BY
LONGOLI SIMON PETER
KAMPALA
I congratulate the first lady up on her appointment to the Karamoja affairs ministry.
That Karamoja region is the least developed sub region in Uganda is a fact. Thousands in this part of the country do not have access to basic needs. Efforts by government to develop the region in the past have remained wanting. Interestingly, other regions have ‘not waited for Karamoja to develop.’
The close to a million Karimojong are fed by relief agencies given the unreliable rains. With the human development index well below national average, the largely nomadic community has more problems; self imposed, natural and caused by other factors. Be prepared to be shocked more than you thought on your first visit to Karamoja.
In the face of this misfortune, Karamoja, like the rest of the country has not been spared by the evil of corruption. A number of high ranking government officials have been known to embezzle funds meant for development programs in Karamoja.
The Cabinet reshuffle of 16th February saw the president’s wife appointed as the Minister for Karamoja affairs, an appointment a lot of people are celebrating about. The same appointment another politician turned down a few years ago.
Mrs. Museveni comes face to face with a highly unstable region that has just started seeing calm as a result of the government disarmament program. The region has a very poor population and the first Lady, known for being compassionate with the less privileged will meet the very poor of this world.
The excitement about the appointment mainly comes from the fact that the Minister in charge of Karamoja affairs is the closest to the president, his wife. Will bedroom politics have any benefit for Karamoja? I think this is the only thing worth celebrating about in this appointment. This is likely to be seen in the allocation of resources to this region for development programs.
After fifteen or more years of promising Karamoja tarmac and electricity, there is some hope some thing is going to be realized this year. Is the appointment of the member of the first family to this region a clever trick by the president to connect himself directly to the developments in Karamoja and to earn himself a landslide vote for the fourth time from this region? A vote for the president is a vote for the first family.
The appointment may not be aimed at pegging Janet’s political star down as pundits have suspected but may be to shoot it up. Either way, the Minister faces a herculean task. She has a chance to show Ugandans she can deliver and inspire change.
The media will soon turn to Karamoja. She will be shown launching this and opening that and the result will be a bountiful 2011 harvest for the president! Well calculated.
Will the appointment of the first lady translate in to a change for Karamoja on the ground not only on government’s books of statistics and press conferences? Only time will tell.
The writer is a Mass Communications Student at Makerere University
Friday, February 20, 2009
Friday, May 9, 2008
ON THE STREETS TO SURVIVE
Longoli Simon Peter
Kampala
They could not come to me at first thinking that I was a council official or a policeman. They kept a distance and it took time before they came near me. They talked with me while beckoning the passersby to help them with at least a 100 shillings coin. It would be a coin that would make a difference in their lives, at least for that day.
I met Teko on one of the dusty pavements opposite Shoprite supermarket and adjacent the Hindu Temple. She talked to me at first at a safe distance and she told me later that she had to keep the distance because she thought I was a Council Official.
She was one of the many Karamojong women and numerous children dotted on the busy walkway and begging from passersby. I asked her about her age. She could not manage to tell me because she did not know her birth day.
Her story did not stun me because she was just one of the many Karamojongs I had met before.
About a meter or two from where we talked, children sat on the same pavement, kept their arms up, open and begged from the people who kept walking by. I later learnt that one of them was her own (Loiki), with another in a camp at Kapiringisa.
A little girl that I estimated to be around four years old came and asked me a hundred shillings. When I gave it to her, she took it to her mother who carried a child about four meters away.
Like many others, Teko had come to Kampala in search of a better life. I asked her why specifically she left came to Kampala.
“Life is very hard at home. There is a lot of hunger there and it is very hard to make it. I better stay here and beg. It is better than having to steal.”
Teko had come to Kampala a month ago and stayed at Kisenyi, a Kampala suburb. This is where she and many others stay. She got a job –working for a woman she did not name.
“She pays me 1000 shillings daily. I work for her all day and part of night. The work is heavy yet the pay is less. But I have nothing else to do.”
She had at this time come to see her daughter in the street.
I asked her how she managed to stay in the city, given the high cost of everything and her 1000 Shillings daily wage with her children.
On a good day, her daughter gets about 700 shillings. Part of this is used for buying ‘something to eat’. She has to pay for a place they both sleep in -300 shillings per person per night.
“We survive somehow. I use my earnings for buying food and things we need.”
