By Kalungi Kabuye
Just how much do you really know about Entebbe? Very little, I found out some time back when I joined the Mountain Slayers of Uganda (MSU) for a hike around Uganda’s oldest urban centre.
Entebbe is that place you have seen millions of times but know very little about; it is familiar, but that’s about all. Most of us have just passed through it on the way to the airport and out of Uganda. Or barely gave it a glance when you landed from overseas, impatient to get home after a long flight.
So when I saw the flyer with the legend, ‘Discover Entebbe’, I jumped at it. And it was only a day’s hike, so one would drive from Kampala, do the hike, and then drive back.
The Freedom Tree
We gathered at the starting point of the 22km hike at the Freedom Tree, which is next to the Total and Shell petrol stations as you enter Entebbe proper from Kampala. How many times have I stopped at that Shell to buy something before proceeding on, but never noticed the massive tree in the small clearing nearby?
Those two petrol stations must be the most visited parts of Entebbe, but sadly there is nothing to draw attention to the tree that has been a major part of Uganda’s history. It looks just like any other tree that will probably be cut down sooner or later by some ‘investor’ putting up a kiosk.
As the story goes, the Freedom Tree is where Uganda’s active politics actually started. The 1950s were troubled times in Uganda, as agitation for equality with Europeans and Asians reached a crescendo. Tired of being treated as third-class citizens in their own country, the likes of Ignatius Musaazi and Ssemakula Mulumba started organising rallies to mobilise Ugandans against the colonialists.
Entebbe being the then capital of Uganda, they chose the Freedom Tree as the venue. Musaazi would be tried and imprisoned for treason for his efforts, but became the leader of the first political party in Uganda, the Uganda National Congress. But the Freedom Tree is where it all started.
Chadwick Namatte Primary School, Entebbe Post Office
Entebbe is a town of many firsts, since it was the first ‘official’ capital of Uganda. Just up the road from the Freedom Tree is the Chadwick Namatte Primary School, founded by Walter Chadwick, an Anglican Irish missionary who arrived in the country in 1874. It is one of the earliest schools set up to educate Africans. Unfortunately, there was no one to tell us about the ‘Namatte’ bit. There are claims that former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga attended this school.
About 2km from the school is Uganda’s very first Post Office, established in 1900. We were not told who owns the ‘P.O Box 1’, though. That would be fascinating information, the owner of Uganda’s oldest Post Office Box!
Interestingly, at the end of one of our monthly Kampala-Entebbe walks, one young person wondered ‘what those things are’, pointing to the letter boxes. Oh, well.
A few metres from the Post Office is the Ministry of Lands and Mapping Building, established in 1930. This is where all records of maps and surveys done in Uganda were kept. Today it is the headquarters of the Department of Maps and Surveying, but was closed when we were there.
The Secretariat and the Botanical Gardens
From there we proceeded to the Secretariat, which was the seat of Uganda’s first ever ‘parliament’, the Legislative Council from 1921. It only moved to Kampala after independence in 1962, and also served as the Governor’s seat. The boardroom, all modern now, of course, was dark because the lights were not working; so it was difficult to read the old inscriptions framed up on the wall. But if you go looking for the Secretariat you won’t find it, because it now houses the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO). And in the boardroom, all the photographs are of NARO board members, not the Governors that used to rule Uganda from there.
We didn’t get to visit the Botanical Gardens, that is a full day’s venture in itself, but it is worth seeing if you have the time.
The Entebbe Golf Club
Then it was on to East Africa’s very first golf club’ unfortunately, there was a tournament going on and the green was off-limits. Established in 1901, the Club House was built in 1913, and was strictly only for the white colonial administrators.
St John’s Church, Lake Victoria Hotel and Bugonga Catholic Church
From the golf club, we passed by St John’s Church, which has been serving the Entebbe Anglican community since 1939. It is undergoing renovation now, and hopefully the original architecture will be preserved.
We also passed, but didn’t stop at, the Lake Victoria Hotel. Built in 1948, it famously hosted Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Uganda in 1958. Long the go-to place for accommodation in Entebbe, it has sadly fallen down the pecking order in recent years.
Bugonga Catholic Church marks the spot where the first Catholic missionaries camped while preparing for their meeting with Kabaka Mutesa in 1899. It is said the big tree at the back of the church (you have to ask to see it) grew from one of the missionaries’ tent pegs.
