RUNNING THE LOCKDOWN BLUES AWAY

This article first run in the New Vision of Friday July 23rd, 2021

At Kumbuzi along Gayaza road during an evening work out

It just struck me the other day that we have been under some sort of lockdown for the last 15 months or so, give or take a few days. One and a half years without the total freedoms we were so used to, is that even real?

It came to me as I watched scenes of Brits celebrating the opening of night clubs after 16 months shut down. Does anyone even remember what it was like to go into a nightclub? Shall we even have any nightclubs when this thing is finally done and gone? The last time I was in a night club was in Guvnor when I went to watch the Afrigo Band’s monthly performance, I don’t even remember what century that was.

This lockdown has been harder than the first total one we had last year; it might be because last year it was all new and each day was an adventure. So before we realised it the worst of was over, a partial release was at hand, and we could move around a bit.

There is nothing exotic about this one, though; each new day is more painful that the one past and, with silly wags predicting there might be an extension, no end in sight. Last year’s total lockdown was 21 days, I think. This time we are doing 42 days, and it is driving me crazy.

One aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic that may not make the headlines is the mental strain it is taking on people, especially the lockdowns. After the ICUs are empty of covid patients, the big part of the population is fully vaccinated, and wearing masks is no longer required by law (it is already happening in some countries) the wards of psychiatric hospitals might be full instead.

Instead of going crazy staring at the same walls day after day, week in and week out, some people have chosen to run. Some run every week, some run several days a week. Others run every day, and some even run several times a day. But they run. And I joined them. Or rather, I walk with them. Since an ankle injury a few years ago, I can’t run very well, so I walk. Or as my Nike running app always tells me when I start, it’s a work out.

Some people work out early in the morning, and insist that it gives them energy to face the day. But since we’re all at home, I’m not sure where that energy is going to go. In any case I’ve never been a morning person, all those years spent in boarding school notwithstanding.

So I do my workouts in the evening. But I do admit there are advantages to working out early in the morning, not least of all that there are not that many people on the road. Few cars, fewer bodabodas and, as a female colleague pointed out, also fewer men. And there’s something about that morning sun.

In the evening, however, everyone is trying to get home, and the roads are crowded, in spite of it being a lockdown. With no public transport, everyone else walks home, so the sidewalks are also crowded, meaning you have to keep your mask on most of the time, and that makes breathing a tad difficult.

But evening workouts take me back to when I was an active and competitive sportsman, and most of the training and the competing took place in the evening. So walking along briskly (I discovered speed walking, which is quite a workout), and dodging pesky boda riders that think the whole damn world is theirs to ride wherever they want, I can feel that once again I’m training for a coming Tae-kwon-do competition; or building up my stamina so I can play a whole basketball game in a coming tournament. And I’ll forget that very soon I’ll be back inside the walls that have been surrounding me these past weeks.

There’s something very therapeutic about working out on the road, and I’ve written whole articles and short stories in my head during a 15km  workout. I’ve also figured out how to phrase that pesky proposal that has been tormenting me, and have also written several poems that could make an anthology sometime in the future. All in my head, while working out.

But it can be boring, especially if you take the same routes, and you do it all alone. Some folks have formed neighbourhood groups, and that helps not only push each other on, but also get that socialising that is so important to human beings.

But I’ve always been something of a lone wolf, so I usually do my workouts alone. And I’ve never got up to listening to music while walking, maybe I should. But I’ve worked out several routes that I follow, about four or five of them; and will alternate them during the week. On average, I work out four times a week. More than that and it will become like work, so I try to keep it easy and enjoyable.

I have also joined several challenges on the Nike app, which helps to keep the competitive juices flowing. The current Old Budonians Bursary Road Challenge requires us to walk or run 500km over the next three months. That’s an average of about 42km every week, or a marathon every week for three months. I have never even come close to doing a marathon, and I’m required to do one every week?

But, I’d like to report ladies and gentlemen, that since this month started I average more than 50km a week. Who would have thought? And I’ve done a few 22km sessions, which is equivalent to the MTN mini-marathon. I remember when the 10km run was a major challenge, uh!

It is also recommended that one joins several challenges, which would be like running a race with several other people. Gives you more people to compete with. Some of the people that join the challenge are definitely out of one’s league, like those Budonians that have completed the 3-month challenge in 3 weeks! That’s akin to running a mini-marathon every day for 3 weeks! Not human, those folks. And don’t even think of challenging Herman Kambugu, who runs 60km to warm up!

But now I do know why Forrest Gump started running!