For Teko and her daughter, a light meal of posho and beans in the evening is all they can afford. They have this in one of the shacks in Kisenyi. On a bad day, She and her daughter even go without a meal.
No going home soon
What if, I asked Teko, some one offered to take her back home?
She shook her head.
There is no going home for her any time soon.
“I will stay in this place because I have only come to the city recently. Let those who were here earlier going home first.
“I can not stay in the village. I better stay here and eat whatever we find with my children”
I told her that this was not her home and her right home was in Karamoja. She would die here of hunger and disease and besides; it was not good for her children. She then accepted on condition that some one would give her some money for some business and build her a hut.
Lokongo and Loiki
The story was not very different for Lokongo and her son Loli. They were in a small distance and begged. Lokongo, a middle aged woman and her son who she said was making one year asked the members of the public for a coin or two.
She carried her son on her laps as he looked up, with a dry mouth and tongue. He was heavily infested with scabies, emaciated and half naked. They both reeked urine, dirt and sweat. Lokongo told me, like Teko did earlier that they had come to Kampala in search of a better life.
Unlike Teko, she had no where else to get money from. She had to depend on what they got from begging. The condition of her child is worse. The scabies looked set to finish him off any time, and then the hunger.
Like the rest of the Karamojongs, they would have to pay 300 shillings per night to sleep in a room in Kisenyi. And they have to feed.
We call this home.
I had to hurdle over open drains and jump over heaps of garbage before I finally reached Kisenyi. It was not hard getting there. I only had to ask any one if they knew where the Karamojongs stay in Kisenyi.
Teko, Lokongo, their children and others stay in numerous hovels in the heart of Kisenyi suburb. The small, crudely built wooden cabins measure about nine by six feet. I thought the run-down shacks were deserted by owners but the occupants pay a fortune.
An overpowering smell strikes at the entrance. Strips of boxes and light decrepit bed sheets hung on the wooden walls of the room. The bare ground is rough, and dusty. Outside, the half naked children call for a ‘kikumi’ from passersby.
“Close to thirty of us sleep in here” says Namilo, a middle-aged woman from Matany, Moroto district. “Each adult pays the owner 300 shillings and 200 shillings for every child per night. Many of us are children.”
It is evening and the hearth is cold. Whether the children and women will come home with something for supper and rent is not known.
Meanwhile, Loli, Loiki and other young children of their age have to get used to the inhumane conditions, disease and abuse. They might face a future without basics such as education.
Kampala
They could not come to me at first thinking that I was a council official or a policeman. They kept a distance and it took time before they came near me. They talked with me while beckoning the passersby to help them with at least a 100 shillings coin. It would be a coin that would make a difference in their lives, at least for that day.
I met Teko on one of the dusty pavements opposite Shoprite supermarket and adjacent the Hindu Temple. She talked to me at first at a safe distance and she told me later that she had to keep the distance because she thought I was a Council Official.
She was one of the many Karamojong women and numerous children dotted on the busy walkway and begging from passersby. I asked her about her age. She could not manage to tell me because she did not know her birth day.
Her story did not stun me because she was just one of the many Karamojongs I had met before.
About a meter or two from where we talked, children sat on the same pavement, kept their arms up, open and begged from the people who kept walking by. I later learnt that one of them was her own (Loiki), with another in a camp at Kapiringisa.
A little girl that I estimated to be around four years old came and asked me a hundred shillings. When I gave it to her, she took it to her mother who carried a child about four meters away.
Like many others, Teko had come to Kampala in search of a better life. I asked her why specifically she left came to Kampala.
“Life is very hard at home. There is a lot of hunger there and it is very hard to make it. I better stay here and beg. It is better than having to steal.”
Teko had come to Kampala a month ago and stayed at Kisenyi, a Kampala suburb. This is where she and many others stay. She got a job –working for a woman she did not name.
“She pays me 1000 shillings daily. I work for her all day and part of night. The work is heavy yet the pay is less. But I have nothing else to do.”
She had at this time come to see her daughter in the street.
I asked her how she managed to stay in the city, given the high cost of everything and her 1000 Shillings daily wage with her children.
On a good day, her daughter gets about 700 shillings. Part of this is used for buying ‘something to eat’. She has to pay for a place they both sleep in -300 shillings per person per night.
