Photo: Right to left: Eddie's father, Eli Nathan Bisamunyu (Uganda) and  John Malecela (Tanzania).

It is more than a month since my dear friend’s sudden death in his home in Kabaare. I remain incredulous that Edward Nobel Bisamunyu, younger than me, and still very much in love with life, is no more.  

Though weighed down by a few non-communicable diseases, Eddie had fought them hard and was not ready to yield ground to them. The shock of his death lingers. I now read his letters and other shared documents to stay in touch with him. 

Written in old fashioned detail, and with humour and refreshing frankness, I find myself swaying between near tears and laughter. His bemused awareness of how much he was misunderstood by fellow residents of Kabaare shines through his beautiful words. To many in Kabaare, Eddie was an eccentric old man. 

For example, some of the more conservative and less exposed citizens thought him strange simply because he jogged through town, dressed in shorts and tee shirt. In a society that judged achievement and success based on material possessions, Edie’s simple lifestyle was thought to be evidence of a man who had failed in life.

They were wrong, of course. They missed seeing and learning from a genius in their midst. Had they cared to find out who Eddie was, they would have discovered that he was one of the brightest, most educated, and most successful people where it mattered. He was blessed with a very healthy attitude to life that had no room for superficiality, slavery to materialism, or titles. 

Having lived in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, United States of America, United Kingdom, Sweden and China, Eddie, a native of Mparo, Kigyezi, had gained a solid and broad education about humanity and the world. A graduate of Lenana School in Nairobi, one of Kenya’s ivy league secondary schools, Eddie was one of those bright people who excelled across the spectrum of the formal education curriculum. 

Eddie, who went to the United States of America in 1980, simultaneously graduated from Kent State University, Ohio with both a Bachelor of Science in Biology, and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 1985.  He then worked in medical and biological research at both Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He moved to England in 1996 to work as a Project Scientist for Economists Advisory Group of London, then worked for New Scientist journal as a Science Subeditor before lecturing in Chemistry, Biology and Medical Terminology at a college and two hospitals in London. He spent his last working years teaching Chemistry, Medical Biology and English in Central and South China where he also worked as an editor for a science company. 

A gifted writer, Eddie authored A Grammatical Study of Lunyankole-Lukiga, The History of Uganda: 1850-1900, Poems from Uganda, and The History of Kigezi: 1900-1970. A published fine artist and prize-winning photographer, his work was (and remains) on sale on international markets online. A gifted musician with a love of singing and of the piano, Eddie was a member of famous choirs including that at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London. 

He was also an expert in origami (folding flat sheets of paper into complex sculptures), playing tennis, and climbing mountains. He returned home for good in 2014 and spent his final years documenting life with his keyboard and camera and sharing his thoughts and observations via social media.  Many of his posts were heart wrenching descriptions of the pain and suffering of the poor and downtrodden in Uganda where he was born on July 18, 1957. 

A very kind and compassionate gentleman, Eddie helped strangers in Kigyezi whenever he could, including confronting unjust policemen and politicians that treated fellow citizens as nonhuman. He had a romantic attachment to the idyllic functional, civilized, progressive, caring, low-corruption and polite Uganda in which he had grown up. That love affair with the past made him easily disappointed with a Uganda that had veered off the rails. 

For many years, his high expectations clashed with the realities on the ground. He reacted to this disappointment by distrusting even some whom he ought to have trusted and trusting some whom he ought not to have trusted. This state almost paralysed him. 

Pamela Kanyarutoke, who knew Eddie well, told me recently: “He was naïve. Trusting that the locals would reward him with the same kindness he bestowed on them was part of his weakness.” Pamela added that Eddie’s constant camera caused “strange and even adverse reactions from certain locals.”

However, in his last year, he had begun to ease up and to see that it was possible to maintain his high standards of integrity while working with people who had different values. While his written observations continued to reflect his soft spot for the poor and disadvantaged, and his passion for social justice, they also displayed a lighthearted self-deprecation and a willingness to accept that the wonderful days of promise in which he had transitioned to adolescence were gone forever. I think he was about to adapt to the new Uganda and love it the way it was, not as he wished it was.

Pamela Kanyarutoke sees lessons in Eddie’s life for diaspora Ugandans. “Keep in constant contact and learn the governance of your origins,” she wrote. “This will eventually arm you with the current situation and mindset.”

Eddie’s death robbed me of a brother with a shared social DNA that we inherited from our parents who were very close friends, cemented by our mutual love and shared interests, and an emotional attachment to a bygone Uganda that we never tired of reminiscing about. 

Predeceased by his parents, his older brother, his older sister, and his younger brother, Eddie is survived by only one sibling, Jeanette of New York City, with whom we mourn the death of one of the sincerest and wittiest friends one could have. 

Like ekireebw’omwe (meteor or shooting star), the adult Eddie appeared in Kabaare, lived among people who hardly understood him, and then disappeared. He rests with the ancestors, physically gone from us, yet present through his ideas and hopes for a more caring, respectful, beautiful, and orderly Uganda that invite us to embrace them. The people of Kabaare will one day wish they had milked his broad knowledge, experience, courageous advocacy for social justice, and passion for his homeland.

© Muniini K. Mulera