My laundry list read:

• 1 grey shirt
• Black trousers
• 1 pair socks
• 1 underpants
• Handkerchief

It was certainly my handwriting scrawled across the page.  Which still didn’t explain the giant lace-work bra (42D) that had turned up neatly ironed with knife-edge creases in my laundry. I was determined to return it, immediately.  The under-garment was slipped discreetly back into the rumpled laundry bag, with the marked list of clothes upon it – the original bag and label lending veracity to the action, just in case someone asked any embarrassing questions.

It was close to midnight when I ventured furtively out of my room.

The hotel soundless, except for the contented murmur of the cicadas from the cracks, sounds of traffic muffled and far away, a stifled sound of giggling from one of the rooms, glasses clinking – some people were having all the fun.

At the reception, two people spoke a foreign language in low voices. 

"my things was grebbed outside this hetel…" sobbed an enormously fat woman dressed in a severe looking maxi-skirt – a tent-like costume very much in vogue among missionaries. She had vast satchel like arms, the tanned leather of it frightfully bitten, some had broken out into sores from her scratching them. I pondered briefly if this was the owner of the offending piece of lingerie. The size seemed a perfect match, but the style was a completely different matter.

It was going to rain soon -- a few grasshoppers whirled about dashing themselves aimlessly against the flickering lamp on the counter.

Down by the lake, people harvested these insects using bright halogen lamps attached to wooden poles. The whole contraption sat on inclined corrugated sheets, which funneled the insects downed into a drum. The grasshoppers were fried, salted and sold out of lunch-box sized cartons by men who yelled "N’senene! N’senene!" It made for a greasy, crunchy snack – not unlike sardines.

"Now, with elections we not know…things happen", said the bloodless Chinese woman at the reception "…I cahl police but they no help, you couldun geht license number of boda-boda".

The fat woman had been walking back to the hotel when a man on a motorbike (cruising in the manner of a moto-taxi driver) had snatched her hand bag and disappeared into the night.  The woman was grieving because she had lost her passport and return air ticket.

"You know it happens…" the Chinese woman said turning towards me, her expression transforming, as if on auto-pilot, from one of sympathy to a friendly smile "…this is Aafrica…...  Yes sirh….How may I hehlp you?"

Subtle chaos prevailed in Kampala.  Elections were round the corner. 

The politics of Uganda is essentially tied to its past – personalities like Idi Amin, Milton Obote – famous larger than life ‘strong men’ from history who seemed to embody all that was bad in Africa.  The current president Yoweri Museveni had made his mark by waging guerilla wars – first against Idi Amin in the 70s and then against Milton Obote in the 80s.

Obote’s wife was now back – contesting the elections, hoping to topple Museveni.  But the leading opposition contender was a man called Kizza Besigye – a former comrade and personal physician of Museveni.  The struggle for power had turned him a bitter critic of the president. 

A couple of days before my arrival, the opposition had organized a demonstration in Kampala. The government had called in the dreaded "Black Mambas" – a heavily armed paramilitary unit, who rode about in black four-wheel-drive trucks. These soldiers were from Northern Uganda, taller, heavier and darker – outsiders in Kampala, men with no local sympathies. The ‘black mamba’ had set upon the marching opposition. A few people were killed.
"They are outsidahs…" a shopkeeper said of the ‘black mambas’, "...they don’t care who they shoot".

Even with the occasional violence, and the threat of more to come, the city seemed quiet. 

Most of the protest rallies began after Besigye was detained under Uganda’s unusual parallel justice system.  In Uganda a common criminal caught with a firearm can be tried by a military tribunal – justice is rendered swiftly – with a firing squad.
While countries like Kenya, with a long history of peace, struggled to tackle crime – Uganda had emphatically stamped out crime, using military tactics.

Besigye now faced treason charges in a military court, and rape charges in a civilian court. A ruse, his supporters said, to prevent him from contesting the elections.

