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This week many Ugandan women arrived in Nairobi. The hottest ticket was �Queen Sylvia Nagginda of Buganda�, as the papers referred to her. One of them addressed her fully as �The Queen of Buganda, Her Royal Highness Sylvia Nagginda Nnabagereka�.
Remarkable, if you consider that it was in the first paragraph of the story, what we call the �intro� in the business. As a rule, we don�t download multiple titles into the intro.
Nagginda is, easily, the most engaging public Ugandan woman. Not because she is dashing, speaks with educated sophistication (as opposed to affected), but because unlike other female VIPs, she is the only one in that bracket whom you distinctly feel would have made exactly the same impression even if she hadn�t been married to a king.
It is common for many Kenyans to ask about her with awe. Nagginda came to open a five-day conference on early childhood care and development in Samburu.
First Lady Janet Museveni was also in town. Janet was attending the African First Ladies segment of the 13th International Conference on Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA).
The First Ladies had their pitch on TV, with Janet and Rwanda�s Jeanette Kagame being noticeably the most photogenic of the esteemed wives.
KTN TV usually has an extract at the end of its evening news called �Parting Shot�, where they feature the choice comments of the day from someone who was in the news. On Monday night, Janet got the day�s one-minute spotlight. She spoke gently about the burdens of the African woman. I am not used to seeing Janet performing in a neutral non-political environment.
I have to report that she came across eminently well.
The wider point about this is that there is something about non-political enterprises that bring out the best in us. On Saturday, Janet�s host, Lucy Kibaki, led the 10km International Women�s Aids Run in Nairobi.
The city closed as the women took over the streets. It was an incredible scene, for there were about 20,000 women! Even some of us cynical souls were touched.
About 70 percent of the more than 36 million people world-wide infected with HIV/Aids live in Africa. And about 55 percent of the adults in Africa infected by Aids are women. By the year 2010, there will be more than 40 million children in Africa orphaned by Aids.
It is not surprising then that we have a women�s Aids run, and they show up in their thousands.
Apart from men who had some official role, the Aids run was not open to us. That is not to say we weren�t there. We were there in our suits and with bodyguards in the VIP pavilion before the run was flagged off.
Later in the day, we gathered around the TV to watch a
report of the run. We yow
yowed about the proceedings, and someone who was impressed by Mrs Kibaki�s performance shouted; �Lucy for President�. It was a man, of course, who would think that First Lady Lucy�s reward should be the highest political office in the land.
My mother, a generous-hearted and forgiving woman, looked on silently for sometime. However, the oddity of the fat men in the pavilion became a little too much for her. She remarked sarcastically; �Men, they will never let women have a good show without ruining it with bad taste�.
The ladies in the house were naturally happy to let the statement stand, so they said nothing. The men looked at each other, hoping someone would drop a face saving joke. But our wit had deserted us.
It seemed the right moment to reflect. I wondered what good cause could possibly bring out 20,000 African men to run 10 kilometres in the sun on a Saturday morning.
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