THE MYSTERY OF BADNESS & THE MYSTERY OF GOODNESS (for Fiona Donohoe)
LIGHT FROM ROCK MUSIC: BOB DYLAN - PRESSING ON (Fitzroy TV on July 5th)

LIFE IN ALL ITS SPECTACULAR WONDER (KLA TO ARUA)

Congo Road

Today, I should be on a bus for 12 hours. I should have left Kampala early this morning. It is a long journey to Arua but over the past few years I have gotten to love that road. Oh there may be miles and miles here and there where I read a book or have a nap. For most of it, though, there is always intrigue out of every window. I feel the utter privilege of driving through Africa. For parts of it I listen to Paul Simon or Johnny Clegg or our own Jonny Fitch, adding to the stimulation of the visual a soundtrack to make it even more spectacular.

I am missing this journey today. Here it is, as I remember it. Travel it with me. Imagine it, in all its extravagant wonder. Please God, I will be back on this road very soon.

 

Take the Bombo road

Heading north out of KLA

Where lives are gridlock wasted

And boda bodas and car horns trap the urban beat

Give the man 2000 shillings for a New Vision

Then clear all the panoramas

To see matoke, maize and mango trees

Along the green rolling hills

To Luwero

Pay a white man price for pineapples

The best pineapples in the world

Let the juice drip down

And marvel at the height of the anthills

Smile at the field of sunflowers, as God intended them,

Under African blue

And the trees, African shaped air-conditioning.

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

The traffic has eased up now

Like this rural way of life

Up through Nakasongola

What a combination of syllables that is

On a road in the middle of Africa

Oh mercy and my oh my

Bask in every single fascinating scene

Out of every window, every moment

Every precious person

Carrying every kind of load

On bicycles or heads

Slow down around the bend

And down the hill

To Karuma Falls,

Baboons

Cheeky, entertaining and a little dangerous

And the Falls

Stunning effervescent cascade of the Nile

The Victoria Nile

Chasing itself up to Murchison for its spectacular fall.

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

After the baboons give up on the scavenge

Make a left

Alongside the edge of the National Park

The road straightens up for miles and miles

No need for McCartney’s Long and Winding Road

Less people now

But keep your eyes peeled

And there might just

If providence pokes the luck

Be a family of giraffes

Seeking the leaves

So elegant,

Their patterns, near perfectly painted by someone

Elephants,

Egrets on their back

Waving their ears to dismiss us

And the hippos,

Basking, bathing, blethering

On the edge of the Nile

The Albert Nile,

Wider, more sedate but no less beautiful

And no less that same Nile

As we cross the bridge at Pakwach

Through the human motorway service station

Boiled eggs, bottles of Stoney, chicken on a stick.

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

At last, into West Nile

Through Nebbi

Watching the changing scape of the earth

From the savannah where lions roam

To the more small rugged hills

In the dark shadows of Congolese mountains

The roads meander round, narrow

And thread through these borderlands

Of a district marginalised, maligned and misunderstood

Mud huts, thatched, in family clusters

Smoke oh so slowly spiralling into the now setting sun

Like the evensong rhythms of contented souls

Having hoed all day in their shambos

For enough, just enough,

Never enough for greed

The children still smiling

And waving at the muzungus

As if to amuse us

 

I breathe and catch the moment

Now

Here

This

Life in all its fullest extravagant wonder.

 

Finally,

You

Black as night

So beautifully bright

The shiniest light

In it all.

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