Ordinary Stories of (Un)Ordinary Lives

For years and years, everyone’s older grandma and auntie from the ‘burbs in Greece would exclaim with horror the above, comparing Greek realities to that of Uganda in the 80’s and 90’s: Civil war, atrocities, insecurity and human suffering counted in the millions.

It seems to me after one year of living in Uganda that over the last few years, we’re trading ‘realities’ between the two countries. Gone are the days of mass unrest and war in Uganda, to be replaced with endemic, almost professional corruption in government, horrific urban sprawl, environmental degradation, geo-electoral politics and district manipulations, and monstrous down-town Kampala shopping centers calculated to fatten up a politician’s pocket, rather than input into the local economy or raise the economic indicators of a specific area. The capital city and its environs are benefiting from years of humanitarian and developmental aid, much like Greece in the 80s and 90s hijacked almost all of the European development funding for ridiculous horse-shit in Attica, leaving 95% of the country to wallow in its pig farms, dying island communities and dangerous roads. We laugh at the pace that the Ugandans have to enlarge the Kampala-Gulu road (about 300 kilometers) but that’s a mistake when we see how long it’s taken to build the Egnatia Odos in northern Greece. Difficult to complete a project when half the money is badly managed. Like a retarded child trying to finish a finger-painting while eating the paints. And like the Olympics, Uganda had its CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) in 2007. They must have had Greek advisors, because all it meant was monstrous hotels being built (which now enjoy a significant 5% occupancy rate), roads being ‘remade’ (not all pot-holed again), and, in true Greek spirit, the whole issue benefiting everyone except the citizens of Uganda. (Remember having only one lane in Athens?)

In Greece, the European funds are almost over. Patience is over, the Olympics are over, our terrorists are back, the US State Dept. actually name-drops Exarchia as a no-go area. Wow. Exarchia now has its place in history, much like Karachi, Fallujah and the Al-Halili marketplace in Egypt. Good on us! Our cops are a bunch of fat 45 year olds who were shoved into the force because their mother’s uncle’s cousin’s farming cooperative partner knew a dude in the General Directorate of Fat Uneducated Bastards Who Need Work. When they’re ‘the new breed’ of cop, they are disgruntled 22 year old rural bumpkins who are so fed up at their lack of opportunities (remember that lack of rural development?) that they’re now in the cities and ready to take their revenge, by making sure University students (that ageless caricature of an urbanite) get ‘theirs.’

Last week, the newspapers in Uganda ran an article shitting on the government for the poor quality of its health monitoring of agricultural products, which is why such a green, verdant, agro-based economy like Uganda doesn’t export didley-shit to neighboring African countries or Europe. Sound familiar, DELTA/FAGE/EVGA? When downtown marketplaces burn down, the fire service is too late, or too underfunded. Sound familiar, western Peloponnese? I don’t know how Uganda keeps following the Greek model, because our own country can’t see fit to even place an embassy in Kampala, and has to make sure The Stamp of Authority rests safely in the hands of a (admittedly) very nice, but Very African Congolese-Greek who runs a coffee factory and is gone half the year. So I want to know: where are all these Greek development advisers who seem to be telling Kampala how to make Uganda in our own image, while sending back information on how to ruin a country, destroy everything dear, and completely disembowel the political system’s legitimacy with its European neighbors, Middle Eastern partners, and closest neighbors ‘to the east.’

We’ve even got a military relationship. Just in the same way Greece half-assed its way through a ‘regional security intervention’ in Albania in the mid-90’s, so did Uganda just half-ass its way through three months of “Operation Lightning Thunder” in northern DRC, in order to finish something that started on its soil. Just in the same way Greece didn’t want to prop up Albania when it needed it, Uganda kept fucking with DRC for years, invading it and destabilizing its capital. And all of a sudden, it found it needed its support. Too late, guys! Welcome to the reality of the regional monster you created.

And, true to form, Uganda is now picking on Kenya regarding… A DISPUTED ISLAND OF ONE ACRE ON THE BORDERS BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES!

We’re not becoming like Uganda, in fact… they’re becoming like us… Poor, poor Ugandans.

Note to self: buy stocks in feta cheese… can’t be long before Uganda starts trying to market it.