Read Online The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ryszard Kapuściński
Tags: Fiction
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preservation of that which was most important: the uninterrupted flow of goods and riches between Africa and Europe.
The circumstances under which the leap to the kingdom of liberty was to be accomplished presented many Africans with a difficult choice. Colliding within them were two sets of considerations, two loyalties, in painful, almost insoluble conflict. On the one hand lay the deeply encoded remembrance of the history of one’s clan and people, of the allies one could turn to in times of need and of the enemies one had to despise, and on the other hand was the awareness that one was supposed to be entering the community of independent, modern societies, a precondition of which was the renunciation of all ethnic egoism and blindness.
It is this very problem that existed in Uganda. As defined by its current borders, it was a young country, barely several decades old. But its territory encompassed parts of four ancient kingdoms: Ankole, Buganda, Bunyoro, and Toro. The history of their mutual animosities and conflicts was as colorful and rich as anything between the Celts and the Saxons, or the Montagues and the Capulets.
Preeminent among them was the kingdom of Buganda, whose capital, Mengo, made up one of Kampala’s neighborhoods. Mengo is also the name of the hill upon which the royal palace stands. For Kampala, a city of extraordinary beauty, full of flowers, palm trees, mango trees, and poinsettia, is laid out across seven gentle green hills, several of which descend directly to the lake.
Once, royal palaces kept springing up on these hills, one by one: when a king died, his residence was abandoned and a new one was built on the next hilltop. The object was to not disturb that ongoing rule of the deceased, which continued, albeit from the other world. Thus the entire dynasty held power at once, with the actual living king as its guardian, its temporary representative.
In 1960, two years prior to liberation, people who did not consider themselves subject to the king of Buganda formed the UPC party (Uganda People’s Congress), which won the first elections. At its head stood a young civil servant, Milton Obote; I met him while he was still in Dar es Salaam.
The journalists who were expected in Kampala were to live in the barracks of an old hospital, situated slightly outside of town (the new one, a gift from Queen Elizabeth, was awaiting its dedication). We were the first to arrive; the barracks, white and clean, were still empty. In the main building, I was handed the room key. Leo was driving north to see Murchison Falls. I envied him, but had to stay behind to gather some material for my story. I found my building, which stood at some remove, on a slope amid luxuriant cinnamon and tamarind trees. The entrance to the room was at the end of a long corridor. I walked in, set down my bag and suitcase, closed the door. And at that moment I noticed that the bed, table, and chest of drawers were rising, and high up, beneath the ceiling, starting to whirl faster and faster.
I lost consciousness.
Inside the Mountain of Ice
W hen I opened my eyes, I saw a large white screen, and against its brightness the face of a black girl. Her eyes observed me for a moment, then vanished together with the rest of her face. A moment later the head of an Indian appeared on the screen. He must have leaned over me, for suddenly I saw him in close-up, as if magnified many times over.
“Thank God, you’re alive,” I heard. “But you’re sick. You have malaria. Cerebral malaria.”
I came to instantly. I wanted to sit up, but felt that I didn’t have the strength to, that I was paralyzed. Cerebral malaria is the terror of tropical Africa. Once, it was inevitably fatal. Even now it is dangerous, and frequently still deadly. Driving here, we passed near Arusha a cemetery of its victims, a vestige of the epidemic that had passed that way several years ago.
I tried to look around. The white screen above me was the ceiling of the
The circumstances under which the leap to the kingdom of liberty was to be accomplished presented many Africans with a difficult choice. Colliding within them were two sets of considerations, two loyalties, in painful, almost insoluble conflict. On the one hand lay the deeply encoded remembrance of the history of one’s clan and people, of the allies one could turn to in times of need and of the enemies one had to despise, and on the other hand was the awareness that one was supposed to be entering the community of independent, modern societies, a precondition of which was the renunciation of all ethnic egoism and blindness.
It is this very problem that existed in Uganda. As defined by its current borders, it was a young country, barely several decades old. But its territory encompassed parts of four ancient kingdoms: Ankole, Buganda, Bunyoro, and Toro. The history of their mutual animosities and conflicts was as colorful and rich as anything between the Celts and the Saxons, or the Montagues and the Capulets.
Preeminent among them was the kingdom of Buganda, whose capital, Mengo, made up one of Kampala’s neighborhoods. Mengo is also the name of the hill upon which the royal palace stands. For Kampala, a city of extraordinary beauty, full of flowers, palm trees, mango trees, and poinsettia, is laid out across seven gentle green hills, several of which descend directly to the lake.
Once, royal palaces kept springing up on these hills, one by one: when a king died, his residence was abandoned and a new one was built on the next hilltop. The object was to not disturb that ongoing rule of the deceased, which continued, albeit from the other world. Thus the entire dynasty held power at once, with the actual living king as its guardian, its temporary representative.
In 1960, two years prior to liberation, people who did not consider themselves subject to the king of Buganda formed the UPC party (Uganda People’s Congress), which won the first elections. At its head stood a young civil servant, Milton Obote; I met him while he was still in Dar es Salaam.
The journalists who were expected in Kampala were to live in the barracks of an old hospital, situated slightly outside of town (the new one, a gift from Queen Elizabeth, was awaiting its dedication). We were the first to arrive; the barracks, white and clean, were still empty. In the main building, I was handed the room key. Leo was driving north to see Murchison Falls. I envied him, but had to stay behind to gather some material for my story. I found my building, which stood at some remove, on a slope amid luxuriant cinnamon and tamarind trees. The entrance to the room was at the end of a long corridor. I walked in, set down my bag and suitcase, closed the door. And at that moment I noticed that the bed, table, and chest of drawers were rising, and high up, beneath the ceiling, starting to whirl faster and faster.
I lost consciousness.
Inside the Mountain of Ice
W hen I opened my eyes, I saw a large white screen, and against its brightness the face of a black girl. Her eyes observed me for a moment, then vanished together with the rest of her face. A moment later the head of an Indian appeared on the screen. He must have leaned over me, for suddenly I saw him in close-up, as if magnified many times over.
“Thank God, you’re alive,” I heard. “But you’re sick. You have malaria. Cerebral malaria.”
I came to instantly. I wanted to sit up, but felt that I didn’t have the strength to, that I was paralyzed. Cerebral malaria is the terror of tropical Africa. Once, it was inevitably fatal. Even now it is dangerous, and frequently still deadly. Driving here, we passed near Arusha a cemetery of its victims, a vestige of the epidemic that had passed that way several years ago.
I tried to look around. The white screen above me was the ceiling of the
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