It's Difficult to Tell

The truck is loaded with inflatable rafts, helmets and mzungu -the usual mix of journalists, aid-workers and midlife crises that tend to wash up on Africa's shores. It heads off to where the Nile river emerges from Lake Victoria at a town called Jinja.

A group of mothers are washing their laundry in the river as the truck pulls off the road and heads toward the shoreline. They call to each other and scramble about in a desperate to bid to move their clothes from the path of the oncoming load of Americans, Europeans and other westerners now hurtling toward the airing laundry. There's something slightly obscene about the scene.

Paulo was born in Jinja, grew up in Jinja, and as he puts it, will probably drown in Jinja on the Nile. For the last 20 years he's been out on the river every day, even Christmas. Dressed in plain black shorts and the standard issue military-style helmet, he takes his position in the back of the raft and stairs it assumes the role of navigator/helmsman. He runs the rafters through a series of drills - what to do if you fall out, hit the rocks, and lose a paddle.

Someone asks if there's crocodiles in the river. 'Vegetarian ones', he adds thoughtfully after a while.

And the raft sets off, tossing and turning down a series of Grade 5 rapids that I would certainly not have gone down had I seen the promotional video beforehand. Each rapid is named from a mix of local history and entrepreneurial creativity. There is the Bujagali falls. The ribcage. The Dead Dutchman. The Bad Place.

From time to time, the raft even manages to stay upright.

We breath a sigh of relief at having survived. Chunks of pineapple and glucose biscuits are brought aboard by the support craft. We sit back and let the Nile sweep around us while Paulo entertains with a set of jokes he rote-learned from last years christmas cracker.

The sun is setting when I later bump into Paulo at the hostel's bar. He's dressed less casually now and appears rather different to the adventure-loving . Ordering a round of Nile Special, a local lager brewed at the river source, he begins to recount his career and childhood. He pours his beer into a shotglass and downs it step-wise, one shot at a time.

He whispers tall tales of adventure, waterfalls, close calls and ghastly injuries. He shares tales from his life. How he grew up watching the Bujagali boys, locals highly adept at navigating the rapids, that swim down waterfalls chasing the bets and dares tossed up by passing tourists. He had always wanted to be a rafter.

Night falls and the full moon gleams off the Nile as he waxes lyrical about the glory days of his youth.

He has a good reason, however, for his nostalgia. A hydrodram is nearing completion at the rivermouth. Once it's operational much of the river's white water will be lost. He doesn't know what effect this will have on his livelihood. He's even doubtful about whether Uganda will benefit from the electricity generated from the project. 'It all gets pumped out of here', he explains, 'Kenya, Tanzania, they all get it not Uganda'.

As the night wears on, the stories get taller and taller. I half expect him to tell me he's rafted over Murchison Falls. He hasn't, but apparently but his brother has. Spent three weeks in hospital recovering from the injuries. I nod sympathetically, pretending to believe him.

In the late seventies he even represented Uganda at a whitewater kayaking tournament in Europe. I realise this falls smack in the middle of the Idi Amin years.

Paulo grows sombre at this revelation. He shakes his head. 'Those were bad times', he says, 'things are much better now'. I mention He was in his early twenties when Amin's soldiers came for his father. He hasn't seen him since. He recalls public execution-style killings. The screams of torture victims wafting into the hotel lobby where he worked as a cleaner.

Amin may have been a larger than life figure, serenading international intrigue and charming the western media with charisma but, like all dictatorships, it sounds petty and squalid in the details. People seemed to be killed for looking at the wrong person in the wrong way, for owning a car that a drunk soldier coveted.

'This is why I don't support violence', he says.

Cat Stevens' Peace Train plays softly in the background providing a picturesque backdrop to a discussion on African politics. Paulo is convinced the election will return a landslide for the incumbent Yoweri Museveni.

I finally pop the question I've been dying to all evening. 'If Museveni loses the vote, will he step down?'.

Paulo waits a long time to answer. He hesitates.

Does he not know?

Does he not want to say?

Finally he sits on the fence. 'It's difficult to tell', he admits.

But his face says everything.

'I would still support him though', he adds almost as an afterthought, 'he has brought peace to Uganda'.

Justice and grace.

These two always exist in tension. Too much forgiveness starts to encroach on accountability and vice versa. They become antithetical and I'm not sure where the happy balance lies. Museveni has been in control for coming up thirty years. He has come under increasing scrutiny from the UN for corruption and human rights abuses. His current cabinet features many prominent members of Amin's regime and the probably worse Obote who seceded him. They have eluded justice and continue to dangle their atrocities before everyday Ugandans. And yet they will probably be returned to leadership. Justice hesitates and again resumes her dual with Grace.

Like much in Africa, it's not always clear where the right path lies. The Ugandans, it seems, have chosen to forgive and forget. There will be no compensation for the victims. The perpetrators will not be held to account. No blood will be avenged, there has been enough spilled already. There will be no 9-11 style commemorations, these are first world luxuries. Everyday Africans have far more pressing needs.

And perhaps they are right.

Perhaps the past is irrelevant.

Perhaps justice is disruptive and the living really do owe nothing to the disappeared. Perhaps the stories of these past Ugandans are as irretrievable as their bones, decaying beneath the earth in unmarked tombs.

Perhaps it really is better to leave them undisturbed.