Former BBS Presenter Harriet Sanyu Nantumbwe Introduces Fiance

Life was not easy in Kampala, but she managed to get by and look after her two young daughters. So BBS Terefaniya TV presenter Harriet Sanyu Nantumbwe was not very interested in moving to the USA. Even when she applied for, and received the much sought-after US visa, she was still in two minds.

“Even when I went for the interview at the American embassy, at the back of my mind I wished it would be denied, then I would tell all those that were pressuring me thatI had tried, but failed,” she said in an interview on the YouTube channelGossip Live. “I had just got a new apartment, with new furniture. And therewere my two young daughters. Life was not easy in Kampala, it never is. But I was hustling and getting by. I was not poor. So I was not convinced that givingup everything and moving to the US was a good idea.”

But now she is very happy that she did make the decision and move, because last weekend she introduced her fiancé, Lameck Kabonge, to her family in Uganda (her father died but her mother is said to be a farmer and businesswoman in the town of Mityana, 70km to the west of Kampala).

The two got engaged last year at a lavish ceremony on Nantumbwe’s birthday when a‘small’ birthday party with a few friends changed as Lameck got down to one and proposed. A shocked Natumbwe said yes, with tears in her eyes.

One of the people who attended the function from the USA was Joe Malaika, a Ugandan fashion designer who dressed in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings survivors' ExtremeFashion Show that took place last weekend in Boston. (See separate story inthis issue).

Nantumbwe joined the TV business when she was only 19 when an interview at UBC turned into a live presentation. She would stay at UBC for about a year, then move toGalaxy FM.

After a stint on radio, she decided she needed professional qualifications, so she joined UMCAT School of Journalism and Mass Communication. After graduation, she went back to UBC, before moving to BBS Terefaniya where she presented the Zukuuka morning show program.

In the YouTube interview, Nantumbwe revealed that she first met her future husband on WhatsApp. She was part of a group formed to help organise the kwanjula of a friend who lived in theUS. Lameck was also part of that group, and he Inboxed her and introduced himself. At first, they were just friends, she explained.

“He did not vibe me at first, he was just giving lots of mature advice, and I liked that,” she said. “I like developmentally minded people, not slay queens or kings; and he gave me a lot of advice on many things.”

Eventually, they started talking about life in Uganda, and how it was unsustainable.Although she agreed with him, the fact that she had two young daughters (then 2and 4 years old) made her reluctant to even consider the idea of moving to theUS.

But a family friend she confided in explained that in every successful family, there is one that sacrifices themselves for the good of the rest. So she filed the papers for a visa, and to her surprise, it was granted first time. But she still had not made up her mind whether to go. But a ‘big man’ she respected gave her a serious lecture, and the decision to move to the US was eventually made. The rest, as they say, is history.

Earlier this year they had the ‘kukyala’, which is an official function where the groom meets the girl’s family. Then came the ‘kwanjula’, after which the wedding is said to be held soon after before they back to the USA.