims. This is all very strange to Ugandans.

My Ugandan friend, Steven, that is his name, was very shocked to learn about this turn of events in the Bodaboda business in Tanzania.

However he had one outstanding commendation to Tanzania’s unity. For example, he was a little surprised to learn that a bona-fide Tanzania was free to buy and own land or a farm in any part of the country.

In Uganda, he told me, it was almost impossible for him to move north or in some parts of Uganda and buy, own and build or farm there. He lamented, however, that others from other parts of Uganda were free to come down to Kampala and its surrounding areas to just do that. That is unfair, he told me.

I believe he was a blue blood Baganda.