Ugandan Martyrs' Day

Prelude: Thousands of Ugandans gathered in Namugongo, Kampala yesterday in commemoration of Martyrs' Day, a public holiday that remembers the death of 26 Christians killed in 1886. Pilgrims from across the country and surrounding nations convened for Catholic and Protestant services, many of them walking from faraway towns in solidarity with the sufferings the martyrs endured. The services featured choirs, dancing, prayers, serving Holy Communion and a speech by President Museveni.
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The Daily Monitor team arrived in Namugongo in the morning, ready to face the crowds. As a photographer for the paper, my task was to capture the festival of senses that lay outside the security gates of the official services.

Looking around me, this first seemed like a daunting request. The roads were packed with pilgrims on their way to the shrine and it was difficult to walk through the crowds. I spotted a man making rolexes (fried egg rolled in a chapatti), which seemed to be a good place to start. Once I made my way over to him, I held up my camera and started to take photos.

But the man and his friend started waving their hands and complaining about the camera. Who was this mzungu?, this white person, they wondered, and where will she take our faces? I was surprised at their reaction, but explained that I’m a journalist. Yes, I’m a mzungu. And yes, I work for the Daily Monitor. They suddenly relaxed and smiled, telling that me I could take any pictures I wanted. Another vendor nearby overheard our conversation and asked me to take photos there too.

I do not know what negative experiences people have had with mzungus taking pictures, but I quickly learned that clipping a big red sign that read “PRESS” to the front of my bag made people relax and welcome my camera aimed at them.

The variety of food vendors and hawkers was truly amazing. There were people selling Martyrs’ Day calendars, crosses, DVDs, books, clothes, fabric, toy bikes, paintings, chapattis, fried white ants, pineapples, mangos, bananas, piles of sugar cane, pork, ice cream, watches, bags and so much more. It was as if the streets of Namugongo turned into a giant market, a carnival of delights.

In the midst of the chaos, I saw a small crowd gathered around a man who, I was told, was performing miracles. He had a stick on fire that he stuck down his pants, put in his mouth and touched with his bare hands. Miracles! He also performed a trick on an envelope and paper with much drama and waving, proving to the growing crowd that he had special powers. A man selling photographs, who introduced himself as John, thanked me the mzungu for being there and wanted me to stay. “When the people see you,” he said, “they are like, ‘eh! Wow!’ So stay around because we are making money.”

Indeed, everywhere I went the crowd seemed to grow bigger. I stepped inside a tent where there was music and soon there were many more people inside. I stopped at a cell phone tent to take pictures of a woman dancing, and when I looked behind me there was a circle of young people watching us. As a mzungu, it is impossible to disappear in a crowd. You always feel like people are watching you, because they are.

Over the buzz of the crowd I picked out a familiar melody that reminded me of the US. It came from an ice cream bicycle, and I could sing along: “Santa Claus is coming to town.” In the middle of the Martyrs’ Day crowd, in the middle of Kampala, in the middle of Africa, these Christmas medleys seemed both out of place and strangely familiar and comfortable. I stopped, raised my camera, and clicked the shutter.

Story in the Indiana Daily Student
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