The Olympus Has Not Yet Fallen: Queen Elizabeth’s Beautiful Home In Jinja.

By Nikki Karitas
Just like songs remain, just like rhythms are remembered forever, just like they last long after the events and the people in it are dead and dreams are gone…

An abandoned building stands skeletal with a crumbled beauty of an era long past, long deserted.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Jinja, the abandoned Amber hotel shudders in the open yet no eye cares to peep, wishing the morning light would come soonest and the sunrise would rush in warm its weary, lonely walls. The long-forgotten building stands in a composed way as if it has finally chosen solitude for itself over the twittering birds and visiting insects, overall, grave silence. As if residents are a luxury it can just do without. As if it has lived in silence from its birth.

As if a voice is nothing but an intruder. It’s no more than a shack on its foundations with collapsing walls, a ghostly silhouette of some previous existence that from a distance seems to jealously shield a zillion of memories. The building seemingly finds solicit in these walls with the full memories, the laughter, applause, and hugs that once were its colors and music.

Unbothered spiders prove to be the oldest residents of the building. Many generations have laced the walls with cobwebs of intricate beauty. It is now ages since the dust has been disturbed and the sleeping ghosts awakened. The once splendid, the once-famous building is now an echo of a silent, unknown ruin. If you listen carefully, you can hear a child grow. Old is gold. The building in its old fashion stands majestically. Like it has accepted the state of silence. The state of tatters. The state of living on its own with the wind and the moon. From a distant view, the building holds a legendry story that only it can tell.

Stand along the red dirt road, giving my every thought to this fallen Olympus that seems to stand all the same, strong beneath the flakes and dirt of 50 years, I could not help noticing that the building has never and will never breath its last.

The window gently whistles through the silence bringing with it the fragrance of the young Queen Elizabeth during her second visit to Uganda in the 1960s. the mighty building still stands firm and the window frames strong. Albeit the doors that none but the wind ever knocks, Amber hotel majestically possesses her wrinkled energy. Like a movie set, the building stands still waiting on a new lease of life. The rather long-forgotten building still stands whole, a feeling that breathes hope.

Hope that the entrance will shine again. While I starred deeply into this building that for a moment stole a piece of my soul, I didn’t notice my colleague approaching until he tapped my shoulder and said, ’this was the Serena of those days’’.

Despite the faded beauty overhang with leafy encrusted sights that have had no footsteps for time immemorial, somewhere in the pearl of Africa, somewhere near the world’s longest river, Amber hotel still exists. The Olympus has not yet fallen.

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