[b]Masaka, Uganda – Subnational Kingdom of Buganda[/b]

It was far from the attempted show of prestige and glamor of Kampala. It was as Africa was, is. And though the new construction that rose on the side of the town's center – a mere road about surrounding a raised green bosom of a park – there was still that persistent air of dusty African life. What roads had been paved had merely been coated over with dry dust pulled in by the multitudes of battered second-hand trucks and jeeps laden with cages full of madly clucking chickens or pigs who oinked curiously at the passing city. Animals for the slaughter wound through town from the countryside. The dry crusted roads of red and soft caramel browns formed a raw chaotic web of roads that bound between the businesses and houses rose cheaply on half a shoestring. It was for many not a quest to get to where they needed to be, but a journey to find the right thread to travel.

There was a clear feeling of unease, or a fervent mix and rise of activity that Emmanuel watched as he rode the back of the truck through the city center. Under the shade of young palms several youths in dusty shorts and thin muscle shirts lounged in relative comfort, away from the naked summer sun. But along the sides of the street, or even in it disgruntled and messy young and middle ages men wandered, often greeting each other with passionate shouts or waving irritated at the cars that wound through the round about. Perched in the bed, leaning against his back of gear Emmanuel watched as he passed teams of men with corn knives at their belts, or brandishing heavy mauls home-forged from lengths of square bar and blades of excess steel and iron they had welded to the heads.

“How of'den do you come 'ere brothe'?” Emmanuel asked as he leaned through the empty rear window of his cab.

The driver, a native of some deeper darker part of Africa looked back at him through the rear-view window. His bald scalp and cheeks were dotted with a number of faded tribal tattoos. They were faint stars against a skin so dark it was a burnt black. “As much as I like mu' paych'eck I dun' like coming down here of'den.” he said, “Even de' bruthe's here 'ave pulled out to outside t'e city. 'es all t'e militia now.

“T'at preacher man too,” the driver continued as they turned off the central roundabout, “He scares me some'dimes. I watched'a few sermons o' his online.”

“I didn' have d'a time.” Emmanuel said, “Just read d'e reports.”

“Pray you're good at ac'din' a reporter then.” the driver said in a troubled sigh. He looked back briefly at Emmanuel, his gaze craven. “I see wha'd his boys done t' people dh'ey don' like. Th'ere som' Congolese in his ranks, som' Chad. A Ugandan would not do wha'd t'ey do.

“An' I hope your pard'ner will be fine.” he added.

“He's good at his roles.” Emmanuel smiled, though he felt he wasn't believing himself as he watched a small group of militia watch them by, “Jus' like me.”

“Shuld' move d'o Lagos d'en when your condract's up bruthah, if you so good.” the driver laughed.

“I'll think about it.” Emmanuel nodded as the pulled a corner, pulling down a dusty street. Nested on the hill in the distance, rising over the low bud, straw, and sheet metal homes of inner Masaka was a church of muddied, blood-ray clay. The structure stood above the trees and the low roofs. The gentle grade of its roof and framed, key-stoned windows was considerably European. The front of its face dominated by a centered steeple that towered over the building, coming to sharp point akin to a spear, crowned at the tip with an empowering cross of iron. 

Banners flew from the face, dressing the mud and clay side in cloaks of red and white. As the wind blew across the city the banners fluttered in the wind, wrapping around the corners until they looked like the robes of a priest. Song and praise echoed out from the opened windows and door as figures became clear as they drew close. People clustered more and more along the street, all walking to the hill the church dominated.

The number of militia grew in the crowds. The dark brooding blue collars lingered between colorfully dressed women. Small children watched the on goings of the world with reserved curiosity from their mother's knees, or in their arms.

The crowds grew thicker as they neared the base of the hill. People congested along the sides, blocking the front, and ultimately taking the year as slowly the truck was engulfed by the throngs of people. Swallowed by church attendees they rendered travel impossible as they milled between each other. The space was minimal. A man on a bike could weave through if he went slow, but hardly a full truck. They were rendered drowned in bodies, forced to a crawl passed store-fronts advertising sunglasses and the latest in second-hand merchandise from Europe and Asia.

