Bazzarrabusa Timothy Byabasakuzi

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Biografie:
Timothy Byabasakuzi Bazzarrabusa (1912-1966)
Tim Bazarrabusa, Uganda's first High Commissioner in London and the first African to be elected (in 1964) to the Alpine Club, was killed in a motor accident in April while on leave in his own country. He had recently returned to Kampala, where the accident occurred, after a holiday spent climbing and walking in the hills and mountains of northern and eastern Uganda.
Except for an occasional week-end in this country all Tim's climbing had been in East Africa. He was of Mukonjo parentage (the tribe which lives among the Ruwenzori foothills and forests) but his family had moved to the plains about the time of his birth. He himself, however, was a true mountain man in every sense, with a mystic feeling for the hills, particularly the Ruwenzori, which was certainly not unconnected with his background the Bakonjo used to look upon the peaks as the thrones of tribal Gods although I doubt if he had ever really tried to interpret his feelings even to himself.
He had climbed in the Birunga volcanoes and elsewhere, but it is with the Ruwenzori that his name will chiefly be connected. He first appears in the record in 1951 when he climbed Johnston Peak with Henry Osmaston and spent a night out with an injured South African climber who was a member of a party met casually on the mountains. After that he returned to the Ruwenzori frequently and, in 1960, climbed Margherita (the highest peak) with A. Gregory, Peter Campbell, David Pasteur and myself, all members of the Alpine Club. And in 1962, immediately before coming to Britain to take up his high appointment, he and Ronald Hockey climbed the five highest peaks of Mount Stanley and the two highest peaks of Mount Baker in the ridiculously short time of eight days away from road-head. He did the long walk down in one day in order to attend an investiture but found that his feet were so swollen that he could not get into his shoes..
It is not easy to separate Tim' s mountain life from his working life. He was a schoolmaster by profession and had been a supervisor of schools in his home district, taking every opportunity to encourage his boys to visit the hills. He was a great believer in the value of Outward Bound training and an original council member of the Uganda Trust, which he represented in the wider East African field. He did a great deal to get the movement started and I well remember his scorn, at one of the early meetings, when the official representative of the education department began raising difficulties at the prospect of finding sufficient candidates. He was a trustee of the Uganda National Parks and a strong supporter of the move to conserve nature and develop an interest in wild life among the youth of his own country. He had written books and readers in the vernacular, among them the story of East Africa's mountains. He was a past President of the Mountain Club of Uganda, becoming Patron in 1963.
Tim was a sincere and dedicated Christian; a man of deep humility which was quite unaffected by his high office; and he had a rare integrity and forthrightness of character as well as a charming old-fashioned natural courtesy. He was an African nationalist who had long believed that Africans should govern their own countries. But he admired and respected the work of the colonial government, and never minded saying so. More than any man I know he had bridged the gap between black and white, perhaps because he never denied his own origins. His home life was happy and devoted, and he had a charming family.
One day last year, after a particularly heavy bout of official duties and entertainment, he rang up and asked if he could bring down his two sons and spend a few days with us in Cornwall. 'I want to walk and walk and walk,' he said. I did the best I could and we wandered about the coast and Bodmin moor planning our ascents as if they were mountain expeditions.
Rennie Bere.
MR. J. W. Howard writes:
Timothy Bazarrabusa was one of a small band of Africans who enjoyed going up mountains. He went on five expeditions to the Ruwenzori, his best year perhaps being in 1962 when, with Ronald Hockey, he climbed the peaks of Alexandra, Margherita, Albert, Elizabeth and Philip, and the Firmin Pinnacle, all on Mount Stanley; and Semper and Edward Peaks on Mount Baker. He visited other East Mrican mountain masses including Elgon (three ascents) and the Bufumbiro volcanoes in South-west Uganda, and he climbed Kilimanjaro with an Outward Bound party. To his regret he was never able to arrange a trip to Mount Kenya.
Most of Bazarrabusa's life was spent in public service. Starting as a schoolmaster, he was one of the first nominated unofficial Mrican members of the Legislative Council. Later he was appointed Supervisor of the Anglican Church Schools for the Toro District and afterwards Minister of Education in the Toro Kingdom Government. When Uganda became independent in 1962 he filled the post of High Commissioner for Uganda in London with great distinction.
Although I never climbed with him, I could tell on first acquaintance that he possessed in full measure some of the qualities associated with the finest personalities and the best mountaineers strength of character combined with humility and an engaging modesty; an innate courtesy; a sense of humour; and a burning enthusiasm to get up into the hills at every opportunity. I first met him when my brother-in-law brought him to luncheon in Nakuru; they were en route to the Outward Bound School on Kilimanjaro. When I saw him again in London his eyes lit up as he said how much he had envied me the variety of mountaineering literature in my bookshelves. He rarely attended Club functions, partly I think due to shyness. Once when I persuaded him to come he arrived after the lights had been put out for the lecture and he left before the end. On another occasion he cried off at the last moment as he had to meet a not-very-important politician whom he did not wish to offend. This was typical of his considerate outlook.
He is a great loss to his family, his friends and his country. A retired Colonial Service Officer from Uganda who knew him well wrote to me: 'He was a true Christian gentleman kind, thoughtful, courteous and very modest. All this, with his level-headedness and pleasant manner, made him an outstanding man and we felt privileged to be his friends'.
Quelle: Alpine Journal Volume 71, 1966, Seite 343-345


Geboren am:
1912
Gestorben am:
04.1966