London! The capital of the English; when I arrived here a week ago, the place looked loosely familiar and thought to myself, I have been here before, either a long time ago when I was a kid or through years of reading literature with London as the physical setting.

I couldn’t quite choose between the two possibilities so I decided it was my first time here until I found evidence to the contrary. 

So after a week in London, I have now been to all three of, arguably, the world’s most important cities; the other two being New York in the United States, and Beijing, in China. Journalism may not put so much in your bank account but it can surely take you places. Tell that to your kids.

These three cities, I believe, are the engines of the global economy and international politics (of course not forgetting Moscow) and when we, in Africa, talk about developed countries, you don’t get it until a ‘live’ experience. 

Life in London, like in Beijing and New York, is fast paced, everyone seems to be in a hurry chasing after some invisible target; people here think and plan in terms of minutes and hours not months and years as we tend to do in East Africa. 

I have often mused that in Africa, everyone acts like they are walking down the aisle, calm, slow and unbothered by the tic-tac of the ever moving clock; I mean it is okay, there’s no flight to rush to, no hourly train to catch, so it’s okay, take your time.

Maybe employers should start paying staff in terms of work rendered per hour, that way, people would take time more seriously, you think? I mean anything to help us develop the mentality that ‘every minute counts’ as opposed to ‘every day counts.’

I wondered about these things as I wandered at night, along the banks of River Thames, which lazily runs through London city like a lost cow; the scenes here are breathtaking; it’s the kind of place you want to have the first kiss after chasing a girl for months. 

And oh boy! I saw many a lover braving the coldness to enjoy the beauty and cold breeze, holding hands, leaning close to each other, occasionally kissing and of course, taking selfies. 

There’s a whole economy around this piece of nature, restaurants, museums and theatres all feeding into UK fertile tourism cash cow.

I wished I had enough time to explore; unfortunately, it was my last night here after a grueling weeklong investigative financial reporting course at City University, London’s centre for investigative journalism.

Look, I am open to ideas here. My Visa expires in May next year so if you know someone who can get me back here for a week or two, to explore and enjoy London, at their cost, I would welcome the offer graciously. What’s in it for them? We can discuss that. 

You have to love the English for conserving history. The buildings in London are vehicle into ancient history and not any amount of money could convince the authorities to demolish such structures to give way for new developments.

At some point, I imagined Kigali, a city in its early days, the architects busy stamping their various signatures everywhere with ultra modern buildings and I wonder, a century from now, will these structures be in place?

I felt warm in the cold night standing outside Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, in Southwark, very impressive; it brought back memories of a younger me, seated in the literature classes going through lines and trying to make sense of them.

After walking and almost turning into a frozen bloc, I sauntered into a Nandos, a Portuguese restaurant by the Thames River, ordered for a Heineken as I watched Londoners enjoying Friday evening. After a long week, everyone deserved a drink.

British Indians

When I first landed at Heathrow international airport, UK’s version of Kanombe, I noticed something rather bizarre; two middle-aged female passport officers who were speaking an Indian-like language, not English! They appeared to be Indians, alright, but speak the language of the land, for God’s sake! 

But the story of India and England dates back to the middle ages and historians admit that they can’t quite put a date as to when the earliest settlements of Indians in Great Britain might have been. 

To find an entry point into the subject, some historical estimates assert that if the Romani, often known as the exonym gypsies were regarded as South Asians, then it makes sense to place the earliest Indian arrival in the Middle Ages.

So at Heathrow, I was staring at what is today classified as British Indians with an estimated population, currently, of between 1.5 and two million people, not including those of mixed Indian and other ancestry, otherwise the number would be much larger.

Two days before I arrived here, India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in London where he was received by over 100,000 of his people at Wembley. That was telling enough.

In 1972, Uganda’s then President Idi Amin gave Indians just 90 days to leave the country a decree that affected some 60, 000 people. They didn’t catch the next plane to India but rather England.

Being naturally gifted at running businesses, Indians have played a core role in maintaining London as an international financial hub. 

The cab driver who picked me up from Heathrow was another Asian from Pakistan. He too didn’t speak good English although he has lived in London for a decade after convincing authorities that he required asylum to escape from some kind of persecution back home.

It used to work a few years ago; just bribe a local journalist in Pakistan to write an article about the applicant indicating that they were being pursued by authorities; the article would be printed out and used as evidence to support their asylum application. It’s not as easy these days.

Cab drivers can be quite chatty. This one was no different. We talked about women and men, I indicated that my preference was with the former, he said he was open to both men and women; I became worried.

There’s nothing as scary as a man noticing that another man could be interested in him, this driver openly sent out this signal; I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of his cab.

But he was also helpful because before we parted ways, he helped me buy a local London line with internet for a full month, with that, I could stay connected. During the process, we had to call the customer care number, the woman on the other side spoke Indian!

When you choose to return

On learning that I was in London, Arthur, a former classmate at University, currently an editor with Uganda’s leading daily, sent me a rather interesting WhatsApp message.

"Ken, please get me a signed Arsenal jersey, if you decide to return to East Africa.’ It meant that I could choose to refuse to return home and somehow find a warm hole to hide in this expansive cold city as I looked for an odd job!

Well, I wouldn’t be the first to do so; I would merely be the latest statistic of such people from across the world. London is full of such stories. I saw plenty of them including at Travelodge hotel, Kings Cross, my domicile for a week.

In fact as of 2011, there were 7.5 million foreign born residents in the UK, corresponding to 11.9 percent of the country’s population. This is currently Europe’s toughest reality.

Although I love London so much, I love East Africa much more and for that matter, I am coming home tonight; like I said, you can always sponsor my next trip to London, but always count on me to return and tell the tale.