{"id":7479,"date":"2022-12-02T12:10:39","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T12:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugandaupdatenews.com\/?p=7479"},"modified":"2022-12-02T12:10:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T12:10:43","slug":"how-tracing-my-ugandan-asian-heritage-has-helped-me-connect-with-my-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/how-tracing-my-ugandan-asian-heritage-has-helped-me-connect-with-my-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"How tracing my Ugandan-Asian heritage has helped me connect with my roots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY\u00a0MEERA DATTANI<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

30 November 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

December 1989, Entebbe Airport. Almost 18 years since my mum left the country she was born and raised in, following an expulsion order in 1972. As I stepped outside the plane, it wasn\u2019t the balmy air that struck me so much as its scent: a heady blend of jasmine, sand, heat, dust. A scent I\u2019d come to crave. Anxious to capture the moment our feet hit African soil, I was camera-ready. Then, a rifle butt, gentle but firm, across my body. \u2018No photos.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, on the other side of the baggage carousel, the real joy of family waiting. Family I didn\u2019t know so well. My mum\u2019s brother, my aunt and an overexcited eight-year-old cousin who, in years to come, would become my friend, flatmate and confidante.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Meera\u2019s mother in Kampala market, 1989<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That first trip created a formula for many others. Landing in Entebbe, driving past the blues of Lake Victoria en route to Kampala, stopping off at a roadside stall \u2013 jackfruit for mum, pineapple for me \u2013 then \u2018home\u2019 for chai,\u00a0thepla, a favourite Indian flatbread, and\u00a0posho or\u00a0ugali cornmeal with beans. By day, we\u2019d explore Kampala. My mum knew every street: this aunt lived there, that cousin over here, here\u2019s where so-and-so the hairdresser was. We visited her old school, Kololo Secondary, saw her first workplace, Standard Chartered Bank, bartered at Nakasero Market, visited the family\u2019s former tea estate outside the city, and had a drink at the Hotel Diplomate on Tank Hill. She spoke Swahili quasi-fluently as if she\u2019d never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandparents and forefathers were born in Gujarat in north-western\u00a0India<\/a>, another place that gives me goosebu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving Uganda is as big a part of the family story as returning. A British protectorate until the 1960s, it was one of many countries the empire had encouraged thousands of residents from its prized colony, India, to move for work. Many Indians set up businesses \u2013 textiles, coffee, tea, retail \u2013 and thrived. But the colonialist legacy \u2013 two tiers of social status, Indians above Ugandans \u2013 would not end well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Kampala, 2018Courtesy of Meera Dattani<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many Asian families had servants, a term I always had trouble with, and in some cases, those servants were not treated well. In time, I\u2019d have braver conversations with my family about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independence came in 1962, but by 1971, a military coup led by dictator General Idi Amin resulted in the exile of Uganda\u2019s second president, Milton Obote. In August 1972 Amin issued a 90-day expulsion order to the estimated 80,000 Ugandan Asians, before appropriating their businesses and homes in an economic war. Known as the \u2018Butcher of Uganda\u2019, Amin was also responsible for the massacre of up to half a million Ugandans during his eight years in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some in the family were working, studying or living in the UK<\/a> in the 1970s. They said goodbye to Uganda from afar while those in situ left entire lives behind. While the majority ended up in the UK, some in resettlement camps, others went to Canada<\/a>, the USA<\/a>, Europe<\/a>. Exile, migration, displacement, resettlement and the refugee story became part of ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My uncle and aunt were early returners to Uganda, moving back in the post-Amin 1980s. In time, ex-Ugandan Asians were encouraged to return, even promised their former homes. In 1989, the family house was still military-owned. We\u2019d stopped the car across the road for a discreet photo op, but we were spotted by guards. One sign of an armed guard was enough. We sped off.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early 1990s, our family did secure the ancestral home, and my uncle, aunt and cousin made it theirs in a poetic turn of events. I\u2019m drawn to it with a secondary nostalgia for a life that could have existed, a house that contains so many memories \u2013 even though they\u2019re not mine. I wonder if that\u2019s why I take far too many photos, and have enough keepsakes to start a souvenir shop, when my family and others had to leave with so little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In subsequent trips, I\u2019d explore more of the country. I fulfilled the dream of gorilla tracking supported by community tourism, walked feet from the chimpanzees of Kyambura Gorge and hiked in the Rwenzori Mountains. Then my cousin\u2019s wedding, by Lake Victoria \u2013 the only time almost all the family were in Uganda together. And although we didn\u2019t know it at the time, a 2018 road trip to Murchison Falls National Park would be my uncle\u2019s last holiday, a treasured few days at Baker\u2019s Lodge by the Nile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d planned to spend time in Uganda during 2020 and 2021 for a personal project, but Covid derailed it. In February 2020, before the world shut down, my beloved uncle, whose mantra was \u201canything is possible\u201d, died after an illness. Returning to Uganda will not be the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year it is 50 years since the 1972 expulsion and since the first exiled Ugandan Asians arrived in the UK. As a way of finding joy and solace in my heritage as a British-born, second-generation Gujarati Ugandan Asian, I\u2019ve just joined a project called \u2018British Ugandan Asians at 50\u2019. We are gathering interviews, photographs and memorabilia and drawing the community together to mark this watershed. Now that I am in my forties, I feel lucky to have met my second and third cultures in the flesh at an early age. Drawn closer to them through time, travel and tales, I feel a child of all three. I love to return. Because though Uganda was never my home, it\u2019s where all our stories are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0MEERA DATTANI 30 November 2022 December 1989, Entebbe Airport. Almost 18 years since my mum left the country she was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-perspective"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/uganda-may-2022-issue-courtesy-of-Meera-Dattani4.webp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7157,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/lawyer-hussein-kashillingi-pays-tribute-to-his-fallen-father-bush-war-veteran-ahmed-kashillingi-73\/","url_meta":{"origin":7479,"position":0},"title":"LAWYER HUSSEIN KASHILLINGI PAYS TRIBUTE TO HIS FALLEN FATHER BUSH WAR VETERAN AHMED KASHILLINGI (73)","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"November 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear mourners and fellow celebrants , all protocol obsessed . 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