For Uganda Museum :-)

The following poem, I post with my friend Enock Kusasira in mind...considering that he is its original author...great poem, if you ask me :-)...

GO WELL, UGANDA MUSEUM

Born in 1908 to Mr.  & Mrs culture of Uganda

A beautiful bouncing baby, God’s own hand work

You stood there over the years with a mission

To conserve, promote and interpret Uganda’s cultural heritage

You harbored research collections and ancient documentations

Repository of cherished values,

Databank of people’s history,

There, you stood as a mirror,

Giving us reflections of our true identities

There, you have been,

Keeping regalia of defunct kingdoms,

Housing evidence of the early man’s existence

Oh, Mother museum, Go well.

You recorded the evidence of colonial rule,

You captured the beauty of Uganda’s independence,

You survived the upheavals of 1970’s,

And the temporary governments of 1980’s,

Left you standing, unscathed, untouched.

Your former curators are sobbing,

UNESCO is profoundly depressed,

Conservationists are mourning you,

The legacy gone, a history buried too early.

The fact is in life,

You suffered worse injustices,

But all the same your value was apparent,

School children visited to learn,

Tourists sought information about Uganda,

Researchers rummaged your dusty library,

In search of gospel-like wisdom.

In 2007, you received a mocking face lift

From your tormentors cum murderers,

To please the most revered distant visitors

A cultural village was added in a spacious garden

Showcasing a variety of housing styles,

Not bad, but just a drop in the ocean.

And now, death has approached you

With the vicious dagger of capitalism,

Sinking into the flesh of your body.

The pursuit of financial gain,

In company of utter selfishness

Has rendered you motionless, lifeless-dead cold.

Thus, we mourn you with battered hearts.

Good bye, BIG, BOLD BUILDING

Rest in peace.

If only, your professed murderers pondered,

And sanity took over from arrogance,

I would end this eulogy.