Africa is a land of diverse cultures and religions. Somewhat, the continent is a complex place which is sometimes hard to understand. It is because of this diversity and assortment of the cultures that many tourists and visitors the world over travel to Africa to explore it themselves.
The African cultures include a wide variety of religious values and ideals. Today, Africa is seen as a conglomeration of many distinct cultures and religion that is truly amazing in itself. Each dynasty or rule has introduced something new and it is because of the ability of African culture to assimilate all these changes in such a way that it will look as if they are already a part of the existing cultures and traditions.
Focus on the Bagishu Cultures in Uganda
Circumcision refers to the mutilation of the fore skin of the male genital. This is a prestigious traditional act among the Gishus which every male must fulfill less be denied his right of being called a “man”. The traditional opening of the ceremony is blessed by ancestors’ spirits (Masaba, Nbolwa) before it commences.
A gourd of local brew is carried by the inspired traditional priests together with then first of candidate awaiting circumcision to the shrine for the gods to approve the opening of the ceremony by tasting the local brew.

After opening the ceremony officially, the traditional dance ‘Isonja’ is performed by the aspiring candidates across all the villages under the guidance and supervision of the clan elders. This ceremony is performed during the even years and is entrusted to specific ‘surgeons’ known as‘Bakyebi’. It is also believed that if the ‘Bakyebi’ (local surgeon) do not uphold this responsibility given to them by the gods, they run mad.
The candidates prior to circumcision declare their intentions to their parents and relatives more especially the aunties and uncles who give gifts to the candidates in form of money, goats, sheep and cows among others as rewards of their pending transition to ‘manhood’ and courage.
After all this, the cultural dance famously known as “kadodi” commences which run for from 3 days to 2 weeks. Participants include parents’ clan mates, friends and well wishers as well as relatives from the paternal and maternal sides.
On the eve of his circumcision, the candidate is supposed to feast at his maternal uncle’s home and is culturally allowed to ‘take out’ a young girl to the bush to ease his circumcision. Prior to the mutilation ceremony, the boy leaves his mother’s bedroom, cuts the rope stationed in the doorway of the main house and stands form amidst a very large crowd with his head up to express his courage and then the ‘surgeon’ takes over and performs the mutilation.
The candidate is not supposed to blink as this is a sign of cowardice. The ‘Mukyebi’ (surgeon) is inspired by the gods to fulfill the ceremony. After fulfilling the circumcision ceremony, the male being is now considered a ‘man’ and he is ritually clean and allowed to marry or participate in any decision making including politics of the clan.
The elders in the clan thereafter organize a traditional dance called ‘Inembe’ which unites boys from different villages who have been newly circumcised in the previous years. It is pride because candidates change from a transition of ‘childhood’ to ‘Manhood’. So gents and ladies, let us guard our culture with jealousy as it forms part of the tourism product.

Juan Pablo Parez Alfonso, a founder of OPEC complained in 1975: “I call petroleum the devil’s excrement. It brings trouble. Look at all the waste, corruption, and public services falling apart. And debt we shall have for years.” There is an adage about wealth and democracy that goes, “the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances it will sustain democracy.” This literally means that oil rich nations with large oil deposits should shine for beyond all other as beacons of democracy and freedom. “Are oil rich nations really doomed to autocracy and inequality?” “Among the world’s top oil exporters, only Norway and Indonesia can be realistically described as democracies. While others like Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela demonstrate a mere semblance of freedom, Schubert states.

The idea that oil resources might be more an economic curse than a blessing began to emerge in 1980s. From 1965-1998, in the OPEC countries, Gross National Product per capita growth decreased on average by 1.3%, while in the rest of the developing world, per capita growth was on average 2.2%. Today, oil constitutes 30% of total exports revenues in some 34 less developed countries and none can be classified as democratic.

This trend should obviously defeat all logic, but only if consideration is not given to the genesis and cycle of internal conflict within oil producing countries. In this model, oil resource is the spark and fuel for long running conflict. On the one hand, for any opposition force to destabilize a nation, it attacks the main source of income i.e. the oil producing region. Secondly, once in control of these regions, either fully or marginally, the resources are then utilized to finance the rebellion, hence creating a perpetual cycle of conflict.

Angola for example, is Sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria. Recently discoveries suggesting it could soon become the largest. But the 1999 UN Human Development Index placed Angola at 160 out of 174 countries. Angola, by all standards, should have a thriving economy. Instead it suffers from incessant internal conflict, with massive proportions of national wealth unaccounted for, and the well being of the population seemingly not being a priority to the government.

Sudan’s seemingly endless civil wars perhaps the largest running conflicts in Africa, also explain this phenomenon. Since oil began flowing from the Government controlled Heglig and Unity oilfields, which lie uncomfortably close to the battlefields in the war-torn south, there has been an escalation of the conflict in the Sudan. It also explains why the south has failed to become a fully independent entity and peaceful state.