A MILLION WAYS TO CURE COVID, OR ARE THEY?

this article first run in the New Vision of June 18th, 2021

While approved as a herbal treatment, Covidex does not cure COVID-19

Sometime in the late 1990s, I was on the road for my first road trip to Kiboga. At the end of the journey would be a small peasant woman, who claimed to have been directed in a dream to carry our miracle healing. The source of her ‘powers’ was a crystal-like stone that she said had appeared in her garden one night, so she would dip it in water, say a few words over it, and then wash her ‘patients’ with it.

Those were the days when HIV/AIDS was rampant, there was no cure in sight, and it was more or less a death sentence. When I got there, hundreds of people had gathered from surrounding areas, and hundreds more were to travel from all corners of the country (some from as far as Tanzania) for the miracle cure.

There is no record that anyone was ever cured of any diseases, and I think the ‘camp’ that had sprouted around her home was eventually closed because of health risks. And all the Ugandans went home, to await the next miracle cure.

The Kiboga incident had come on the heels of yet another peasant woman, Nanyonga of Semambule, who claimed that soil from her backyard was a universal cure of all ailments. It is not known how many Ugandans ate and drank the soil from Nanyonga’s yard by the time it was proven that, not only did that soil not have any healing qualities, but it gave quite a few people stomach aches from all the bugs in it (it was never boiled, otherwise the ‘powers’ would evaporate).  

Those are just two of the litany of ‘quick fixes’ that Ugandans seem particularly susceptible to. We don’t seem to want to put in the work that is needed, but are ready to jump at any suggestion of a quick solution.

One school of thought has it that it’s the Amin years that started it all, when working at something would not only not get you anywhere, but was laughed at upon by general society. The smart guys were the hustlers, who would wheel and deal their way to ostentatious ways of living.

Almost 50 years later, and we still prefer to wheel and deal rather than do the real work; that’s why pastors are in every swamp and unfinished building, full of Ugandans praying for miracle wealth and husbands.

So it is not really a surprise that when the COVID-19 pandemic came to our shores, we ignored the work needed to keep it at bay, but are looking for miracle cures. It is the times of Nanyonga and the Kiboga woman all over again.

When the initial lockdown was declared about a year ago, the word on the ground was that it was all a hoax, that the Ugandan mafia was behind it to make money. These must have been really powerful Ugandans to practically shut down the whole world, and they must be the richest people on the planet.

Up to now, when almost every family in the country has had at least one death as a result of the corona virus, there are still Ugandans claiming that it is not real. As for the rest, they are now looking for quick fixes and miracle cures, for something that maybe if we had kept social distance, wore our masks properly and washed our hands at every opportunity, we could have contained it.

The elections could not have been postponed, but maybe we could have had them with no campaigns. But it is all academic now, the second wave of the pandemic is with us, and people are dying. So Ugandans are looking for the new generation Nanyonga.

The first of these new Nanyongas was that moustachioed fellow that looked like he’d just stepped out of the 19^th century, but he convinced Rebecca Kadaga that he had a cure for covid, and that Uganda will make lots of money selling it to the world. We will never know what he told the former Speaker, but she in turn convinced the President. What are the chances that could be the reason she lost her job? You don’t make a fool of the Fountain of Honour, and then drive away in a convoy.

We don’t know where Mr Moustache is, but social media is full of the new Nanyongas that stepped into his place. I belong to several WhatsApp groups, and everyday someone is posting some new combination of herbs that is said to do away with the pesky covid. And they all start with testimonies of how a colleague’s family was down with covid, they took a concoction of a Christmas tree mixed with the mushroom that only appears at midnight, and they were all okay after that.

Then there was the Covidex saga, which is supposedly still undergoing clinical trials; but then somebody went ahead and mass produced it, and the public swore by it. When the government came out to warn that covidex was not proved to cure anything, there were cries that it only wanted mzungu medicines, and not home grown ones. For the record, no sane mzungu has claimed to have a cure for covid (this obviously does not include Donald Trump).

The only real chance to beat this thing is by vaccination, but when the government asked people to get vaccinated, there were cries that the mzungu wanted to finish Africans. Which is really daft because these same people have taken their children for vaccination against diseases such as measles and polio. But when it comes to covid, they say it is a trap.

I have friends that have flatly refused to take the vaccine, I really pray and hope it does not end in tragedy. Wilber and Robrt, smell the coffee, dudes.