Entebbe za Mugula
A 5km hike took us to the famous Entebbe za Mugula, after which the town is named. When Gerald Portal (of Fort Portal fame) arrived in Uganda in 1893 as the first colonial administrator, he found a country in turmoil. Religious wars between the Protestants, Catholics and Muslims had made Kampala a dangerous place to be in, so he moved his base to the shores of Lake Victoria, a place he named Port Alice after his wife.
I could not find when and why it was renamed Entebbe, but the story of Mugula Bukulu bwa Wada is well told. He was an 18th-century authoritarian chief who used the caves as his seat of judgement and, if he didn’t like you, or you didn’t meet his expectations, your execution would be held where the present Old Airport stands.
The rising waters of the lake have made some of the caves inaccessible, but some kind of shrine exists; and you can get some extensive advice on relationships by the man in charge, if you’re inclined that way.
Kigungu Missionary Landing Site
There is a tunnel that goes under the airport runway, which one can access to the other side of the airport, where the Kigungi Missionary landing site is. But permission was not granted to us, so we had to take a 15-minute canoe ride around the peninsula to Kigungu.
The canoes, which are the mainstay of transport on Lake Victoria, are narrow, and passengers often have to ‘balance’ the weight, otherwise the chances of capsizing are pretty high.
The Kigungu Missionary Landing Site is said to be the beginning of the Catholic religion in Uganda, but it seemed pretty low-key when we got there.
As the story goes, this is where on 17th February 1897, Rev Fr Simeon Lourdel (later known as Mapeera, Luganda for the French Mon Pere, ‘my father’) and Brother Amans of the White Fathers landed on mainland Buganda for the very first time. They were coming from Tanzania, the traditional route into Buganda.
The two were part of a group that left the French port of Marseilles almost a year earlier, in April 1898. They reached Zanzibar in June of the same year and then proceeded on foot into the African interior. By the time they reached the shores of Lake Victoria, only two of them were willing to continue, and so they crossed the lake. They must have crossed the lake in similar canoes to the ones we took that day, but without engines, just oars. Maximum respect to them.
To Uganda Catholics, Kigungu is where it all started. There is a church built on the spot, and statues of the two White Fathers are set in the water. After landing on what to them must have seemed the unknown, the two Frenchmen proceeded to Bugonga where they camped.
A week later they were received by Kabala Mutesa I of Buganda at his Banda palace. Mutesa would give them Lubya Hill, just outside Kampala, to build churches, schools and hospitals.
Every February there is a pilgrimage and celebrations to commemorate when Catholicism first reached Uganda.
Entebbe International Airport and the Old Airport
After Kigungu, it was 5kms on a straight marram road that goes around the airport. When landing at the airport, I’d always seen that marram road, but never put it in context. So it was interesting to realise just how large the airport is, and how long the runways are. There are at least two police posts along that road, and watchtowers every kilometre or so. CCTV cameras are almost everywhere, so strictly no photography is allowed.
It was also interesting to see planes coming to land, as they seemed to be floating as they approached. But you get the sense of just how fast they are moving just before they touch down.
At the end of that marram stretch is the Old Airport; opened in 1951 by the British, it was at that time the largest airport in East and Central Africa. It is where the then Princess Elizabeth set off to go and be crowned queen in 1952. Kenya didn’t have an airport then.
But the Old Airport is mostly famous for the Israeli raid in July 1976, when Israeli commandos rescued more than 100 hostages taken by Palestinian hijackers. All the hijackers were killed in the raid, plus 52 Ugandan soldiers. In addition, eleven MIG fighter planes of the Ugandan Airforce were destroyed. Three hostages died in the rescue, and the Israeli commander, Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. Of the original Old Airport structure, only the control tower remains. We couldn’t get close, and we couldn’t take pictures either.
After that, the hike was practically over, just the trek back to the Freedom Tree. The hikers that day included a small dog, and a baby whose mother wheeled her all the way to the end of the 22km; must have set a record in her age group of the longest hike ever.
It would be good if the Entebbe Tourism authorities organised guided tours of this very interesting town of many firsts. We had guides but, apart from one guy, we only saw them at the beginning and at the end of the hike.