“I think it' time for us to part, brotheh.” the driver called back, “I will 'ope for t'e best on m' way out.”

“I understand.” Emmanuel smiled, standing up and hitching his gear high onto his back. His hands dropped to his pocket, fingering the small plastic card that rested there. Press credentials. Forged press credentials.

Throwing himself out of the bed, Emmanuel landed with a thud on the ground below. His boots hitting the hard-packed dust as if it were pavement. Rocks popped behind him as the truck continued its strained and slow journey out through the crowds. None seem to register it was there as they stared up the hill to the building towering over them. And do the immediate interest that barred them, the iron gate that closed off the path that ran up the hill.

The small entry funneled the visitors and slowed everything to a crawl. A consistent trickle made their way up the concrete steps that snaked ever upwards to the front doors of the church. Young trees bordered the walk, shading much of it at its lower extremes and hanging out over the empty buildings that rung around at the building's base.

The crowd crept. Keeping to a pastoral silence as the singing and music beckoned them to come. It was typical of Uganda. Even for so short a time as he had been there, Emmanuel had recognized how it was to have music so engrained in the social web. He had heard farmers sing in the fields as they worked. The song of delight and hedonism among even the immigrants and left-behinds of Irish Row in Kampala. And as at home in New Orleans, there was music in the sermons. If only drier, it was almost like being back in the states. If only at the homeland of even his people, it was like Haiti.

There was a simple majesty in the lost organization of the people. A sort of hypnotism that required no enforcement. They were here on their own will, looking forward to the mount of the hill. As Emmanuel passed the gate, he noticed and inventoried with a sense of sudden realization why things sounded this clear so far from the door. Tucked in the trees or along the paths sat hidden speakers. Speakers connected into the church on the hill. They played the song and the worship that came forth in a wave of pious pride that was so typical of African society. And he noted, this just wasn't the main event, this felt like the pre-show. By his mistake and chance, he was to see the main event.

At the top of the hill the crowds began to funnel again into the church. Many impatient parishioners however had chosen to pack up at the empty windows of the cavernous church, catching a position early and hoping to catch the gusts of wind that blew through the building from an array of large industrial fans that swept the dry air across the quickly filling pews. Stepping through the front door the full effect of the large chapel came to full.

The air glowed a soft ruby-gold from the autumn orange walls, the light passed through unhindered from the open windows where not a pane of glass rest, not even stained. Bodies packed closely together shoulder to shoulder like sardines; with more filing in to take positions by the wall.

The air inside was dry, and the fans spread throughout the room only weakly alleviated the stress of the dry heat in the room. They did if anything better distribute the strong, overpowering smell of body oder across the heads of much of the gathering congregation. The smell of sweat and a lack of hygiene wafted through the air to assault Emmanuel's nose and to mix with the typical smell of rich tropical soil and the sweat yet bitter smell of aged wood. The cocktail bordered stifling and suffocating.

At the head of the room stood a battery of loud speakers and a nest of microphones sat on a simple wooden lectern. White cloth embroidered – or no doubt silk-screened – with golden-yellow patterns decorated an alter where sat a large wooden cross and negroed version of Christ. Bundles of cables and chords ran to the side, where what looked to be a bank of computers sat inconspicuous in the corner. Emmanuel looked puzzled at it, tracing along the base of the walls, between the people, and up through conduit painted the same color of the walls to a number of cameras pointed down to the ambon at the congregation's head.

“He's uploading everything...” Emmanuel thought to himself as looked up over the ceiling, finding the number of cameras hidden in the high rafters. Microphones hung from the ceiling with the weak internal lighting of the church. And taking it in Emmanuel could not help but feel amazed at the delicate care taken to capture and late distribute the message of the preacher.

He couldn't help but feel that much of it was being uploaded to a server as far away as Iran.