Note: Covidex was approved on June 29^th by the National Drugs Authority for use as a supporting treatment for viral infections including Covid-19. The NDA emphasised that it is not a cure,

LESSONS FROM THE GHOSTS OF LOCKDOWNS PAST

This article first run in the New Vision of Friday June 25th, 2021

Empty roads in Ntinda during the 2020 lockdown

When the President announced the first ever national lockdown last year in March, it was all new and strange. It was even novel, with an air of excitement about it. Like much of the world, Uganda had never experienced anything like this.

Even during war time, when being outside your gate could mean a death sentence, Ugandans still moved around, and socialised anyway they could. Those were the days when you went for a party you had to stay for the whole night. Tales of young girls losing their innocence at those all-night parties were rife.

But this time there was no war, and the worst you could expect if you strayed outside curfew hours was maybe kiboko on your back from some over enthusiast LDUs. But mostly we obeyed the President’s directives, and stayed home.

We also stocked up on essentials, especially dry foods, and supermarkets soon run out of things like spaghetti, rice and dry beans. In Uganda there was no rush to buy stocks of toilet paper, as we saw on TV as supermarkets in the western world run out of that particular item. We laughed at them, and I wonder what they did with all that toilet paper afterwards? I guess Ugandans don’t use much toilet paper, I don’t want to think further than that.

Salons and barbershops were closed, too. So several people started a ‘beard’ challenge, and I added an afro challenge. I couldn’t remember the last time I grew out my hair, which grows annoyingly fast; so, for the fun of it, I would let it grow. And if I was lucky, I would have a full round ‘fro like Angela Davis.

But slowly the novelty of staying indoors wore off, and people started to stray out. By that time LDUs had been stopped from giving people kiboko, so there was no real danger. But it took me several weeks to even have a peek at what my neighbourhood looked like after dark.

Last year’s lockdown was in phases, and was eased along the way, but it never actually ended. But it effectively ended once Kikuubo and city arcades were allowed to operate; bars have been officially closed since March 18^th, 2020, but we all conveniently forgot that. And life went on.

I remember, about two months into last year’s lockdown, while on an evening walk I bumped into two friends. They live in Naalya, so I was kind of impressed that they walked all the way to Ntinda and back to Naalya. It did not register at that time how unsteady they seemed, only to learn much later that they were coming from a bar near home.

Last year it was the spectre of COVID-19 that kept us indoors, although it took us a very long time for someone we personally knew to get infected. But now everyone we know has lost someone close to them. In one crazy week, I lost two uncles and three cousins. And it will probably get worse before it gets better.

While last year’s lockdown was a novelty, this one is not. When the numbers started rising, and close friends contracted the virus and many died, it was a question of when, not if, another lockdown would be imposed.

So when the President stopped inter-district public transport, but gave a grace period of a week for school children to make it back home, it was obvious that it was a warning. Although we didn’t stock up on toilet paper, we did on many other things.

For the Kikuubo guys to go on TV and beg to be given a day to remove their stock was disingenuous, if not downright silly; no wonder Jesus was ticked off at the bridesmaids that didn’t bother to stock up on extra oil. After all, we know brides are always late for weddings (did you know that the Nnabagereka kept the Kabaka waiting for about 30 minutes at their wedding in 1999?). Those Kikuubo guys will probably be late for heaven, too.

So what did we learn? Let us count the ways. We learnt that it is actually very easy for anyone to put on weight, especially when you’re working from home and office stress is not part of your daily work out. I have never put on weight in the whole of my life, so where did those darn kilos come from? But the Budonian Kafunda folks are helping out, and we have monthly work out challenges that should keep the unwanted kilos away.

We also learnt was that there is no cure for COVID-19, all calls to approve so-called herbal remedies notwithstanding. I bet if Nanyonga (of the Semambule soil fame) was living in this age, there would be calls for the government to approve her garden soil as miracle cures, after all hundreds testified how they got cured of HIV/AIDS after taking it. Only we know that they did not actually get cured, it was all a hoax.

Another thing we learnt was that going to church was actually a social thing, that God hears you loud and clear wherever you are. Incidentally, a friend of mine contracted covid from the church she went to, and there was nothing blessed about how she felt for the next two weeks or so. But gladly she pulled through, and for the foreseeable future she will attend church from her home, thank you very much.

We learnt that we can safely ignore all those saying that the whole thing is a hoax, as COVID-19 also ignored what they were saying, but not their lungs. And those guys saying no to vaccination? We ignored them, but wished them luck all the same.

We also learnt that the super spreader clusters were mostly downtown, and that drunkards have been vilified for all the wrong reasons. But mostly we learnt that we shall beat this thing.