By Nimusiima
Sunday, the streets of Kampala were awash with a horde of people who poured in the city from different walks of life. They came to witness the delightful Kampala Carnival that was underway. They shouted, gawked and jumped in ululations. The streets were peppered with people shoving aloft their placards, convoys of different corporate companies with their respectful creatively-coined huge cars, people with paint patched on their skin, girls showcasing their neon, glistening bodies, music blaring endlessly, music performances et al. And by the time the streets were cleared and Sunday turned Monday, the carnival, like finger prints, left behind things to ponder. We need the carnival, fellow Ugandans. We need such festivals. We need such celebratory carnivals filled to the brim with pomp and unmatched delight.
First things first, the carnival merges people regardless of their religious and political affiliations, age or their financial standings, and their color or race. People subscribe to inane norms that make them morph into factions, distancing themselves from the masses. Political ideologies and affiliations bite them to dust. They sear through them and divide them apart. Souls that subscribe to NRM won’t pull their chairs closer to the table where FDC folks are seated in loud banter. They can’t. They won’t. Same can be said of religious affiliations. Yes, we haven’t registered such hogwash scenarios where a certain sect of a religious cult won’t shake hands with folks from other places of worship. We believe in the same God, not so? Well, we won’t indulge ourselves in such; I will delicately leapfrog it and avoid coming off as blasphemous. However, all these affiliations drifting into play, the Kampala Carnival merges and brings together people in an act of togetherness. They celebrate together. They gawk at celebrations together. They yelp and belch together, running on the streets, chanting songs of happiness and bliss.
For a split moment, we forget that we have gullies of potholes. We forget that the state of the city is ailing, laying on a deathbed choking through an oxygen mask. We forget that the traders have been plucked off the streets like lepers. We forget that people have been evicted, on a daily basis, and they are wandering about town seeking for shelter. Here, the movie Gimme Shelter by Vanessa Hudgens comes to mind. We forget a barrage of problems that are plaguing the city. We forget the balls of dust that covers this town. How about the motionless, stagnant, catastrophic traffic that remains whorled and patched together on our roads on a daily? How about faulty streetlights? We forget the burglars that roam this town like devils chasing for morsels; pickpocketing and running away with ladies’ handbags. We forget about the taxi louts, shoving their heads from their little matatus shouting themselves hoarse with an unpleasant stench shouting from under the armpits. We forget the bodaboda folks whose business seem like a script from Fear Factor. All that, we forget and pretend as though we are oblivious about them. We burry our heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich and sink ourselves in celebrations. Thumping our chests like King Kong in an act of jubilating. The carnival, too, might come off as a PR strategy for some companies. These companies use this opportunity to peddle their services and lay them bare. It works for them. It worked for them, if you had a keen eye. Though, more importantly, the carnival merges people. It might not match the viral Brazilian Carnival, but, what the heck, we had fun, didn’t we?Boatfuls of it. And before the dust settles, the carnival registered itself as one of the best things to ever happen to this dusty metropolis. Break a leg, Jenny.