Even as the seats at the pews filled people kept coming in. Packing along the walls Emmanuel was pushed against his will further up along the outer edge of the church. Into the corner and then around to keep from being swallowed by the throngs until he had come to the very outer edge of the crowds. The more people who crammed it the stronger the smell of people got. Of farmers, of butchers, of factory workers. Or bush mechanics and of destitute. They all came in, taking up spaces where they could. But none taking a position in the central aisle.

Only when the flow stopped did things change. From the speakers the sound of gospel stopped and a deadened silence fell on the church room. The fans clanked and cluttered from their corners as they blew the hot air over the masses of sweaty men and women seeking to hear the words of a single man.

The silence and tensity that befell the congregation was powerful. Though Emmanuel could drop a pin and hear the note, none would hear the old cliché as they sat silent in their seats. Some with their head bowed as if in prayer. Others with their attention sealed to the door as if expecting. But looking over the heads, the modern curiosity that was texting was not evident. Each and every person – not matter how young or old – was silently and solidly in the moment. Even these minutes of patient expecting silence no one dared dishonor the room with frivolity. Even the small group of young Bugandan youth that now manned the computers seemed to ply their trade in a nervous hesitant way, as if touching their fingers to the keyboards here, at this time, was a shame or made them alien to their kin.

Even as the front doors of the church opened after the flood of bodies no one spoke. No one cheered. No one clapped. They retained their fervent pious silence as they stood up out of the pews and turned to the doors. The sudden rise of bodies obscuring from Emmanuel the figure that had entered. And trying to see through the thick forest of dirty heads even he could hardly catch a glimpse of the figure they respectively stood for. Watching him with deep loving eyes. Between them Emmanuel could see glimpses of a man. A white cap, the flash of glasses in the summer light. Someone moving through the aisle, giving unto his flock nods and recognition in his compassion for it, or what looked to be compassion. But for the people, they took what illusion they could. Never mind the doubts of the Haitian that lurked in their flocked.

The man took his time as he wound down the aisle. Greeting and giving his blessings to each person along the path. Watching from the extreme, Emmanuel could not admire the length he was going for his personnel-level politics. No doubt to those in the room he was no more than a leader, but a part of their community. He could imagine he knew everyone here by name.

And it took time. But with time, he emerged from the throngs of followers who sought his attention and he stepped out into the open. Walking to his informal pulpit was a beast of a man. Adorning his head a bleached white-cap, which blended with his already silvery-white head of hair. Flowing from his shoulders rode a pair of humble robes, simple and unadorned enough to make even the most fervent Iconoclast jealous. A humble black bible hung at his hands, and bright pieces of paper stuck out from its pages at random, like the tufts of a tropical bird.

As he reached the lectern he turned. And gazing out at the people who had come to see him was Jean-Marie William Monbuka. A man with the face of a boar, and built like a lion. Contrary to even Catholic style, a beard of curled hair fell from his chin, thick like Babylonian sculpture. Eyes cold as rocks. And a brow heavy and weighted. And as he spoke, he roared like a bull elephant.

“My children.” Jean-Marie began in broken English, “Let us not forget the twelfth chapter of Proverbs, verse eleven in which it is written, 'whoever works his land will have plenty of bread.'

“And fabled men and women of the community, what have we allowed not to do? What has been stolen from us from clear under our noses? Why, our very fields we are to tend to grow our bread. The machines we operated to make our bread. The sin of slothfulness has grown to great extent in our world and it has been left unchecked. I am shocked and appauled at every given day I walk our green and plentiful Earth and see across the society of man the growing sense that we do not need to work. How could man be so wretched? How could man be so evil unto itself to deny itself the honor of working with his own two hands!?

“I tell you why, because we have grown lazy!” he shouted, banging his fist on the ambon. The loud thunderous smack his fist made filled the room, and the congregation jumped and gasped in surprise, “If the Lord's Son did so come back to the world today he would see masses of lazy, impudent fools who pollute the landscape! Disrespectful men and women who work not for their bread, but demand it from others!

“'This is our share!' they plead, 'We are humans too!'

“But what do they offer us in return? They contribute not! And we allow them to exist! We allow this practice to continue, and we make room for it!

