A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

WHERE DID EVERYONE GO AS KAMPALA’S USUALLY MAD TRAFFIC HAS VANISHED WITH THEM

(Posted 24th December 2015)

There were at times chaotic scenes at the local bus parks over the past few days, as crowds aiming to leave the city for their upcountry homes grew bigger every day. Unscrupulous bus operators, and at times even ticketing staff, raised fares, something they always do, but this year added a new dimension to dig into people’s pockets when selling seats on busses which had not even arrived back in Kampala as yet to keep them tied in with of course no refunds available.

Ugandans on such long weekends like Christmas and New Year will form this year, tend to leave the city in their droves and spend time with relatives upcountry, in places everyone refers to as ‘the village’ whereas some of those villages of course have grown into towns and then some, but home it is nevertheless.

Expatriates this year seem to travel more too, to the lodges in Uganda’s national parks but also, as confirmed by several of Kampala’s travel agents, to the Kenya coast where good deals awaited them, less of course the cost of VISA which still came into play a year ago, before in February those requirements were finally lifted among the NCIP countries of Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, as long as one had a residency or work permit.

Kampala’s hotels in the meantime have pulled out all stops to offer special deals for accommodation for ‘staycations or citications’ and meal offerings galore from Christmas Eve carols, egg nog and suppers all the way to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Those who opted to stay behind in the city will find that this not only applies to the big boys in the hospitality industry, the Serenas and Sheratons of this world but even small locally owned hotels have caught on to the trend.

Today on Christmas Eve morning, will be one last hectic push of those who had to wait for work reasons to get ‘home’. Crowds will cram into the busses while roads leading to all corners of the country out of the capital will be under extra heavy traffic. No problem though for this correspondent, who, having turned down an invitation to the Calabar Carnival in Nigeria this year in favour of having homecooked meals and BBQ’s with the kids has opted to stay in the city and perhaps once in a while take advantage of the offers which swamped the Gmail inbox over the past weeks.

Traffic when going shopping will be literally absent this morning and those poor souls who absolutely have to work today, and all day instead of half day, will be very few, basically keeping the phones answered where answers are still expected and last minutes sales done, today of course already at a rebate.

Security will be tight across the entire country as has been the case for years over the festive season, to ensure that no mischief is inflicted on either those travelling or those remaining in the city. Thanks in advance to the security services which will know no off days over Christmas and New Year and the staff in local hospitals who were drawn to be on duty. We owe them, as always and as always too rarely said, a debt of gratitude, be it in Kampala or Canberra, in Mbarara or Moscow, in Mbale or Manhattan, in Kabale and Kisoro or in Cologne, in Lira as well as in London.

Merry Christmas to you all from Kampala / Uganda, enjoy the holidays in peace and tranquility with your loved ones and ring in the New Year with a thought or two about those whom we left behind in 2015 and what we can and must do next year to make the world a better, safer and healthier place to live in.

Now it is until we meet again in 2016, when a full news service will resume. Till then it will be only breaking news, if any – and God forbid bad news – and playing catch up with pending hotel reviews and features from recent travels.

Feliz Navidad, Frohe Weihnachten, Merry Christmas in all the languages of the world to all my readers across the world!