31 years a King. 34 years a man.

31 years a king. 34 years a man. Put those two numbers next to each other and something does not add up.

31 years on a throne sounds like a long time, in fact it is long enough to become part of Uganda's history. Even though Uganda's government has not changed, 31 years is  long enough to watch governments change and the world become something different from the one in which your reign began.

But 34 years of life? 34 years of life sounds terribly short. King Oyo became king at three and died at 34. He had reigned for almost his entire life, which makes his death so difficult to place in the usual arithmetic of life.

How can a King's reign be long when his life is short? How can someone have already marked 30 years on a throne and still die young? When we hear that someone has reigned for 31 years, don't we instinctively imagine an old king with grey hair, a walking stick, decades upon decades behind him?

31 years sounds like a long history, while 34 years sounds like someone who should still have plenty of future. 

So what exactly makes a life long? Is it the number of years we are given, or what those years contain? Does 31 years of doing something extraordinary make 34 years any less short? I do not think so. 

That is the thing about time, in that we measure it in years because years are easy to count, but they do not necessarily tell us how much life has happened or has been lived inside them.

A year can be enormous while a decade can disappear quickly. 31 years can be a long reign, while 34 years can feel impossibly brief. Hehehe maybe there is no contradiction at all because a life can be full and still be far too short, or we can accomplish much and still deserve more time.

History can call something a long reign while the human heart looks at the very same years and says: surely, not enough.

31 years a king. 34 years a man.

From where my feet are, I keep coming back to the strange arithmetic of it all: how can 31 years feel like such a long time, and 34 feel like hardly any time at all?

Running at the Source of the Nile before Rwanda claims it

There are some invitations that make sense, like come for dinner, come out for a drink, would you like to go to the beach.

And then there is this... Come and run a trail at the Source of the Nile.

Only and only because it was Alex who asked, I said yes. The Nile, after all, is not just any river. This is the mighty Nile, one of the longest rivers in the world, a river that has seen and supported civilizations, a river that crosses several countries, inspired John Speke and those other explorers we learnt about in history, a river that is a source of arguments about geography, hydropower plants, etc, including an ongoing argument about where exactly it begins.

Uganda says the Source of the Nile is in Uganda. This is what I grew up with, and I see no reason to destabilise the region by asking unnecessary questions.

But there are people who say the true source is in Rwanda. There are also claims involving Burundi, depending on how far upstream you are willing to follow tributaries and how badly you want to antagonise the region. Uganda and Rwanda have had varied relations over the years, so I don't think this is the time to introduce another dispute.

For purposes of this run, therefore, the Source of the Nile is in Uganda. If you are Rwandan reading this, we can discuss your evidence after the run, preferably over a Nile Special Lagar. Until then, come and see the real Source of the Nile. In Uganda.

Now that the international relations portion of this invitation is complete, let us return to the actual problem.

Now, this Alex, and his craze about running saw the Nile an thought... You know what would make this better? Running.

So, on 6th September, we shall gather for the annual Source of the Nile Trail Run.

I should probably disclose something before I start recruiting innocent people.... I have never done a trail run. I know what running is. I also know what a trail is. What I don't entirely know is the two combined.

From what I can tell, ordinary running is on a road that is generally flat-ish, relatively predictable and no major surprises. Trail running, from what I hear, appears to be something else. There may be roads, footpaths, animal tracks, hills, mud, rocks, roots, grass, bushes and small paths disappearing into maize gardens. There may be moments when you are not entirely sure whether you are running, hiking, or starring in an adventure movie. Apparently, this is part of the attraction, and I am curious.

If I am going to try my first trail run, there are worse places to do it than beside the Nile, and I am inviting you to come too.

Come if you are a runner. Come if you are a walker. Come if you have always wanted to try trail running. Come if you like adventure. Come if you like the Nile. Come if your idea of a good weekend involves doing something that sounded much easier when you registered.

We shall run, we shall explore, we shall admire the scenery. We shall regret, and some of us, like often happens to me, may even discover muscles we had previously assumed were decorative. At that point during the run when the going gets tough, we shall remind ourselves that people travel across the world to see the Source of the Nile. We just chose to run alongside it, seeing it while out of breath.

SOURCE OF THE NILE TRAIL RUN

📅 Date: 6th Sept 2026

📍 Venue: NRE - BUJAGALI

🏃 Distances:  5km, 12km, 25km, 50km

⏰ Start time: 6am

🎟️ Registration: www.sourceoftheniletrailrun.com

I cannot promise that I know what I am doing, which is precisely why you should come.

