A walk into history: Singer Akon shot the Mama Africa song
Like a treasure, it stays shy away from the buzzing Gulu town. Many know her as the 140-year-old scenic setting where Senegalese-American R&B superstar Akon shot the video for his song Mama Africa in July 2008. The four-minute video attempts to recapture the agonizing crucifixion that the Arab slave traders subjected their captives to between the mid-18th century and the end of the 19th century. This is Fort Patiko.
I can never forget our arrival at her bushy parking lot, which is a block from its gate-less entrance. We were welcomed by Salvatoria Oringa, the calm caretaker of Fort Patiko. He suggested we take a stroll around the two-kilometer-long pits surrounding the fort. The pits, which measure 16ft in depth and 16ft in width, were dug to make it impossible for slaves to escape from the fort — just in case they beat its tough security deployment.
As we advanced, we were swallowed up by towering wild grass and shrubs. By the time we maneuvered our way through, our clothes were covered with blackjack needles whose sharp tips pricked us mercilessly. We were also not spared by the thirsty mosquitoes in the pits.
The walk
Oringa said this humiliating walk was purposed to give us (tourists) a pinch of “the walk to oppression”, that the slaves endured as they trudged thousands of miles to Fort Patiko from different parts of central and East Africa.
Following these words, dead silence fell over our group, as odd imaginations going back to the slaves’ days filled our minds. Unlike us, who were fully dressed, the slaves were always stripped of their clothes.
Because there were no defined roads at the time, they were made to walk for miles in such vegetation, not to mention impenetrable forests which were often habitats to deadly animals.
When Oringa noticed we were getting carried away by these emotions, he was quick to re-route our attention to more adventure at the fort. In a hoarse voice, he asked us to follow him to the heart of the fort and there we found three roofless doubled-roomed houses built exclusively with sedimentary rocks and cement.
They were built on a low rocky hill, so the Arab architects saw no need to cement the floor. In fact, they made the most of this location by polishing the rocky floors smoothly, after which they creatively made striking inscriptions on it to give its occupants a feeling of home in this otherwise isolated setting.
“The roof was made out of thatch, so the houses enjoyed a chilled shade whose temperatures compare to that of today’s first-class air-conditioned suites,” Oringa explained.
Adjacent to these houses is two towering rocks at whose base there are dug-out caves that used to house the slaves. However, unlike the slave trader’s houses which were spacious and well ventilated, I hardly found a thing to admire about the caves.
It appears like more emphasis was put on digging them horizontally inwards than vertically, just like coal mines. Their height is about three feet high meaning the occupants (the slaves) could only get inside by crawling on their bellies. The cave was always jammed to capacity because accommodation was not enough for the hundreds of slaves who were held hostage here.
Tales of death
Oringa explained that from time to time, the slaves would be assembled at the fort’s sloppy compound where the beautiful, healthy, and muscular ones would be separated from the ugly, sick, weak and skinny.
The selected lucky ones would be dispatched for the Egypt and Sudan slave markets where they would be sold off to slave markets in the present-day Republic of South Sudan like merchandise. The unfortunate rejects who could not fetch high prices on the market would be executed by firing squad at the open torture chambers. “They were not set free because the traders feared that they would mobilise the local communities to fight off their cold-blooded Arab masters/traders,” Oringa added.
In a move to make the executions more entertaining, trumpeters would climb up the 18ft rock which overlooks the torture chambers. Up there, they would blow aloud trumpets to cheer the executors as they did their job. After these slaves were killed, their corpses were never given a decent burial. Instead, the bodies would be dumped in the pits surrounding the Fort where vultures would move in to finish the job.
All over the compound, one can observe sharp cuts on the rocks and Oringa explained that these impressions were made by the axes which were used to behead the slaves. “The lucky ones who survived the ax, were worked like donkeys yet fed on little food. Men were usually tasked with digging out more caves for accommodation while women did domestic chores like grinding tones of millet — sometimes till their hands bled.”
Locals believe that though slave inhumanity at Patiko happened centuries back, the spirits of those killed still haunt the fort. Simon Olweny, a resident in the neighborhood of Patiko claims that the nights are punctuated with wails of the ghosts of the slaves who are often heard pleading for their lives to be spared.
The sun shines at last
By the 1840s, it was impossible to maintain a deaf ear to cries against slavery. It was around this time that Sir Samuel Baker, an abolitionist adventurer, and representative of the Egyptian Khedive arrived in Acholi land.
