Last week I was having a phone conversation with an old friend of mine back in Uganda. We have not seen each other in a long time but recently after he “discovered” me on facebook, we got in touch and its like we have never been apart. I call him nearly every week. However, the last time we were having our weekly chat, his five year old son kept interrupting our chat. He was bored! I could not believe it. I remonstrated with telling him that in our days, we could never be bored. How about a game of tapo (hide and seek) or duulu (marbles) or just going out to look for the latest tree with mangoes on it. Besides we could never tell that to our parents as homework was never fully done. My friend in frustration switched on sky TV. I could hear it in the background. I also had sky TV on in my lounge in the background. Fancy watching the news a few seconds before he did. There was a significant time lag. I was also disappointed that his lad was complaining about the lack of what to watch on television. I have been to Uganda recently and they have so many channels. That is what development brings I suppose.

All these television channels are a Godsend to anyone who is young enough not to remember any other president of Uganda other than Museveni. And I do address all. Let me tell you what it was like in our days. Yes, I know I hated it when my father started a conversation like that but when he used to, I think he was just about as old as I am now. So, listen! Uganda Television, the only channel we had in them days started at 1800 hours and that is if you were lucky. Some times they waited until 1830 before they switched on the machines. And what was on the screens you might ask? Them black and white dots! Thousands of them and the loudest noise. So if one timed things well and you had vertical blue and white lines (assuming you had a colour TV), then you were in luck because they were about to open the channel. If they pulled out all the stops, they would open at 1500 hours. And that would be detrimental to the economic out put of the country if you get my drift. At least two hours of economic production could have been lost. If you do the mathematics across the whole country, you can see what impact a 1500 hour start was. But, come Saturday, they would relent at times and let us have the hours.

So, there you are, blue lines up and down the TV. The excitement! Because first on line was the announcer who came on and told the whole country what their evening entertainment was going to consist of. One could almost see the whole country cross fingered hoping for a windfall of interesting programmes. It was a programme in its self that announcement slot. The announcer, usually a lady would come on and shuffle some papers and start reading out.

1805, we were to have cartoons. Oh didn’t we love them! They always catered for the kids first. It was usually either The Alvin Show, Scooby Doo, Gulliver’s Travels, or Barbapapa. The Alvin show (and the chipmunks) were an American animated cartoon who sang endlessly. They sounded like kids who had inhaled helium. Scooby Doo is still about. He is the worlds most famous Great Dane dog who likes scooby snacks and his other friends Shaggy and company. Gulliver’s travels were an adaptation from the film by Dave Fleischer. This man (Gulliver) washed up on some random island and everyone there was about the size of his thumb. It was sweet. Barbapapa is a family of shape changing characters always changing into something so as to help each other out. If it was a Christmas, then you would be graced by one of the favourite choirs; Nyonza, Kidayo Church choir or there was one which was lead by a one Pastor Kayiwa and his wife, both of whom wore different robes from the other members of the choir, sang the solo pieces and for some reason, his wife was always pregnant at about this time. If non of the above were showing, then we hoped that they broadcast Didi’s comedy show! It was hilarious. It was acted by Dieter Hallervorden a German comedian. There was a programme about The Austrian Baron Franz Von der Trenck. This man was good with swords! Used to be shown either before the news or after.

At 1900 hours, Amawulire the Luganda news would be broadcast. This was the first of three instalments of news. I never watched this to any great length but every one knew when the Late Lawrence Kyagera Musisi was reading. He had a huge baritone voice and the speakers would complain. Amawulire would last for 15 minutes then Habari the Swahili version would start. The interesting thing is that the accompanying video clips were never in Swahili. It Must have been really annoying for Swahili only speakers . But I as a non Swahili speaker, this was the time to go and finish with the other chores. Get the goats from the pastures, the clothes off the line and if time allowed have a quick wash. The period between 1930 and 2200 was sometimes littered with interesting stuff. Usually sports programmes were shown first. Andrew Patrick Luwandagga is to me the best sports commentator Uganda has had in the recent past. This is a man who if he was on the radio commenting on a match between Villa and Express, would work the country into a frenzy shouting “Ssekatawa nakapiira, Sekatawa nakapiiiiiiiira! Whaaaaaaaat could this meeaaaaaan???? Nnnnooooo. Akakubye mu ki Rusia!!!!” By which time the country would be on its feet. On screen, he always kept his composure and was extremely knowledgeable. I wonder whether he still comments on radio and TV.

There was football made in Germany. Excellent stuff even when repeated which UTV did very regularly. How come people these days are mad about the English premier league when we spent hours watching Bayern Munich, Hamburg, Colne and the rest. I saw Franz Beckenbauer score some lovely goals. Now one can hardly get a word in when people start waxing lyrical about Chelsea or Liverpool or Manchester United. Bayern and the rest were the first teams we saw other that Express FC and SC Villa. There was also TransWorld sports by Transtel the German TV provider featuring sports from all over the world. I liked the racing and motor rally shows.

