By David Tumusiime, Uganda: Issa tried to get everyone into their taxi. In the beginning, he would shout at Issa, trying to get him to see some pedestrians would always be just that: pedestrians. A taxi was not for them. But Issa would not listen. Issa would insist, “Taata, we're the last Democrats left in this land. Abantu bakoowu. Our […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes: the robbery, that is. It happened so fast had I not been watching the car; I would have missed it entirely. I love BMW's and the car was a silver BMW X3, new like it was fresh from a showroom. […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: Everyone calls him Mulalu. No one knows where he came from. No one can chase him from the stage. No one would dare. To chase him would mean to confront him. No one wants to do that. The taxi drivers try from time to time. But most of their conductors will not bother to jump out […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: He left her life the way he entered it: in a taxi. Somehow this was a fault with her. “Can't you at least pretend to own a car by hiring one once in a while?” she had often asked. Leaving, he realised he should have started to worry when she stopped asking. There was a lot […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: We stumbled out of the taxi like gas chamber escapees: faces screwed up, on tottery legs. Blinking into the bright sunlight like stunned night clubbers. No one able to immediately walk away from the taxi with goose stepping purpose. Secretly surveying each other before we dispersed. One last time. Our nostrils clearing up. Everybody was taking […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: We were travelling into the city, in the morning silence. Contemplatively quiet, were those who were awake, and the sleepers looking for our shoulders like we were their sweethearts. Just another day going into the city to look for paper with Tumusiime Mutebile's signature. Except it wasn't. The city was rushing up to us faster than […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: A friend of mine just died: Thomas Pere. Killed Sunday night in a taxi. Sunday night, people. Somehow it seems wrong that anyone should die on a Sunday night. Murdered. Losing the fight of his life in a speeding taxi down Kampala-Entebbe highway, way past midnight. I see his death more vividly than all the deaths […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: I'm no fool in Kampala, I like to think. This is my city and I know her ways. Drop me anywhere in Kampala and I know someone somehow there. I was born and raised here. There shouldn't be anything about Kampala that surprises me. We grew up knowing that if a man walking in-front of you […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: Had he dropped his wallet? This couldn't be his wallet! That was his first thought when he opened it, saw no money in it. Flipped it closed to check for the China Hugo Boss logo on the side. Then opened it again. There was no money in this wallet! The blankness was too much. This is […]
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By David Tumusiime, Uganda: She would not let me put on my earphones. Even after her intro. Which I had not asked for. All I had wanted was to sit next to a beautiful woman in the taxi. I did not think it was necessary for her to inform me, when I greeted her, “Hi, I have a boyfriend.” She […]
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