Of Uganda’s Jewels, Conservation and My White Men Zombies

This was the fulfillment of a dream and the beginning of a new era of preservation. That night, the lions roared, and Ken Beaton and I jumped over the moon.

(Mervyn Cowie – Kenya’s first director of National Parks, on birth of East Africa’s first National Park- Nairobi National Park 1946- 1950.)

Under this ruined headstone at the Entebbe European Cemetery lie the remains of Kenneth De Planta Beaton. The man whose pioneering efforts set up Uganda’s jewels, the Queen Elizabeth and Murchison Fall parks, is discarded and forgotten.

Ken Beaton (1905 – 1954): a naturist, a conservationist, to some a fantasist; a man born of Africa, with a heart for Uganda.

(Read obituary below)

I have learned pitifully little about Ken Beaton, despite the depth of his work and the reach of his legacy.

This is what I know:

He was born to Captain Duncan Beaton and Alice De Planta in Malawi.

Of Oil, Stones and Wisdom in Uganda and My White Men Zombies

zom.bie noun \ˈzäm-bē\

: my learning, my living, my growing

: Homo Coprophagus Somnambulus

: a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice

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Here lies Arthur Delmar Combe: prolific mineralogist, volcanologist and petrologist.

You are excused if you have never heard of A. D.  After all, who was he but the man for whom the mineral ‘combeite’ was named? So what if the discovery combeite in 1957 has led to important medical developments in biocompatible bone restorations as well as numerous orthopedic and dental innovations?

The sinking, stinking Entebbe European Cemetery is the final resting place for this former Assistant Director at the Uganda Geological Survey who had  a heart for the ageless stories of stones. The beautiful black block of Ankole granite used to fashion his headstone was a loving tribute to his pioneering work in mapping the crater lakes of southwestern Uganda and his discovery of potash-rich deposits in Toro.

Now, like much of Uganda’s inglorious past, Arthur Delmar Combe lies forgotten … and we wake to a grey dawn.

I have discovered pitifully little about A. D. Combes. An excerpt in the journal Nature from July 16, 1949 sheds some light:

Weeping for My White Men Zombies

Despair? No. Emptiness. No! Fancy? Maybe doom … maybe fortitude.

Mourned at the graves in the European Cemetery in Entebbe. Saw the face of inevitability, not in my mortality, but again and again in the shameful decrepitude of my nation.

They are not my zombies, but they are. Not my past, but my wretchedness.

… When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

- William Shakespeare; from Sonnet LXIV

Entebbe European Cemetery: The perfect idyllic resting place …

... so idllyic that a shallow, open public piss palace has been erected on it.

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zom.bie  noun \ˈzäm-bē\

usually zombi

1. : my past, my reality, my end
2. : a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice

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Isn’t It About Time?

Seriously? Take it down already, Mr. Wava.

I’m Saving the Uganda Museum, are You?

For the next scheduled hearing of the civil suit against the demolition of Uganda’s national museum:

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Remember, remember

The 8th of November

2 p.m. at the High Court!

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Here’s what you can do:

Give Me Dance or 3%

A few years ago I discovered my brother Digory’s end of year Luganda language examination paper hidden beneath a pile of tattered, dusty books. 3%. That’s right, he got 3%.

In Luganda. 3%.

Apparently the study of Luganda was compulsory for his class at Kings College Budo and Digory couldn’t be bothered. Why struggle to learn a third language when he hadn’t fully mastered the first two? His answers were hilarious and sad. He didn’t even try.

Digory isn’t the hero here, although I love him to bits. The real hero is his teacher who valiantly awarded him three measly marks for “effort.”

Effort.

You know what it is they say about the victory in just showing up. Or is it the humiliation of only showing up?

In September, Ugandan bi-weekly newspaper The Observer ran an ‘analysis’ of commercial traditional dance artistes. “Are Troupes Ruining Traditional Dances?” it asked.

The author of the article postulates that “commercial competition” among the growing number of dance troupes is somehow watering down culture.

Dear Uganda: Dream or Death?

So Gaddafi is dead.

Time to move on to Greater Things.

Or not. Or Paradise Lost.

Adam inquires concerning celestial motions, is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge.

Greater things like the “Magnetohydrodynaic Instabilities in Accretion Discs in Close Binary Systems: Study of the Anomalous Low State of the X-ray Binary Hercules X-1.”

Which is my way of saying that tonight was a great night to live in Uganda.

Due to the combined wonder of a five-hour blackout, a stubborn foul smell under my fridge, the gift of a Manu Dibango album and the marvelous Google Sky Map app I was forced to seek the solace of the stars. A beautiful exile it was.

For three hours I was treated to the spectacle of the Orionid meteor shower. A breathtaking celestial echo that resonates with my soul.

Resonates, Or so I wish.

Alas, I am no Milton. The dismal education I received at the hands of the Ugandan school system means poetry was taught as a non-essential and astronomy was for dreamers and fairies. A system that faithfully churns out unimaginative, shallow, unthinking, bland Ugandans.

Thankfully,

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Plan Bee?

(Insert bee pun)

.

In honor of the most hilarious act of civil disobedience I have heard of in years, I present my favorite bee-inspired movies. Hopefully … HOPEFULLY … they will lead to an amazing Ugandan spin-off.

Out-Faking the Fake?

Very interesting analysis from Dr. Peter Mwesige on the close(?) relationship between a section of the Ugandan media and the State that may be clouding investigation into alleged corruption in Uganda’s young oil sector.

A definite read.

‘A’ is for Askance

The glorious end to the article “Independent Uganda” in the Ottawa Citizen October 13, 1962.

Dear Lord, forgive my askance, but I am drowning in despair.