With his band of Nubian fighters, he fought off slave traders from the fort around 1870 and took it over as a station base for his campaign. The same fort was later used by Charles Gordon who replaced Baker as Governor of the Equatorial Province and later by Emin Pasha. It was later used as a prison by the colonial government before falling into disuse for many years after independence.
Other tour activities at Patiko
In other news, Fort Patiko is beautiful from end to end, with amazing scenery which offers great photography. It boasts of lots of rocks that slaves were made to curve into models of different creatures such as sharks, the map of Africa, Lake Victoria and human heads among others.
The hilly fort also has antiquities such as the grinding stones that the slaves used for grinding millet. Florence Baker, whom the abolitionist had rescued from a slave market in present-day Bulgaria, left inscriptions of the Holy cross on the rocks at Patiko. Exploring the old fort gives one a feel of a day in the life of a slave.
How to get there
For someone traveling on a shoestring budget, you need about sh150,000 to tour Fort Patiko. One way bus fare to Gulu is sh25,000. Fort Patiko is about 50 minutes’ ride from Gulu on boda boda and costs between sh4,000 and sh15,000. The entrance to the Fort is sh10,000.
Unfortunately, there is no accommodation and there are no restaurants around the fort. Tourists are advised to bring their requirements such as food, airtime, water among others.
Budget accommodation facilities around Gulu town range from sh15,000 to sh70,000 per night, while luxurious facilities range between sh60,000 and sh200,000 per night.
Read MoreA boom party for Kampala: A Cinderella is King
It was a boom party to remember. Cinderella Sanyu, aka, the King Herself, or Cindy Baby as she would usually belt out in song, didn’t come to play. Not one bit! It had never been done by a female musician, no Sir! Hell, that venue had disappointed even international stars. It is a venue for the acclaimed, those who fear no one; those with the musical muscle. However, the Lugogo Cricket oval was full to bream last Saturday, Cindy did that.
I should have left home early, but I thought it would be an easy entry, no, it wasn’t! By 7 pm, I could barely pay for the ticket. It was quite clear that the people manning the ticket area hadn’t expected to have such large numbers, and neither did the security team who were now accepting bribes from especially Kampala’s elite. But even when inside, after a battle that it, it was next to impossible to grab a seat, let alone a drink. The show was massive, everyone, all sober and drunk could be heard wondering how she pulled it off.
When Cindy got on stage at about 10 pm, she would confirm the general notion. “Level that, a level that!” she commanded the sound crew into silence. “When I first advertised this concert, no promoter or artiste was willing to stand with me, no one!” she said to a cheering crowd.
Besides the fact that a woman had filled up the much-feared Lugogo cricket oval, it was that she managed to pull off a live performance. However, when Cindy decided to take the audience on her 15-year journey, there was no doubting her prowess. Together with the 10 wildly energetic dancers, she had for the night, the King Herself delved into a dancehall frenzy that sent waves of excitement across the oval.
No one that performed outdid Cindy, she owned the night. Well, except the part where singer Bebe Cool was pelted with bottles of course. He refused to leave the stage showing that he had fast become accustomed to the bottles. Artistes upon artistes thronged the stage and the crowd nodded and danced in approval. The question that remains lingering is how she pulled it off; she didn’t do any TV or Radio ads, no media tours, and just the press conference a breath away from the concert. What did she do right?
According to Daily Monitor’s Andrew Kaggwa, a close friend to both the artiste and management told said Cindy’s sister had been instrumental and that apparently, they had a marketing plan that was intended on tackling the real consumer. “The team promoted the shows to the real people they wanted to show up, in markets like Wandegeya and Owino,” he quoted said source.
When it was all said don, the King had words for her ‘subjects’, “Thank you, Lord, thank you Uganda, I am speechless!” she captioned her picture. “This is not even half the audience at my Boom party concert. I am so grateful to God and to y’all.”
Read MoreA walk into history: Singer Akon shot the Mama Africa song
Like a treasure, it stays shy away from the buzzing Gulu town. Many know her as the 140-year-old scenic setting where Senegalese-American R&B superstar Akon shot the video for his song, Mama Africa, in July 2008. The four-minute video attempts to recapture the agonizing crucifixion that the Arab slave traders subjected their captives to between the mid-18th century and the end of the 19th century. This is FortI can never forget our arrival at her bushy parking lot, which is a block from its gate-less entrance. We were welcomed by Salvatoria Oringa, the calm caretaker of Fort Patiko. He suggested we take a stroll around the two-kilometer-long pits surrounding the fort. The pits, which measure 16ft in depth and 16ft in width, were dug to make it impossible for slaves to escape from the fort — just in case they beat its tough security deployment.
