Chapter 3: Going to the City

On graduation in 1956, Sam started implementing the pact he made with his brother Dan, and started shifting his siblings from the village. I was then three years old when Sam, took me and my elder brother Simon, to Kampala to stay with him. We went to live at the, “The House of Lords,” in the Naguru African Housing Estate in Kampala, where at that time, Michael Wandera, Sam’s bosom friend was manager.

Our eldest brother Dan, on completion of his studies in 1958 was posted to his alma mater, Nabumali High School. As had been agreed with Sam, he collected our sisters Milly and Mary, who went to stay with him at Nabumali, where they joined a nearby junior school.

At about the same time, I moved with Sam to Jinja, Uganda’s main industrial town which employed very many Samias and abaluhya in the factories while Simon moved to the Wanderas. In 1959 he married Miriam and that same year, Dan took Ida to the altar.

That was a period of rising nationalism in the colonies and Uganda was no exception. Sam went into politics, became a municipal councilor and eventually made it to Uganda’s first independence Parliament through support from the numerous factory workers.