Kampala

Kampala is the Ugandan capital reached by Lillian Kagwa after a roadside killing on the journey from Jinja. In the novel, it is less a sustained setting than the destination of a desperate flight: Lillian gets there with her surviving cousins, but the violence that shapes her decision to leave Uganda follows her all the way to the city.

Setting and Journey

In 1967, Lillian and three cousins were traveling from Jinja toward Kampala when three men who claimed to be agents of the General Service Unit stopped their car. The men inspected the cousins’ identification and demanded that Arthur, the only male cousin, get out to open the trunk. He hesitated rather than leave Lillian and his sisters alone. One of the agents leaned into the car and shot him in the stomach.

The Escape to Kampala

The gunshot temporarily deafened the cousins, and its muzzle flash blinded them. Lillian was at the wheel; before her senses had returned, she shifted into drive and sped away, weaving across the two-lane road. The agents fired after the car but could not pursue it: their own vehicle had run out of gas. The checkpoint had been set up to steal a more suitable vehicle, leaving them stranded while Lillian continued toward Kampala.

She reached the city half an hour later, driving fast the whole way. Arthur had died before she arrived. The short interval between the shooting and her arrival makes Kampala the endpoint of a physical escape that could not undo what had happened on the road.

A Destination, Not a Refuge

The episode belongs to a broader climate of state violence. Lillian had come from Jinja and lived through Uganda’s transition from British rule to government under Milton Obote, whose army and secret police spread fear. The killing of Arthur was treated as unremarkable against the country’s wider turmoil; for Lillian, it confirmed that she wanted out. One year later, she secured a visa to the United States, and in 1968 she came to New York City. Kampala therefore stands at a turning point in her history: she reaches the capital, but her journey toward a life beyond Uganda has already begun.