“Yay, the capitalists in every nation will steer clear of their duty to provide honest living. They will not gift unto us the pleasures of a honest, fair day's pay for a honest fair day's work. They will replace us with robots! Automotons! 3D printing, as they call it!

“And now it has grown so far-spread that even those of us who would wish to contribute honestly to society can not do so. We are locked out of our factories, our fields, our jobs. 'We're not hiring' they declare loudly. 'Well we wish to be hired!' we plead back. But they do not listen.

“My fair people, we are not really the ones at fault. We are not the sloths that rule the world. We do not seek the shortcut. We do not look for the easy way. We are brave, honorable people that wish for the honest path. The path of God. We are the people who live by the sanctioned path of the lord to put into society what we wish to take out. We seek equality in work. We demand our bread as we put forward our worldly contribution. Whether that be we built the truck the farmer uses to deliver his food to market. Or we build the furniture we sit and eat upon as we share our meals among our families. Or we weave the clothes we wear on our backs, and sweat in to produce our bread.

“Machines are stripping our society bare and building one only for themselves! For the machines! How long is it, children, that we approach a landscape ran by machines, for machines? How soon will it be that the world is as the devil envisioned. Destroyed. Devoid of compassionate beings who work with passion and fairness. Going forth to meet the day with open eyes, open smiles, and open arms.

“I say unto you, are we these people? Those who will sit by as trinkets inhuman build our world as we build the means for them to build their world?” he paused as he leaned against the ambon. From the congregation and outside a loud thunderous jeer assaulted the pulpit. The loud thunder of voices pleased Jean-Marie and he smiled.

“Are we honorable rightful people who want to work for our bread!?” he roared into the microphone. Again the loud thunderous voices of hundreds – if not thousands – washed upon the building in a cheering tsunami of confirmation.

Jean-Marie rose his arms to the sky, screaming in praise: “THEN WE ARE BLESSED CHILDREN!” he roared.

“Brothers and sisters, I call upon you to gaze about our room. What do you see that has not been built by the hands of machine, or repaired by their means? Nay, nothing. And it stands stronger than anything ever saw! This church, built during the reign of the British. Here it stands, over a century old! It has outlast the very builders! Three World Wars, the rule of Idi Amin. Yet, here it is. Brick and mortar. Plank and board. A building more beautiful than the artificial cubicles of modern efficiency and trade. Built with art and craft beyond the plaster and cement puked out of 3-d printers that raise homes and remove from the community they're built in the jobs they provide!

“And the pews you sit in! Built by our own Mundabe Ubagi! Under his still and his disciples they crafted and carved wood of local growth to a woodwork not seen in over seventy-five years! Can a robot do this? Can a robot so tenderly apply the stain? So humanely smooth the wood with sandpaper? This is the human's touch. And in the human's touch is God's touch.

“This is duty, done in every action to the betterment of the community, and unto God. This is the way it has been done – to perfection – since our species spread out across the world from our homeland in Africa. Here. And here is where we start our mission. And from here we already spread our mission.

“We will be fought. We will be challenged. But we will not be stopped! The Lords of Sloth, the craven capitalists the world over cower in fear of the people! They protect their carefully horded stores of gold and credit. Money better used to serve the people, and they build a world of decadence!

“And what about us? What do they do for us? Well, they give us cheap clothes!” he roared, laughing, “Cheap clothes, is this what the world needs? Some pig-headed slogan, copy and pasted onto the same shirt over and over and sold out to the masses as a thing we need? A thing we need?

“They play us as fools. We've been played this for too long I fear. The time soon comes we take back our right. The lord may frown on idle word, and I am not prepared to keep idle word.

“We will come up from our fields. We will come up from the streets. We will take our world back! Take it back from the machines. We will not be subject to a world of Hollywood. Let us stamp out the cancer now while it is yet benign and we are still strong.

“And when we rise, it will be as Proverbs, chapter twelve verse twenty-four: 'The hands of the dilligent will rule, and the slothful will be forced to labor.'

“Our right to labor honorably, our dignity as working men, our honor as contributing people will be restored.”