The whole thing had degenerated into a complicated tussle between the judiciary and the military.  The military tribunal was headed by a man who always appeared dressed in camouflage uniform, wearing a beret and very dark sun-glasses – even at night. In the days that followed, a judge resigned, and another recused himself. Meanwhile the man heading the military tribunal was appointed as the new coach of the Ugandan football team ("the flying cranes"). After a number of injunctions and protests, Besigye was finally allowed out to campaign.

Things had never been quiet in Kampala – it was a city used to turmoil. People went about, business as usual.
A preacher stood atop a traffic island, bible in one hand and a magic wand in another lecturing to the passing traffic. Sofas hung precariously from first floor balconies with ‘for sale’ signs pinned to them. The pock marked buildings stood mutely, misshapen dentures lining Kampala road - still looking like they had been ravaged by civil war. Most of the newer buildings looked shambolic and out of place, constructed not with some definite purpose in mind, but because someone had the money to raise them.

Marabou storks, big slobbering birds with pink bulbous necks, watched and scavenged impassively. They were everywhere – roosting in the trees, strutting in pairs on the boulevard across the up-market Speke hotel and rummaging in the dingy, rubbish strewn streets around Nakasero market

Some people were dismissive about the elections. "heh heh…it’s all fixed anyway" they snickered as if I had told them a ribald story. But most were simply apprehensive.

"Are you visiting?" asked a boda-boda driver – he meant "Are you an outsider?".
"Yes", I said.
He giggled, it was meant to be a laugh.
"I like Uganda" I said.
"Don’t come now" he said pouting, still giggling "Come after…after the elections"
But I was already here.

So, one day I took a boda-boda moto-taxi to Kasubi, to visit the tombs of the Kabaka, the rulers of the old Baganda kingdom.
The tombs were on the summit of a hill and were actually elaborately thatched huts, quite like a giant gazebo. "The largest thatched roof in Africa" said the sign, as if laying claim to some long forgotten record. It was a melancholic and gloomy place – and smelt of bats.

Some Royal artifacts were lined up on display inside the hut. Framed black and white photographs of the kings propped up on the floor, assorted spears and head-bashers, big tom-tom drums, anonymous articles of clothing. On one side, was a dusty Victorian style table-and-chair set, the chair turned upside down upon the table – a "gift from the queen of England" – the guide said.

The ticket-counter outside also operated a small shop selling expensive trifles and post cards.

"What is that?" I inquired - the object resembled a table mat.
"Banana fiber bainting…" the shop-owner said, waving his hand like a brush "...just 15 dollas goodu price…"

Notable among the post-cards were the ones depicting a grim looking Idi Amin in full military splendor: "Idi Amin Dada – president of Uganda 1971-1979" – printed on the back. It seemed a contradiction for the post-card to be sold at this place, for Idi Amin had once commanded a military assault on the palace of the Kabaka. The king – a Sir Edward Mutesa (the Second) then fled to London. And, the kingdom was subsequently abolished.

Meandering back to the center of town, I found myself caught by the evening traffic. The main thoroughfare - Kampala road was now a slithering, dusty monster. I stopped by one of the roadside stalls, where an elderly woman waving a fly whisk hawked stacks of secondhand books. "Gray’s anatomy" and "The Merck Manual" kept company with "How to be an African Woman" and James Hadley Chase. I flicked through the titles and picked up a tattered paperback: "The White Maasai".

It was dark when I walked back to the hotel. Away from the main streets, Kampala was a procession of murmuring shadows and the kwir'kik....kwir...kwir'kik ...kwir of the cuckoos among the fig trees. That night I addressed the post-cards to various people who I had not contacted for years. It was just a brief 'Hi' and 'Hello' followed by a nondescript ‘I am fine’ note and signed off with a smiley cartoon face - and I printed no return address. I flipped the card around, and it was still Idi Amin glaring back.

The cicadas whirred contentedly outside, the glassware tinkled next door and the chants of the midnight mass began at the 'Maximum Miracle center' across the road.