How dark is dark Africa?

At the end of a day of labouring away it's divine to read a book while enjoying a drink, staring on a map at all those strange names or to write about our adventures. We do so since we've left the Netherlands and we never get bored. We always carry some books with us, that we try to swap in the next town after devouring them. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't. During our first overnight stays in Uganda we encounter problems exercising these simple pleasures. In every guesthouse, hotel and inn we stay at, the light bulbs are so weak that every attempt to read or write is doomed to fail. Those bulbs aren't just weak, they're coloured as well: red, blue, green, every colour except for white. In restaurants and bars the same story: low-wattage lights or no lights at all. We think it's absurd and puzzling.

In Kampala we find our way to the Lumas Inn, after having rejected the Backpackershostel that's so popular with travellers. We think its too far from the centre, only white visitors, raised prices after it's listing in the known travel-guides and the presence of Bumbum, the annoying German from the overlandtruck. The Lumas Inn is established at five walking minutes from the city centre, there are no white visitors and the staff is very friendly and their service great.

At our request they move a bigger bed into our room, which prevents us from lying on top of each other the whole night. Sheets and towels are changed every day; quite often, this probably has to do with purpose and duration of the average stay at this inn. Here we're confronted with a minuscule bulb as well, that - if you watch very carefully - causes a faint greenish shine. Luckily enough we're allowed to replace this nightlight by a clear sixty Watt-lamp, so we can move about in our room at night without giving each other a black eye. Unfortunately Kampala suffers frequent powercuts, which causes us to sit in the dark anyway. These cuts never last long though. One night, visiting a bar, we've brought along playing cards in case we haven't got any conversation-subjects left, we're sitting in the pitch dark. In one the corner of the big space there is the shadowy, bluish light of the television-set, in which we can distinguish each other's faces. All around us couples are chatting and declarations of love are being exchanged. We can't restrain our curiosity for the dark habits of the Ugandans any longer and ask a waitress for an explanation. With a mysterious smile she tells that Ugandans like to have privacy at night, especially when they're dating someone of the other sex. Not being seen by others, not causing any gossip, a night with someone else… It had better be dark.

It's getting even darker. Roaming about the many hills Kampala is build on, we arrive at the biggest slum-area in town. Narrow streets also function as draining system for rain and sewer, rows of huts made of mud or wood house whole families and are shabby shops at the same time, piles of garbage and thousands of people that seem to wait for better times. A young woman, barely a threat of cloths on her body, grabs with her fingers in a stinking, overfilled garbage-container and puts something in her mouth. It's very difficult to imagine that only five hundred metres further people live in luxurious skyscrapers and drive around in big Landrovers. Life darker than dark here.

The next day Boggy, the d.j. of the Lumas Inn, shows us around town. We enter one of the old palaces of the Buganda-king (Kabaka), head of the most important and biggest tribe in the country. In 1993 the old kingdoms are restored by the government, since then people are collecting money to restore the palaces. The Kabaka's office and palace are build on two adjacent hills. Between them is a dead-straight road that even cuts through two roundabouts. The piece of road right through the roundabout is barred for normal traffic and is for the Kabaka's use only. At the palace we talk to the son of the former nurse-maid of the present king. Together with the former king he had to run for his life when Obote's army attacked the palace in 1966 to kill everyone in it. Through a secret passage they fled to a safe place. In the staff-houses around the palace we see a number of bullet-holes, silent witnesses of a bloody past.
He shows us a spot behind the palace, where Idi Amin -the tyrant that reigned after Obote- had a kind of cellar build into a hill. We walk into the concrete tunnel that's 4 metre wide and 25 metres deep. In the left wall we see 4 chambers, also concrete, the open side about one metre above the tunnel. Every chamber is about 5 by 8 metres. Our guide tells us the story of this torture chamber: Amin ordered to lock about 500 to 600 people into every room of 40 square metres. There was no water, food, or other facilities, they were just given panga's (chopping knives). Once the entrance-gates to the tunnel were locked, the tunnel that had electrical mats on the ground was filled with water. After this it was only a matter of time before the prisoners started killing each other, mad for fear, thirst, hunger and rage.

Slaughterhouse of Idi Amin

One week after visiting the torture chamber the papers are filled with news about the death of the man who is responsible the death of millions of his fellow country men. The people are relieved in a stoic way. With the death of this brute the darkest period in Ugandan history has definitively come to an end. Now it only can become lighter, and lighter…