Former nurse's aide in U.S. becomes Ugandan king

"It was very difficult growing up in the bush," remembered Mumbere, who was 9 years old when his father took the family into the mountains. Although he received military training, Mumbere did not fight.

"Our country has been independent (from the British) for 40-something years but in Rwenzururu you may not find running water, there are no hospitals," Mumbere said.

Shortly after Kibanzanga died, his son led the fighters down from the mountains to hand in their weapons. Mumbere went to the United States in 1984 on a Ugandan government scholarship, attending a business school until Uganda's leadership changed and the stipend was stopped. He gained political asylum in 1987, trained as a nurse's aide and took a job in a suburban Washington nursing home to pay his bills, said The Patriot-News of Harrisburg in a July 2009 story.

In 1999, he moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital, where he worked for at least two health care facilities.

He was "very loyal, a very hard worker, a very private person," said Johnna Marx, executive director of the Golden Living Center-Blue Ridge Mountain on the outskirts of Harrisburg.

Mumbere said he chose to train as a nurse's aide because the work, "was more reliable. Other jobs you can be laid off easily."

Living in the U.S., however, was "a very difficult experience," he said. "Sometimes you have two jobs. You go to college in the morning, between 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Then you go prepare to go to work at 3 p.m. and then return at 11 p.m."

He is now a green card holder, and his son and daughter live in Harrisburg. But he never forgot the people he left behind. When the Ugandan government decided to reinstate the traditional kingdoms, Mumbere lobbied for the Rwenzururu Kingdom to be among them.

After 10 years of negotiation, President Museveni announced in August that the government would recognize the Rwenzururu Kingdom as Uganda's seventh kingdom. Government recognition does not grant any executive power but allows the monarchs to determine cultural and social issues affecting their people.

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