Sports aside, there was Munira Ali. Yes, Just Munira Ali. She used to present a current affairs programme on a regular basis. I watched as the Berlin wall was torn down, the Discovery shuttle disaster and many more on her show. But she was a programme on her own. As far as I am concerned she could have just sat behind that desk and stared blankly ahead. Her programme would have been watched. No, I should correct that. She would have been watched! In fact I think her dispatches were a distraction, a rude interruption on the awesome spectacle that was Munira Ali. I think you all get the point.

Just to spite its viewing public, Uganda Television had the “audacity of Hope” to air a programme called “Talking Point” just after my Munira had left. What a boring programme that was! This was the time when people went to have a cigarette, go to the toilet or stretch their legs. Talking Point was a bad decision. Talking Point was a lousy programme. Whoever thought about the format needs a serious talking to. They would bring a random selection of equally boring people to discuss some banal topic that no one really gave a hoot about. Bean weevils or something. I mean, even the people on the panel looked like they were wishing for Armageddon rather than sit there saying “Good evening Viewers” after the moderator had introduced them. We all knew that those programmes had been pre recorded in the morning. I bet Uganda made a saving on Electricity during that programme. We switched off the TVs. My appeal to Uganda Television or whoever replaced them is please, never ever bring Talking point back again. It was astronomically boring.

A very close second in the boredom stakes was Sunday Half hour. I hope they have changed it these days. Them days, one of the usual suspect choirs would trek to Nakasero hill and basically belt out the hymns the whole Christian community had just sang earlier on in the day. What further compounded the matter was that they all used the same studio with the dreary background. Another “switch off the TV” moment. If they had decided to switch venues, sing in the churches where these choirs came from or showed us around their churches, that would have been good. Now, if Sunday Half hour was within the Christmas period, then you had a double take with another choir coming on to sing Christmas carols! The same that the other choir had sang during the half hour!! Charming.

Lighter moments came with “Obwavu Musolo” a very witty sitcom acted by Dan Zilimenya and company. They were very clever people because like the choirs, they used the same studio but wisely. On so many occasions, it seemed like they actually used one camera. Kyeswa the lead character always wanted to get away from doing some work or something. He was basically lazy and very poor. A few people came to see them in their house and some scenes were just referred to or one would hear voices off stage. Muduuma a village near Mpigi (wonder whether it exists) was made famous by this sitcom. These people were acting geniuses and its sad to see that they were probably never recognised.

That’s Life Mwattu! By the Ebonies Seemed to have been inspired by Obwavu Musolo. That’s Life Mwattu on the other hand was a soap and they had a lot of modern technologies. The lead character Nakawunde had come from Kiboga and her wit was pitted against that of the city types. She was a very clever girl, scheming and getting her way. I was lucky to have met Harriet Nalubwama who acted Nakawunde on two occasions. She is a a very intelligent, sophisticated woman and quite thoughtful. On public engagements however, she was always careful to stay vaguely in character because she knew that people wanted her like that. Some people could never make the distinction between the two. This soap was also before 2200 hours. Very gripping story lines which left people in suspense. Later, I understand that the lead character was killed off and returned as a ghost. I think the writer at this point lost the plot (no pun intended).

If anyone has never watched “The Rich Also Cry” starring Veronica Castro as Mariana and Rogelio Guerra as Luis Alberto don’t mind. You have never missed a thing. This was one of two Mexican soaps (the other one I thankfully forget) that were shown on UTV. They were horrible. Yet the country everyday watched them religiously. I was in the minority because my dislike for these soaps was rather personal. My lovely girlfriend at the time would see me to the door kindly five minutes before the programmes started. If we met the next day, she would tell me what happened. The programmes basically robbed me of valuable girlfriend time. So, I would respond by telling her about anything as well which invariably was absolute nonsense. The kind of nonsense that spews out of a teenage lout. I can only wonder why she never thought of me as a complete looser.

Other public sitcoms in this time slot included “Mind Your Language” a satirical British Sitcom centred around a group of immigrants wanting to learn English and Sanford and Son and American sitcom.

The watershed came at 2200 with the main news bulletin. This was when the adults separated from the kids. If you had school the next day, you went to bed. If you didn’t have to go to school, tough. You still went to bed. Anyone who had the time to watch the news then will not fail to recognise and respect Beatrice Okello, Lucy Banya and our own “Trevor McDonald”, Baale Francis. Next time I will tell you my thoughts on them and the Presidential Press Unit (PPU) with the most famous Aide de Camp that President Museveni has had, the portly, baby faced Captain Kavuma.

Arthur M. Mwenkanya Katabalwa

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