{UAH} This day in history.............

This day in history....

30 years ago today at about this time;

'Leave it Joseph, if you feel you have had enough', politely came an observation from Father Anthony Maggs C.R.E, who was seated not so directly opposite me but, had been watching us all and in my case with so special an attention it was like I was the baby of the table. I still see his whole face seemingly at me the whole meal. 

Christmas day that year was on Friday and, a couple or so Sundays earlier, I had been invited (effectively asked) by Fr. Anthony, to join him and a few members of the Parish of St. Peter-In-Chains Church in Crouch End,  London. This was a Christmas like no other; my faith had been tested to the brink (over the previous couple of  months or so), it was cold, I was new or rather, everything was new to me, I hardly knew anyone of comfort; I was still in shock and uncertainty but above all, it was the very first time - ever - I was having Christmas away from home in Nagongera and, without any member of my family. 

My best memories of Christmas were those early years when the treat of the year would be the one shirt, the rare new pair of shorts, the comfort of ironing that morning before Church and guess what, on Christmas Eve, my father placing the turkey on the roof of the kitchen  before playing Church tunes on the drum. He hardly drank then but would smile as if tipsy and for a quiet and rather shy man, it was so unusual that it provided the total gift of the season. 

Yet this day, I had served - like everyone else - rather reasonably (actually most modestly) but as it happened, the turkey did not taste like the one from Nagongera. Only now do I get it; the one I knew, lived on and ate over the years all fed naturally, sometimes in the wild,  grazing in freedom....

Fr. Anthony had seemingly supervised my eating from the outset. I could read in his eyes a sense of sympathy, helplessness and you know...something else I could not and still cannot put a finger on.  Perhaps a little bit of my pain in him. Possibly some guilt, following what he had told me the first time we met that they had been made to believe 'Museveni was a good man'.   It could even be that he was invoking Jesus and wondering why and how 1987 years after His birth, there would still be people reckless with others' lives and in some cases, whole communities with destinies sunk. He didn't know that I was actually among the luckiest ones then and looking back, possibly even more so now. Anyhow, I completed the meal, was most grateful (still am), stayed a little bit and politely chose and offered to leave. 

On reflection, the parental look was understandably, as if only last Sunday. I was the only black face on that table, relatively young and distant yet vulnerable.  Though it had been established from the brief conversations  that I did speak reasonable English, had gone through normal schools and escaped from Uganda via a rather reputable university (according to standards then) and whose name was not particularly difficult to come by in the minds of above-average-British people,  Africa - distant to many of their minds today - was even more so then.  But 'thanks' to Idi Amin (and their Anglo-Israeli surrogates), everyone seemed to know Uganda was 'his country'....sometimes to my apparent irritation.

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Merry Christmas ALL. We had a fantastic time...J