At the very least, if trail running turns out to be a terrible idea, there should be enough of us to complain about it together over a beer and rolex.

Does missing a marathon count as a bad omen?

Last year, I ran the Tusker Lite Rwenzori marathon and it marked a new beginning.

I did not know that when I registered for it. It was supposed to be just another run, another finish marathon, another medal to add to the growing collection of things I have voluntarily suffered for.

But the Rwenzori Marathon became more than that. It became a marker. There was life before that Rwenzori Marathon, and there was life after it. In my head, the marathon became the line between the two.

So naturally, I have been looking forward to running it again. The one year later... type thing. 

There was something symbolic about returning to that starting line after a year. I wanted to see what a year had done. I wanted to remember the person who stood there last year and acknowledge the things that had happened in my life since.

I trained hard and I prepared adequately. I was ready. In fact we can say the 53km Ultra Run at the beginning of this month was preparation for this marathon. 

Then I got flu.

Of all the weeks available in an entire calendar year, my body looked at Rwenzori marathon week and decided this was an excellent time to lower immunity and catch a flu.

At first, I refused to take it seriously. It was just a runny nose, a little congestion, a small headache, a mild sore throat, nothing too serious. Surely I could run 42 kilometres with a blocked nose.

Maybe I could run slowly. Maybe I could start and see how I feel. Maybe the fresh air would help. Maybe flu is a test of my determination. Between this optimism and common sense sat the irritating possibility that honestly I shouldn't run at all.

That really bothered me more than I expected, and it is not because there will never be another marathon. There will be plenty. I have demonstrated a slightly concerning willingness to keep signing up for these things.

It bothered me because this marathon meant something. If running it last year marked a new beginning, what does not running it this year mean? Is that a bad omen? Has the universe cancelled the new beginning? Do I return to factory settings? Was the new life only valid for twelve months, subject to renewal by completing another 42 kilometres?

These are obviously ridiculous questions. Mostly.

But you know what?  We do this all the time. We attach meaning to places, dates, songs, races, anniversaries and little rituals. We turn ordinary moments into landmarks and then return to them expecting them to tell us something about where we are. That is what I wanted from this marathon. I wanted to stand at that starting line one year later and say: Look. We are still here.

Maybe I don't need to. The things that began last year did not begin because I crossed a finish line. The marathon simply happened to be standing there when they did.

And maybe missing it doesn't undo anything. It could even be that there is even something fitting about this year's lesson being completely different from last year's. Last year, perhaps the lesson was to begin. This year, it is to know when not to run, which, for someone who has spent a year learning how to keep going, might actually be the harder lesson.

Still, from where my feet are, or will not be, I would have preferred the medal.

Congrats! You passed your exams. Now let the real tests begin.

Today I sat with my friend waiting for her GCSE results. The results that would determine what subjects she could take at A-level, and in some small way, begin to shape what comes after that.

She did remarkably well. Congratulations Moss!

But as we sat there waiting, I found myself thinking about how much importance we place on these moments. You spend years in school, months preparing, hours sitting exams, and then one day you wait for a set of results that will decide what happens next.

At that age, the road seems clearly marked. You pass your GCSEs or O-level so you can choose your A-level subjects. You pass A-level so you can get into university. What you study at university begins to shape the work you might eventually do. One result leads to another choice, which leads to another road.

It is something to think that an examination you sit at sixteen can have a hand in deciding where your feet will eventually take you. But sitting there today, I also thought about how these are only the first of many tests we take in life. The early ones are likely the kindest.

They come with a syllabus. You know roughly what will be asked. You are given textbooks, teachers and past papers. There is a timetable telling you exactly when the test will begin and when it will end. If you prepare well enough, there is a reasonable chance you will know the answers.

And then you grow up. The tests continue, but the syllabus disappears. There are no past papers for most of what comes next.

There is no textbook for choosing the right career, knowing whom to trust, raising a family, making a marriage work, losing someone, starting something, ending something, taking a risk, managing money, admitting you were wrong or deciding when you have tried long enough.

Nobody tells you that the examination has started. Sometimes you don't even realise you were being tested until years later.

You make decisions with whatever information you have at the time. You choose one road and leave another behind. You get some things right. You get others completely wrong. Sometimes you prepare carefully and still fail. Sometimes you stumble into the right answer without quite knowing how you got there.

