A tale of Christmas in three worlds

Many Ugandans make that traditional journey home in time for Christmas. My family and I did not make that journey in time for Christmas but rather travelled through Christmas.  For that reason, we had our Christmas in three different cities – Kampala where I had a pancake and rolex breakfast with Santa; In Addis Ababa where injera was served with tsebhi for Christmas dinner; and in Pretoria where fast food was the mainstay of boxing day. 

The memoires of Christmas in three countries are quickly eroded by my experience with the Immigration staff at O.R Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa (SA) at entry.  In a quite ‘un-african’ way I would say, my wife and I were asked to prove that ‘our children’ were ‘our children’.  This was courtesy of a new South African immigration law that requires parents or guardians travelling into or out of SA with minors to present an official unabridged or certified birth certificate for each child.  Because of this law (which is still being challenged in the courts of law), we spent 6 hours at immigrations proving that indeed ‘our children were our children’, and that we had not kidnapped our own children. 

After a six-hour wait, my drowsy advice was for the immigrations folks to install a rapid oraquick DNA tester as a full-proof fast confirmatory procedure of parentage. 

Meanwhile, while I was at it in SA, my brother Julius a.k.a Julio was on a Christmas expedition in the UK.  An expedition to do all the things that he missed to do when he was younger – one of those things was to swim. To swim in a kids’ pool – call it euphoria or hoopla.  Well, I’m talking about a 40+ barrel-chested herculean who could take a clean shot at the WBA heavy weight championship 2016. On one of those compelling Christmas afternoons, Julio did his characteristic lazy swag out of his Holiday Inn (London) room towards the kids’ pool, right besides the main swimming pool. His waltzing into the kids’ pool shocked many holidaymakers who were relaxing around the pool area. It was a sight to see as all water drifted from the kids’ pool to the main pool without relent. Within ten seconds, my brother Julio was in a water-empty pool – picture a baby-sitting in a basin without water. He had displaced all the water in the kids’ pool!

For my six-year old, Kabahuma, there was nothing more exciting than this particular festive season.  Two of her all-time favorite friends visited well around the same time. Of course a portly, joyous, white-bearded bespectacled man, Santa Claus did not disappoint.  Hardly a few days after Christmas, the tooth fairy yet again had another reason to visit when Kabahuma lost one of her front baby teeth.  Call it double happiness for her!

That aside, at the cusp of my holiday in SA, I did a six-hour journey north of Pretoria to a small town called Thohoyandou in Limpompo Province.  Thohoyandou literally means, the ‘head of an elephant’.  The Venda people live in this humble town that houses the famous University of Venda.  When you take a stroll around the town, you will be struck by one popular name, ‘Masindi’.  Right from the nametags of the waiters, waitresses, attendants in retail stores to mega commercial enterprises, you will read the inscription, ‘Masindi’. 

Masindi is one of the most popular and common names in Thohoyandou and among the Venda people.  It is in this little town, located thousands of miles South of Uganda’s Masindi district that I was told what ‘Masindi’ means.   It means, “mother of all nations”.  One of my relatives who now permanently lives in Thohoyandou remarked, little wonder Masindi district in Uganda is home to all kinds of ‘nations’ – the Nyoro, Langi, Acholi, Japadhola, Hima, Ganda etc.  Now you know what ‘Masindi’ means!

One hundred kilometers north of Thohoyandou is the world’s biggest tree.  I saw it.  This huge baobab tree, known as the Sagole Big Tree, is a must see (I wonder why it hasn’t been listed as one of the world wonders). It is 22 meters tall and has a trunk diameter of 10,47 meters. This famous tree is estimated to be three thousand years (+ or -) old. In consonance with its size, its roots stretch as far as 21 kilometers (equivalent to a distance between Kampala and Mukono town). It is phenomenal!  The Venda people have named the tree “Muri Kunguluwa” meaning, the tree that roars. The name apparently comes from the sound of wind blowing through its branches.

For my family and I, those were the dying moments of 2015; no wistful regrets whatsoever.  Now that 2016 is here, we plan to go on an expedition to discover what living healthier means.

Happy 2016!