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OLD MAN�S CORNER
By F.D.R. Gureme |
Whence did bulokole spring from?
Nov 4 , 2003
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When I joined the East African School of Co-operation early 1953, there was general insecurity on account of the Mau Mau insurgency, then underway. But I had won selection to attend, and did not hesitate to sell my motorbike, and head for Nairobi. We travelled by the Mail Train: taking 48 hours to Mombasa. Nairobi passengers disembarked at the city station at about 6.00 p.m. on the second day; which we did and were driven to Jean�s School, Lower Kabete, 9 miles outside Nairobi. Travelling second class was delightful compared to the third class: where passengers travelled with livestock and bunches of ripe banana and all manner of personal luggage. During the day we stood at the windows sight-seeing. Presently I noticed that, at big stations, the familiar chorus of �Tukutendereza Yesu..� (the Luganda version of �Precious Jesus Thou hast saved me�): the Balokole�s anthem par excellence, was sung by a group travelling third class, together with their Kenyan brethren waiting to embrace them. Amazingly, �Tukutendereza�� then 17 years old, was sung in Luganda, all the way. We shall return to this presently. When Mr Arthur Kiiza of Rukungiri wedded Jackie, daughter of our family friend James Rukiriituka (RIP) of Nyabushozi recently, my wife Jovia, elder daughter Robina Rwakoojo, younger daughter Samalie and I attended the reception at Speke Resort, Munyonyo�s luxurious hall. Among the Bahororo speakers, was former Auditor General, James Kahoza; who made some strange �otherworldly� assertions. He claimed that bulokole started in Rukungiri, and was embraced by Bahororo. That it overflew Ankole into Buganda. That so many Bahororo resided in heaven; outnumbering other communities in the heavenly host; and that, a similar confusion to the abrupt end of construction of the Tower of Babel, had reigned in heaven, on account of the various languages spoken by paradisiacal communities. Jesus, according to Kahoza, had foreseen a crisis. There must be, He thought, one heavenly language, i.e. the language of majority spirits. We Banyankore, cynically clapping, dismissed these words as profane absurdities. Although Kahoza�s mood was a rare light-heartedness, there was substantial truth in his claims. Having been around when the seismic effect of the revival movement hit Uganda, I briefly retold those at my table about how it had all begun when I was in P.3 in 1936. �Retold� because I had probably written on the subject, under my Sunday Vision column �Old Man About Town�, some years before. �Why don�t you write about it instead of your controversial political stuff?� cynically asked Robina: who generally ridicules my political standpoint, presumably because I had thoroughly inculcated the classical civil service perspective and principles into my children. �I am sure I wrote about it not long ago; and it would sound stale if I repeated the story now.� I feebly pleaded that it would be quite a long story. �No, no�Daddy�, persisted Robina. �How many of us here, at this table read the said story?� Amazingly, none at our table remembered having read it. After some arguments I agreed to write what I knew about the movement that has practically, and hopefully not irreparably, split our Anglican Church into so many sects: some of them patently commercial, and some of whose founders and �members� are stinking rich. It was no comfort when I observed similar trends when visiting Kenya and Zimbabwe about 1990. The Christian revival movements have sporadically occurred over time: the current one having started in the 1920s.That the Balokole movement, as we know it today, started in Rukungiri is not only simplistic; it is a fallacy. Its epicentre was the Anglican mission hospital of Gahini, just inside Rwanda. Space precludes full justice to the subject. Next time, God willing, we shall see who was who among the pioneers of the Movement Contact: 077 401173 |
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