Unlike school, life does not always sends back a marked paper with results. There are moments when I wish it did. It would be useful to know that Question 7 was worth twenty marks and that I should have spent a little more time on it. It would be nice to know which mistakes cost me marks and which things I worried about were not even on the paper. Or is that in itself the examination? 

Whats more, we don't always know what passing looks like. Sometimes passing is succeeding, other times passing it is surviving. Sometimes passing it is having the courage to begin again. Sometimes it is staying, and other times it is knowing when to leave, when to fight, when to let go. 

There of course times when we fail. That is the areawhere life is very different from school. A failed examination at sixteen can feel like a door closing. Later in life, you discover that life has side roads. You can fail at something and still find another way. You can make the wrong decision and learn enough from it to make a better one later. You can end up somewhere you never planned to go and discover that it is not such a bad place to be.

Yeah, that is what I was thinking about as we waited for those results today. She was waiting to find out how she had done in one of the first important examinations of her life. There will be others. Some will come with question papers, tutors, texbooks, certificates. But most will not.

Life, it turns out, is one long open-book examination. The problem is that nobody tells you which book to open. So you read what you can. You learn from the people around you. You borrow answers occasionally. You make some up as you go along. You get a few spectacularly wrong.

Then more tests and exams are set, and maybe that is what life really is for all of us. We move from one test to another, most times not knowing the questions in advance and never quite sure how we have done.

I guess the best we can do is take each one as it comes, carry forward what the lessons from the ladt one, and hope that when the test comes, we know a little more about ourselves than we did before.

From where my feet are, that is as close as I will ever get to being prepared.

Uganda is Ebola-free. So the viruses held an AGM to review their performance.

Uganda has been declared Ebola-free. With Ebola's latest assignment officially concluded, it seemed only appropriate that before everyone packed up and moved on to the next crisis, the Viral Diseases Department should sit down for the inevitable performance review. There were achievements to celebrate, challenges to document, and lessons to learn.

The annual performance review meeting was called to order at 9:00am. Present were COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg, Monkeypox, Bird Flu, Dengue,  Hanta Virus and several other diseases attending virtually.

The Chairperson adjusted his glasses. "Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the Annual Viral Diseases Performance Review."

COVID immediately raised a hand. "Before we start, I would just like to remind everyone that I remain the benchmark."

The Chairperson sighed. "Yes, COVID. We know."

"I shut down airports."

"We know."

"I stopped cruise ships."

"We know."

"I made people wash groceries."

"We know."

COVID leaned back proudly.

Nobody likes working with COVID.

The Chairperson turned to Ebola. "Ebola, let's review your year." Ebola opened a PowerPoint presentation.

Key achievements:

• Generated international panic.
• Issued travel bans.
• Reduced tourist confidence.
• Appeared in at least 4,000 newspaper headlines.
• Caused governments to remember public health exists.

"Strong performance," said the Chairperson.

"Thank you," said Ebola.

"Any challenges?"

"Funding."

The room laughed.

"No, seriously," said Ebola.

The room laughed harder.

The Chairperson nodded sympathetically. "Every year they cut preparedness budgets."

"Exactly."

"And then when you return, everyone acts surprised."

"Exactly."

"Noted."

Marburg raised a hand. "I would like to register a complaint."

The Chairperson looked tired already. "What is it, Marburg?"

"Nobody knows who I am."

The room went silent.

Marburg continued. "I work just as hard as Ebola."

"That is true," said Ebola.

"I generate fear."

"Also true."

"I create emergency responses."

"Very true."

"But every time I show up, people say, 'Wait... is this Ebola?'"

The Chairperson wrote something down. "Brand visibility challenge."

"Exactly," said Marburg.

Monkeypox raised a hand. "I understand completely."

The room groaned.

"Please don't."

"No, seriously," said Monkeypox. "I spent half the year explaining my name."

"Fair."

"Do you know how exhausting rebranding is?"

"Very."

"I had communications consultants, journalists, politicians, health experts and social media influencers all discussing my name instead of discussing me."

The Chairperson nodded. "That counts as stakeholder engagement."

Monkeypox smiled.

Bird Flu spoke next. "I would just like everyone to know that I am still here."

Everyone turned.

Bird Flu continued. "I have been threatening humanity silently for years."

The Chairperson checked the attendance sheet. "Oh. We forgot to invite you."