As we advanced, we were swallowed up by towering wild grass and shrubs. By the time we maneuvered our way through, our clothes were covered with blackjack needles whose sharp tips pricked us mercilessly. We were also not spared by the thirsty mosquitoes in the pits.
The walk
Oringa said this humiliating walk was purposed to give us (tourists) a pinch of “the walk to oppression”, that the slaves endured as they trudged thousands of miles to Fort Patiko from different parts of central and East Africa.
Following these words, dead silence fell over our group, as odd imaginations going back to the slaves’ days filled our minds. Unlike us, who were fully dressed, the slaves were always stripped of their clothes.
Because there were no defined roads at the time, they were made to walk for miles in such vegetation, not to mention impenetrable forests which were often habitats to deadly animals.
When Oringa noticed we were getting carried away by these emotions, he was quick to re-route our attention to more adventure at the fort. In a hoarse voice, he asked us to follow him to the heart of the fort and there we found three roofless doubled-roomed houses built exclusively with sedimentary rocks and cement.
They were built on a low rocky hill, so the Arab architects saw no need to cement the floor. In fact, they made the most of this location by polishing the rocky floors smoothly, after which they creatively made striking inscriptions on it to give its occupants a feeling of home in this otherwise isolated setting.
“The roof was made out of thatch, so the houses enjoyed a chilled shade whose temperatures compare to that of today’s first-class air-conditioned suites,” Oringa explained.
Adjacent to these houses is two towering rocks at whose base there are dug-out caves that used to house the slaves. However, unlike the slave trader’s houses which were spacious and well ventilated, I hardly found a thing to admire about the caves.
It appears like more emphasis was put on digging them horizontally inwards than vertically, just like coal mines. Their height is about three feet high meaning the occupants (the slaves) could only get inside by crawling on their bellies. The cave was always jammed to capacity because accommodation was not enough for the hundreds of slaves who were held hostage here.
Tales of death
Oringa explained that from time to time, the slaves would be assembled at the fort’s sloppy compound where the beautiful, healthy, and muscular ones would be separated from the ugly, sick, weak, and skinny.
The selected lucky ones would be dispatched for the Egypt and Sudan slave markets where they would be sold off to slave markets in the present-day Republic of South Sudan like merchandise. The unfortunate rejects who could not fetch high prices on the market would be executed by firing squad at the open torture chambers. “They were not set free because the traders feared that they would mobilize the local communities to fight off their cold-blooded Arab masters/traders,” Oringa added.
In a move to make the executions more entertaining, trumpeters would climb up the 18ft rock which overlooks the torture chambers. Up there, they would blow aloud trumpets to cheer the executors as they did their job. After these slaves were killed, their corpses were never given a decent burial. Instead, the bodies would be dumped in the pits surrounding the Fort where vultures would move in to finish the job.
All over the compound, one can observe sharp cuts on the rocks and Oringa explained that these impressions were made by the axes which were used to behead the slaves. “The lucky ones who survived the axe, were worked like donkeys yet fed on little food. Men were usually tasked with digging out more caves for accommodation while women did domestic chores like grinding tones of millet — sometimes till their hands bled.”
Locals believe that though slave inhumanity at Patiko happened centuries back, the spirits of those killed still haunt the fort. Simon Olweny, a resident in the neighborhood of Patiko claims that the nights are punctuated with wails of the ghosts of the slaves who are often heard pleading for their lives to be spared.
The sun shines at last
By the 1840s, it was impossible to maintain a deaf ear to cries against slavery. It was around this time that Sir Samuel Baker, an abolitionist adventurer, and representative of the Egyptian Khedive arrived in Acholi land.
With his band of Nubian fighters, he fought off slave traders from the fort around 1870 and took it over as a station base for his campaign. The same fort was later used by Charles Gordon who replaced Baker as Governor of the Equatorial Province and later by Emin Pasha. It was later used as a prison by the colonial government before falling into disuse for many years after independence.
