What has your 2021 been like so far? 

2020 was so bad that I stopped writing. Yet there was a lot to write about. Is it ever like that for you? I could not get beyond how much 2020 reminded me that I’m a statistic, a figure, a numerical notation and barely an individual. I could not get over how suddenly all the freedoms I took for granted were yanked away from me and there was nothing you or I could do about it. 

Suddenly I could not leave my house or compound but for necessities due to the Coronavirus outbreak lockdown that was declared in March 2020. I had to explain myself, if I was found walking, as I sometimes do for leisure, far from the gate of my compound and not near any grocery or food market. There were no taxis on the road for me to squeeze myself into and grumble about the “over loading” as a mother and her two children jostled me for seat space. 

In fact, there were hardly any cars on the road apart from the military or medical ones. That was a truly strange time and year. To cross a road in Kampala without having to look both ways more than three or four times before stepping into it. 

I found it hard to believe that I could not leave Kampala without a “permission slip.” Until COVID-19, I had forgotten that we have a Resident District Commissioner and I need their signature to be allowed out of their town. The last time I had to ask for permission to leave home or wherever I was was when I was a child of thirteen years of age from my parents. But now I did not just need that permission from the RDC or LC 5 but I also needed to stop by impromptu roadblocks and explain where I was going. 

Do you remember how intrusive and humiliating and strange that felt? Begging another adult to be allowed to proceed to your destination? We accepted that. We submitted to that, all 2020 with nary a whimper that I could not help but shut down. This was not a life I recognised or wanted. I could not wait for 2021 to begin. 

2021 is here and I’m not sure 2020 ever ended. Our lives are still dominated by what started in 2020: Covid-19 and the elections. 

Covid-19 means that our children have not been in school in nearly a year. Some in candidate classes (senior six, senior four, primary seven and semi candidate classes) have finally been allowed to return but I can’t tell how many were able to. Speaking for myself, I wonder where the parents managed to scrounge the school fees and attendant charges that come with this most unusual return to school in decades? 

In addition to face masks, sanitisers, children and parents are returning to institutions hungry for money after not working a year. Many schools have packed up and closed shop. Teachers have drifted from the calling. The surviving schools and owners are merciless in collecting what is owed them. I cannot blame them. Some had barely begun to work after erecting school structures when Covid-19 swept in from China to Uganda and around the world. There are bank loans, mortgages, and salary arrears to clear. As that word magician Philly Bongoley Lutaaya once mournfully sung, “Don’t tell me about your problems, I have enough of my own.” Whatever additional fees the schools levy, parents and children will have to pay. 

In the meantime, we continue to watch the ping pong between the ruling government and the National Unity Platform (NUP) that hoped it would be the in-coming government. Uganda held its elections on January 14, 2021 and National Resistance Chairman (NRM) leader Yoweri Kaguta Tibuharburwa Museveni was declared winner. NUP presidential candidate Robert Ssentamu Kyagulanyi rejected the presidential election results even before the independent Electoral Commission declared them. 

A month on, coming to two, you would think we are still in campaigns. Museveni is not satisfied with his 58.38% victory and Kyagulanyi rejects his 35.08% loss as a fraudulent, not a reflection of the will of the people. 

Museveni and NRM were scarred by a total annihilation in the central region of the country at the ballot box and Kyagulanyi and NUP cannot fathom why they did not make more in-roads away from their power bases in the major cities. There has been ugly talk and trading of accusations from both sides. 

The Ugandan, wherever they may lie, has come to learn of terror anew. As news continues to filter through that security agencies did not stop on November 19, 2020 when they shot up Kampala. People continue to vanish into the belly of dark tinted cars that zoom from the scene at terrific speed. They are nicknamed Drones and they take you to places of horror, torture euphemistically called safe houses in the clutches of red-eyed agents of the state. The gagging that started with the face mask in 2020 will not stop in 2021. This is the year of the Drone. 

We watch what we say, more than ever. The January 13 to February 10, 2021 internet and social media ban did its work. We have been warned by the country’s Information ministry that our every social media post is being monitored. A veiled threat a Ugandan cannot laugh off anymore after the experiences of activist Dr Stella Nyanzi and author Kakwenzi Rukirabasaija who were charged under the computer misuse act. 

There is an air of surreality in Uganda right now. Like we are all waiting for something to happen. We don’t know when it will happen. We don’t know how it will happen. We don’t know who will make it happen. But we know something is going to happen. It is coming and we fear we cannot escape it. That is 2021 so far. For me. How is it for you?