"Exactly my point."

Just as the meeting was about to end, a voice came from the back.

"Excuse me."

The Chairperson looked up. "Yes?"

A hand was raised.

"I don't think anyone has acknowledged my contribution."

The room squinted.

"Who are you?"

"Hantavirus."

The Chairperson shuffled through the attendance register. "Hantavirus... Hantavirus... Hantavirus..."

"I am literally on page three."

"Sorry."

Hantavirus stood up. "I have been working quietly for decades."

"That's true."

"I infect people."

"Also true."

"I create concern among health professionals."

"Yes."

"So why does nobody ever talk about me?"

COVID raised a hand. "Marketing."

The room nodded.

"Marketing?" asked Hantavirus.

"Look," said COVID. "You need branding. You need drama. You need international press conferences. You need airport screenings. You need world leaders giving speeches."

"I have rodents."

"Exactly," said COVID.

Hantavirus sat down sadly.

The Chairperson tried to help. "For what it's worth, your technical work is highly respected."

"Nobody wants technical respect."

"Fair."

"I want travel advisories."

"Also fair."

Ebola leaned over. "Try appearing near an international airport. It helps."

The room erupted in laughter.

The minutes recorded this under: career development opportunities for emerging pathogens.

The Chairperson moved to the final agenda item.

"Before we close, what would each of you identify as the greatest opportunity for the department going forward?"

COVID raised its hand.

"International travel."

Marburg said, "Weak surveillance."

Monkeypox said, "Social media."

Hantavirus said, "Rodents."

Ebola thought for a moment.

"Human forgetfulness."

The room fell silent.

Then everyone applauded.

The Chairperson smiled.

"Excellent. I think we have our strategic priority."

The meeting was adjourned at 11:30am.

Outside, governments were already discussing where else they could cut public health spending.

The Viral Diseases Department agreed that prospects for the coming year remained excellent.

The strange things children believe (and adults secretly do too)

The other day, I was playing hide-and-seek with my nieces and nephew.

After the countdown, I went looking for them around the house. Ankunda hid behind a curtain. Akwiine disappeared under a bed, leaving both feet sticking out. Ahumuza, however, had found what he believed was the perfect hiding spot.

He was standing behind a glass door.

Yes! He was not beside it. He was not behind a wall next to it. He was behind the glass. He could see me perfectly. I could see him perfectly. We made eye contact. Yet he remained frozen, convinced that because he was behind a door, he had successfully become invisible.

In that moment, I wanted to reward the confidence. Children believe some wonderfully strange things. They believe that...

• If they pull a blanket over their heads, they have vanished from existence.
• Medicine works faster if they cry while taking it.
• Vegetables become less healthy if eaten voluntarily.
• When they close their eyes, they cannot be seen.
• Whispering makes secrets completely undetectable, even when whispering directly into someone's ear.
• Monsters cannot operate under the jurisdiction of bedsheets.
• A biscuit broken into two pieces becomes more biscuit.
• Running away after breaking something reduces responsibility.
• Saying "I didn't do it" before anyone asks is a convincing legal defence.
• The moon follows them personally.
• If they wear a superhero cape, they can jump just slightly farther than usual.
• The person cutting the cake has unlimited power and authority.
• If they hold a toy in a shop long enough, ownership begins to transfer naturally.
• Hiding stolen sweets in their cheeks makes them invisible.
• (my favourite) Adults know what they are doing.

That last one is probably the biggest fiction of all.

When you think deeply about it, these beliefs are not random or far-fetched. They are built on a kind of logic. A blanket does hide things,  doesn't it? Doors do hide things, don't they? Whispering does make things harder to hear, no? Holding something does make it feel like yours.

Children simply take a small truth and stretch it until it covers the entire world.

In a way, adults are not so different.

• We believe reading one article makes us experts.
• We believe tomorrow's problems will somehow sort themselves out.
• We believe that putting something in a drawer counts as organising it.
• We believe we can ignore a strange noise in the car and that it will disappear on its own.
• We believe "I'll just check one thing on my phone" and then emerge forty minutes later watching a video about penguins.

You know what? Growing up is not about abandoning silly beliefs. Clearly we can see it is exchanging them for more sophisticated, adult versions.

Still, there is something beautiful about the certainty of children. The confidence, imagination and willingness to accept impossible things without requiring evidence.

My nephew stood behind that glass door completely convinced he was hidden. There was no doubt in his mind. There was no anxiety, no second-guessing, just absolute faith in the principle that a door is a door.

