Uganda today
Blu*3 are topping the Ugandan charts
www.blu3music.co
Nowadays, it’s not trouble that brews in Uganda’s capital but Guinness. The factory on Kampala’s outskirts provides welcome jobs in a city whose population has spiralled to 1.5million, including several thousand street children. Many Ugandans, though, still prefer waragi, a strong gin based on cassava, bananas, millet or sugar cane.
Radios carry the beats of Ugandan musicians, now beginning to edge out American imports on DJ’s turntables. Ragga Dee, Bebe Cool, and the all-women group Blu*3 are the new names on the block. Cineplex has opened a state of the art cinema chain and since 2004 the capital has hosted Amakula Kampala – an annual international film festival.
The rapid spread of inexpensive mobile phones has pushed Uganda ahead in communications technology
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There are 10 cell phones for every landline in Uganda and among Uganda’s urban youth, a Swahili-based patois called “sheng” fills the air and floods their cell phones.
Young people in Uganda make up 50% of the population in a country that spearheaded the African response to HIV/AIDS. Museveni challenged those who stigmatised AIDS victims and promoted the ABC campaign – Abstain, Be faithful and Condomize. The infection rate dropped dramatically in the 1990s. However, his anti-AIDS programme began to rely on funds from American evangelicals, so “condomizing” has been dropped. The infection rate is rising again and young people, Uganda’s future, are most at risk.
Members of the music and dance group, Children of Uganda, who have been orphaned by AIDS.
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David Rosenberg worked in a rural Ugandan school in 2001 as part of a global teacher project (www.lcd.org.uk) and returned in 2005. He currently attends an evening class in Swahili at the School of Oriental and African Studies
