What the She Cranes performance means for Uganda

By Kalungi Kabuye

My defining moment for Uganda’s national netball team, the She Cranes, came after one of the several wins the team had and up for a media interview was rookie Hanisha Muhammad. In flawless English, she described how the game went, what it meant to the team and country and what they needed to do for the next one.

I know, the argument has been made that one’s proficiency in English has little to bear with anything; that indeed there are many ignorant Englishmen. But, sadly, in Uganda and many other countries, it is a sign of just how much education one has.

The She Cranes have done an incredible job with the limited resources that they have had over the years. It is a sign of the incredible talent that Uganda has that a very small pool of players has managed to take on the world of netball and shake it to its roots. But that pool of players has to be made larger, and new younger players recruited.

Traditionally, the netball league has been dominated by corporate teams, the likes of National Insurance Corporation, Kampala Capital City Authority and Prisons. The players were again largely low-level employees, workers who wanted to mitigate their lowly pay. No offence to the players and not putting anyone down, because they paid their dues, but the time that netball is played by cleaners, tea girls and cooks is gone.

Basketball used to be like that, but all that changed in the 1990s when independent clubs started entering the league, and the rest, as they say, is history. Netball needs to go the same way, and maybe basketball clubs should start forming netball sister clubs. In any case, almost all the netball players also play basketball.

But, unlikely as it might seem, netball has better promise than basketball. If you don’t believe me, ask Peace Proscovia, Mary Nuba and Stella Oyella, who all play professional netball abroad. The most that girls playing basketball in Uganda can hope for is to get a scholarship to play at an American college. It is almost a certainty that many of the She Cranes players will be offered professional contracts abroad after this World Cup, and it will be well-deserved. Maybe our young girls will realise that they don’t have to clean toilets in the Arab world, they can instead play netball and make ends meet.

The fresh faces we saw at the World Cup, with two only players having played at the last one, show just how much promise netball has in Uganda. But it needs to go farther, especially in schools. Netball has to be seen to be ‘cool’ to young Ugandan girls. Elsewhere, you can trust Ugandans to pour cold water on a good thing. At the dinner to welcome the She Cranes from an incredible performance, we learnt that hard-working coach Fred Mugerwa has not been paid for all the glory he has brought to the country. He told the gathered media that he can not continue working for free and implied he will soon step down.

In contrast, it is said that the coach of the national men’s soccer team is paid a whopping $25,000 annually. It is a strange country where the people that get things done are ignored, but non-performers are rewarded for their mediocrity.

So, as we wait for the customary dinner with the powers that be, and promises of financial rewards and funding; we shall also wait for complaints in the months to come of allowances that were never paid, or which had large parts of them paid back to non-deserving officials. You just can’t beat the system in this country, so bow your head and cry.

Shaka Ilembe – Tales of the real Shaka Zulu

The story of Shaka, the famous Zulu king, has been well told. But almost all the stories we have read have been written by white people, whose intentions are questionable at best. Most people’s knowledge of the legendary Zulu king comes from the 1986 TV series Shaka Zulu, which was based on writings by British traders that interacted with the Zulus.

American author James A. Michener also writes comprehensively about Shaka in his book The Covenant. But they all have the typical western bias, which is why the series Shaka Ilembe, currently showing on DStv, is so compelling. Planned to run over three seasons, the dialogue is entirely in Zulu, with English subtitles. While some may be put off by the semi-nudity portrayed, it shows what life in 18th-century Africa was really like, before Europeans came and spoilt it all.

Eight episodes have currently been shown in the first season, and so far Shaka is just becoming a man. There are many myths surrounding the man, most not very flattering, so I like how this series is putting the record straight. Perhaps some filmmakers in Uganda will do the same about our much-vilified Kabaka Mwanga.

@KalungiKabuye