Monday, July 7, 2003
Bush Isn't Serious, He Won't Eat Matooke
By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
US President George Bush will stop in Uganda this week on his African tour. He will spend, well, four hours in the country.
That’s not a lot of time by any reckoning. Former president Bill Clinton hung around a little longer. He even, according to accounts in the press at time, managed to shop in the arcade of the hotel where he was spending the daytime hours.
And he showed up in the shops as only Bill the charmer could – in shorts and open sandals.
Bush will have no time for such niceties, given the length of his stop.
The one thing Clinton didn’t do was to be photographed eating. And he probably didn’t eat any Ugandan food – probably out of health concerns.
Clinton is not alone. Most Western leaders usually travel with their own kitchens and chefs when they venture into the Third World.
The other group of citizens from the industrialised West whose fragile stomachs can’t handle local food are soldiers.
In the huge 1996 humanitarian operation they mounted in eastern Congo that was based at the Entebbe airport, the local item they bought in the largest quantities was mineral water. (The present French-Canadian enterprise in the same region, has also seen a sharp increase in the consumption of mineral water.)
We don’t have the final statistics, but it appears the next two most consumed items were bottled booze and pleasure women. It seems, then, that they didn’t eat local food.
It wouldn’t have mattered if this weren’t Africa. To most Africans nothing speaks of more eloquently of your affection for them, or can forge a bond with them more quickly, than having a meal in their homes, or offering them something to eat.
Many of the few modern ones aren’t bothered, but the majority who are still humble working folk and peasants care a great deal.
Clearly, given the length of his stay, Bush is unlikely to be caught eating matooke. And with bare hands, not a fork.
Ugandan politicians understand the electoral value of food. With a few days to go before the last election for Kampala mayor, John Ssebaana and his handlers went to a rundown part of the city and huddled in a dingy restaurant.
They ordered, washed their hands, and went to work with their fingers. By that time, of course, the photographers who had been tipped off had arrived.
The next day, the pictures made the front pages. Ssebaana literally didn’t get out of bed to go campaigning after that. He romped home by a wide margin.
Ahead of the Clinton visit in 1998, the government’s spin-doctors called editors for a background briefing. The subject then turned to how to position Clinton for a photo that would make it on the front page of the world’s major newspapers and TV prime time news.
We were all aware that, with Clinton visiting several other African countries, the stop that would win the day would be the one where he got the best photo op.
Someone suggested that a press conference be organised near a kraal, with cattle visible in the background. And Clinton and Museveni would sit on traditional stools. It would have all the exotic elements: Danger, in case one of the sharp-horned cows attacked the dignitaries; and a bit of unspoilt Africa, with the bush and the smell of cow dung in the air, which journalists could recount with colourful flourish.
It didn’t happen. Still, another thing you can do for many a Ugandan if you want to win their heart is touch their cow or bull and praise it. Perhaps no Ugandan cares more about that than President Yoweri Museveni, who is believed to own the country’s largest herd of cattle.
So, while Clinton stayed for about two days, and Bush will barely have time to clear the airport, to the "original" Ugandan, none of them can be said to have visited "seriously" because they both bade farewell without eating our food, or stroking our cows.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is managing editor in charge of media convergence at the Nation Media Group.
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