Other tour activities at Patiko
In other news, Fort Patiko is beautiful from end to end, with amazing scenery which offers great photography. It boasts of lots of rocks that slaves were made to curve into models of different creatures such as sharks, the map of Africa, Lake Victoria, and human heads among others.
The hilly fort also has antiquities such as the grinding stones that the slaves used for grinding millet. Florence Baker, whom the abolitionist had rescued from a slave market in present-day Bulgaria, left inscriptions of the Holy cross on the rocks at Patiko. Exploring the old fort gives one a feel of a day in the life of a slave.
How to get there
For someone traveling on a shoestring budget, you need about sh150,000 to tour Fort Patiko. One way bus fare to Gulu is sh25,000. Fort Patiko is about a 50-minute ride from Gulu on boda boda and costs between sh4,000 and sh15,000. The entrance to the Fort is sh10,000.
Unfortunately, there is no accommodation and there are no restaurants around the fort. Tourists are advised to bring their requirements such as food, airtime, water among others.
Budget accommodation facilities around Gulu town range from sh15,000 to sh70,000 per night, while luxurious facilities range between sh60,000 and sh200,000 per night.
Read MoreRed carpet on white and purple
Ronald Mwesezi Rmj fans party happening this Sunday of 23rd /09/2018 at Hakuna Matata Nansana,
its such a great day sharing memories with your best Gospel Artist and many featuring artists , enjoying new music and taking dinner together , it’s the only day we interact one on one , red carpet on white and purple .
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A few days to go for the Ugandan food festival
Just so near the Ugandan food festival at Uganda museum International cusinies , cultural performances , poetry , technology and innovations art exhibition and local cusisines
All cultural performances at the ground
Sheebah to steam up the relaunch of Club Ambiance @ 27th/June
Following the successful completion of her renovation, all is set for the relaunch of Club Ambiance, one of Kampala’s most hip
and chic hangouts. The event which is set for 27th of this month will be graced with live performances from Kampala’s favourite
Dance-hall trend setter, Sheebah Karungi…….
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Theme Nights at Cayenne Restaurant and Bar
Monday
In case of inquiries: 0772005050 or go2viewuganda@gmail.com
10 Most Anticipated Events of 2017
No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail and the heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and, though he was quite sure no local people.
Read MoreYour number one Entertainment center
It is my pleasure to share with the readers of the View magazine about Uganda National Cultural Centre commonly known as The National Theatre.
Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC) is a Ugandan Statutory body that was established on 8th October 1959 by the Uganda National Cultural Centre Act,1959 as amended in 1965 with the mandate of Preserving, Promoting, and Popularizing Uganda’s cultural heritage both locally and internationally. Over the years, UNCC has been an icon in this country as a center for nurturing culture especially performing and visual arts
Among the projects under UNCC is the National Theatre which has greatly promoted Performing arts in this country through training, provision of space to artists. The theater has also acted as a meeting point for artists where they meet to develop and also share ideas. Our Auditorium whose architectural set up is at the international standards has stood the test of time, actually, it is the only one of its kind in Uganda and East Africa as a whole.
National Theatre Auditorium has a modern wooden plank stage boasting of an advanced 60-channel lighting system an in-built public address system, spacious dressing rooms for performers with ample shower and toilet facilities a foyer bar, restaurant, a carpentry workshop where sets can be constructed, and one small and large rehearsal/meeting room with two large spaces for open-air concerts and other performances. We have also a 12 channel lighting console to service any event held in the above spaces together with a heavy-duty standby generator to ensure productions are not disrupted by power cuts. The Auditorium is also equipped with a 300mm electronic film screen connected to a projector which you cannot find anywhere else in Uganda.
In case of fire, the auditorium has a safety curtain that safeguards the audience from the stage. This is boosted by the availability of standby fire extinguishers. Besides the safety curtain, our auditorium has the front of the house curtain, 4 legs curtains, 2 traverses (curtains that divide the stage), 2 pairs of borders, and cyclorama (Backdrop). All these drapes enable Performance Directors to create productions at the international levels at the UNCC auditorium.
The Theatre also has a state-of-the-art video unit to record productions that take place in the auditorium. It is also building up an audio and visual/ film archive and research office so that our rich cultural and artistic history is not lost to future generations.
For any production of any kind, the UNCC facilities (Auditorium) is the venue of your choice. It has an excellent setup facilities and staff of international
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