The Old Lady Comes to London

July 2008 has been a month of firsts. It is the first time that my mother visits London or travels by plane for over an hour. A few years back, she was not feeling well when she came to visit us in Nairobi and instead of making her travel by bus to Kampala from Nairobi, we booked her on to KQ for one way back into Kampala. It was her first time, but the strong and confident woman she is, it did not show on her face or in the way she acted. On this occasion when she travelled all the way here, she was not with me but I made sure that she was in the competent hands of another relative who was coming to UK on official business. Victoria keeps insisting that I am offering unsolicited help, because she (Victoria) knows that despite her limited education, her mother in law is confident enough to travel anywhere in the world. My reaction to that is that Victoria overrates the old lady’s confidence but I must admit that her confidence and perseverance sometimes baffles and inspires me. She now is her late 60s (her age cannot be determined with certainty although she is known to have been born a few years before an uncle of mine whose age is known). While the pace of London seems daunting even to us younger folks, she seems to have taken this in her stride often running after trains like we do. Her engrossment into the rigours of X-Factor despite her limited comprehension of the white man’s language makes me even prouder of her.

In addition to her, later this month we got three friends visiting from Kampala. That makes us a lot of Ugandans sleeping in this house situated in the quieter parts of Surrey. This in addition to the fact that we are the only black people living in this street may cause a little consternation and suspicion. I just hope our neighbours do not call the police due to increased activity/commotion. I suspect some of you are laughing but this is no laughing matter. A few months back a good friend of mine from Malawi whose assignments take him to different parts of the globe experienced something very bizarre. His wife called him in South Africa where he was at the time and told him that the police were at their home looking for him because there has been a case of domestic violence reported. The officers who had shown up at the front door insisted that his wife was probably protecting him from the long arm of the law because ‘the neighbour who had called couldn’t possibly have lied’. Them like us lived in a neighbourhood full of white folks and although they could not point a finger to any one of them, they thought this was a good sign that not all their neighbours are happy that they lived amongst them. Fortunately for us, we have had no such incident yet, but as I said I hope this big number in the house does not bring about such a sad moment.

Later on in the month, it was another first. I joined Victoria as she worked for a short holiday in the Far East – it was my first visit to this part of the world. Our travels took us to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia and boy was I impressed or what? Malaysia is very impressive; I wonder why it is still classified as a third world country. Indonesia (esp Bali) was a treasure and Singapore was very inspiring. I have had intentions to put a few lines about travelling and tourism and how we Ugandans are letting ourselves down. I think I have enough information to do so now but that will be for later.