South Sudan’s nascent oil industry and reserves are estimated at as high as here billion barrels. Countries that depend on oil for revenue bask in wealth, but overwhelmingly suffer what the economist has termed a, “Poverty of Policy”. The Ghanaian Chronicle of 28 February 2008 explores this phenomenon in an article titles, Nigeria’s resource cures.

In Nigeria, an oil wealthy state is a rich country with desperately poor people. Despite its massive earning from oil, 70% of its estimated 140million people live below the poverty line. More than 80 million Nigerians live on less than 1 SUD a day, in a country that has earned 340 billion dollars from oil since the 70s. Nigeria is ranked 144 out of 146 by the Transparency international Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2004. It is therefore right to state that Nigeria’s oil wealth has failed to generate development and rather only produced and rather only produced deep rooted corruption as the bedrock of internal policies.

So, where does Uganda stand in all this being a new player? There is a great disadvantage, unless the country guards vigorously against the problems faced by the majority of oil producing countries. There are signs that the oil curse prophecy may be proven true. Although a new entrant among Africa’s oil producing countries, Uganda has seen tension rising over the Island of Rukwanzi in Lake Albert. The tiny Lake Albert Island has already become an area of contention between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Island lies in the Albertine Gorge which is the foremost area of recent oil discoveries. It also lies along the disputed 160 km long border of Western Uganda and the DRC. Although the Island is barely 3 km wide, it is strategically located as a base for oil exploration, which has been ongoing for several years. Hostilities broke out when a Canadian Heritage Oil expatriate worker was shot and killed on 4 August 2007 by the Congo soldier.

Further more, though there is a belief that projected revenues from oil shall rescue Uganda from external budgetary support. However, this may well come to naught. The key to economic independence, regardless of increased resources, will be a commitment to fighting corruption.

Uganda is advantaged in that oil discoveries have come later rather than earlier. The country needs to learn from the mistakes made by other countries and make the most out of this opportunity.

Definition & its components
Defined in varied perspectives, but in this context; Culture will refer to modes of thinking and doings of a given people. In that perspective, culture will be characterized by a people’s traditions, life out-look, music and dance, modes of ownership, customs and beliefs, eating manners, production practices, aesthetic values, modes of communication and other perspectives.
The given description of culture is non-exhaustive and one will notice that some of its components mentioned are not mutually exclusive and that some are embedded in others such as music- this is embedded in aesthetic values.
One can satisfactorily argue that culture helps us to perceive and understand really, assist us in attaching value to things, give us identity, determine our behavior, helps us to communicate, determine our roles and hierarchy in society and is instrumental in the way we produce and consume. It is on these grounds that specific roles have been put forward as functions of culture.
Scholars have argued that culture performs several functions including;
• It provides people with lenses of perception and cognition
• motives for behavior
• Criteria for evaluation
• A mode of communication
• A system of production and consumption
• A basis of identity
• A basis of stratification
Other sources argue that culture is distinct from nature; its knowledge, communication, a system of mediation, a system of practices, a system of participation, and is made of acts of predicting and interpreting.
All in all, we a comprehensive conclusion can be made to suggest that, culture is a whole people’s way of life that shapes one’s being, thinking and doing. In that respect, culture can therefore not be taken lightly.

The Masai language is an eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Masai people, totaling to about 800,000. It is closely related to the other Maa language varieties. For instance samburu language of the Samburu people in central Kenya, Chamus – spoken in the south and the southeast of Lake Baringo. This is at times said to be a direct dialect of samburu; and Parakuyu of Tanzania. The Maasai, il-Chamus, Samburu, and Parakuyu people are historically related and all refer to their language as il-Maa.
Grammar
Word order is usually Verb Subject Object, though order can vary because tone is the most important indicator of Subject versus Object. What really determines order in a clause is topicality; thus order in most simple clauses can be predicted according to the information structure pattern. Thus, if the Object is highly topical in the discourse (e.g. a first person pronoun), and the Subject is less topical, the Object will occur right after the verb and before the subject.
The Maasai language has only two fully grammaticalized prepositions, but can use “relational nouns” along with the most general preposition to designate specific locative ideas. Noun phrases begin with a Demonstrative or Gender-Number Prefix, followed by a quantifying noun or other head noun. Other modifiers follow the head noun, including Possessive phrases.
Phonology
Like the other Maa languages, Masai has Advanced Tongue Root vowel harmony. There are nine contrastive vowels, with the vowel /a/ being “neutral” for harmony. For some speakers the voiced stops may be realized as implosive consonants, but often the implosion is very light to non-existent. Tone is extremely important for conveying correct meaning.