Part of me misses that. I do not miss the bad logic, no, just the certainty. The world becomes heavier as we grow older. We learn exceptions, complications, probabilities, and caveats. We discover that most questions have complicated answers.

Children, meanwhile, move through life armed with confidence, imagination, and a blanket that apparently doubles as an invisibility cloak. If I am truly being hones, some days that sounds like a pretty good way to live.

From where my feet are, childhood may be the only time in life when hiding behind a glass door is both a terrible plan and a perfectly reasonable one.

How to run an ultramarathon: Wrong answers only.

Tomorrow, I am running 50 kilometres. Naturally, I have prepared. Here is everything I have learned about successfully completing a 50K ultramarathon.

Wrong answers only.

1. Do all your training the night before. There is absolutely no need to waste several months training. The human body learns very quickly under pressure. Run 30 kilometres the night before the race so your legs understand what will be expected of them in the morning. Think of it as orientation.

2. Wear brand-new shoes. Run day is the perfect time to discover whether your new shoes fit. Do not wear them beforehand as that would ruin the surprise. Extra points if you buy them on the way to the starting line.

3. Better still, forget your running shoes entirely. Shoes are just equipment, and equipment creates dependency. Get to the run venue, open your bag and discover that your running shoes are several hours away. This builds character and logistical creativity.

4. Sprint the first kilometer. You are surrounded by runners, there are spectators, and someone has started a stopwatch. This is no time for restraint. Establish dominance immediately. The run is 50 kilometers long, but that is a problem for later.

5. Do not eat breakfast. Food adds weight. You are trying to move forward efficiently. Therefore, the less you weigh at the starting line, the faster you will go. This is physics.

6. Avoid water. Water is also heavy. One liter weighs approximately one kilogram. Why would you voluntarily carry kilograms inside yourself during a race? Again: physics.

7. Never walk. Walking is a sign of weakness. If you need a break, simply run more slowly. If that becomes difficult, run more slowly than that. At no point should you admit that what you are doing has technically become walking.

8. Ignore the route markings. Race organisers put arrows everywhere because they lack imagination. Choose your own path. An ultramarathon is ultimately about self-discovery. Sometimes self-discovery happens 7 kilometers in the wrong direction. Congratulations. You are now running a 64K.

9. If something hurts, speed up. Pain cannot catch you if you are moving faster than it is. That is basic science.

10. Race everyone. That 22-year-old flying past you? Competition. The elite runner? Competition. The person doing their 20th ultramarathon? Competition. The boda rider beside the road? Competition. Nobody passes you without consequences.

11. Stop at kilometre 25 and celebrate. Halfway! Sit down, remove your shoes, have a proper meal, call some people maybe post photographs. There is absolutely no danger that your legs will interpret this as the end of the event and refuse to restart.

12. Constantly calculate how far you still have to go. This is particularly useful at kilometer 8. Say loudly, "ONLY 42 KILOMETERS LEFT!" Repeat this calculation every kilometer. Your brain will appreciate the updates.

13. Carry everything you might possibly need. 3 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, a jacket, a power bank, a book in case you get bored, possibly a small camping chair. Be prepared.

14. At kilometer 40, try something completely new. New food, new drink, new running technique, new shoes. 40 kilometers into an ultramarathon is an excellent environment for experimentation. Scientists call this the control group.

15. If you get tired, simply stop being tired. This is the most overlooked ultramarathon technique. Fatigue is largely an attitude problem. At kilometer 44, remind your legs that they have had several hours to adjust to the situation. Frankly, by now they should be performing better.

16. Never check the weather. Weather is outside your control, therefore, technically, it does not exist. Dress according to your feelings.

17. Save absolutely nothing for the end. Energy left at kilometer 45 represents poor budgeting. Spend everything early and get to kikilometer  completely bankrupt.

18. When you finally cross the finish line, immediately announce your next ultramarathon. Do not wait for your body to recover. Do not gauge how your knees and feet are. Simply say, next week 80K. Leadership requires decisiveness.

And finally, when someone asks how the 50K went, smile and say wow it was a walk over, because apparently that is what runners do.

Anyway.

I haven't actually run the 50K yet. That happens tomorrow. So this entire article has been written from a position of complete ignorance and unjustified confidence, which, now that I think about it, may be the perfect preparation for an ultramarathon.

To be continued after 50K.