“We survive somehow. I use my earnings for buying food and things we need.”
For Teko and her daughter, a light meal of posho and beans in the evening is all they can afford. They have this in one of the shacks in Kisenyi. On a bad day, She and her daughter even go without a meal.
No going home soon
What if, I asked Teko, some one offered to take her back home?
She shook her head.
There is no going home for her any time soon.
“I will stay in this place because I have only come to the city recently. Let those who were here earlier going home first.
“I can not stay in the village. I better stay here and eat whatever we find with my children”
I told her that this was not her home and her right home was in Karamoja. She would die here of hunger and disease and besides; it was not good for her children. She then accepted on condition that some one would give her some money for some business and build her a hut.
Lokongo and Loiki
The story was not very different for Lokongo and her son Loli. They were in a small distance and begged. Lokongo, a middle aged woman and her son who she said was making one year asked the members of the public for a coin or two.
She carried her son on her laps as he looked up, with a dry mouth and tongue. He was heavily infested with scabies, emaciated and half naked. They both reeked urine, dirt and sweat. Lokongo told me, like Teko did earlier that they had come to Kampala in search of a better life.
Unlike Teko, she had no where else to get money from. She had to depend on what they got from begging. The condition of her child is worse. The scabies looked set to finish him off any time, and then the hunger.
Like the rest of the Karamojongs, they would have to pay 300 shillings per night to sleep in a room in Kisenyi. And they have to feed.
We call this home.
I had to hurdle over open drains and jump over heaps of garbage before I finally reached Kisenyi. It was not hard getting there. I only had to ask any one if they knew where the Karamojongs stay in Kisenyi.
Teko, Lokongo, their children and others stay in numerous hovels in the heart of Kisenyi suburb. The small, crudely built wooden cabins measure about nine by six feet. I thought the run-down shacks were deserted by owners but the occupants pay a fortune.
An overpowering smell strikes at the entrance. Strips of boxes and light decrepit bed sheets hung on the wooden walls of the room. The bare ground is rough, and dusty. Outside, the half naked children call for a ‘kikumi’ from passersby.
“Close to thirty of us sleep in here” says Namilo, a middle-aged woman from Matany, Moroto district. “Each adult pays the owner 300 shillings and 200 shillings for every child per night. Many of us are children.”
It is evening and the hearth is cold. Whether the children and women will come home with something for supper and rent is not known.
Meanwhile, Loli, Loiki and other young children of their age have to get used to the inhumane conditions, disease and abuse. They might face a future without basics such as education.
THIS PETTY CORRUPTION
A few days ago, I was faced with a challenge. I came face to face with a man that looks to be in his fifties and behaved to me like he has been the master of the national game for most of his time. I had to get something very important within his area of work yet he refused to assist me, though that is what he is paid for. It was something crucial for me to get.
“I can not work myself for nothing” was all he told me and this convinced me that the old man needed his ‘tea’. I went on to struggle to retrieve my work but I did not manage. A look at him, and I could get an expression that seemed to mock me; ‘Learn how to understand our language; learn to read the signs.’ This was a challenge. He would then go to the aid of others that, I believed understood him.
I was further convinced that he needs something by a friend at the next piece “if you have something, then give him. At least it is better than having to do the work again and the time is up!”
The masters of the game wait and see you trapped and then go on to make their advances. But I learnt I was not alone. My other friends had gotten in a similar fix in one way or another and had made it by doing what appeared that time as a necessity, the needful. “This is rampant and at times you just have to be pragmatic and do it.” This was Robert’s comment.
How will the office that is to stem corruption and similar vices help people caught in this situation? I believe there are many out there who are found in such a fix. I also believe this type of behavior is entrenched in the higher echelons of our public system. Many a time, the ordinary citizen finds himself in a position where his beliefs and principles are threatened. When one succumbs to such type of pressure, will he be as guilty as the one who corrupted him? Will he serve the same term behind bars with his nemesis?
My friend Robert and the gentleman at the next piece as much as you do know that it pays to part with a coin than to miss out on the bigger work you should have done. Now you know the problem. The old man may continue taking his ‘tea’ and as well go to the bank at the month’s end to take his pay!!
“I can not work myself for nothing” was all he told me and this convinced me that the old man needed his ‘tea’. I went on to struggle to retrieve my work but I did not manage. A look at him, and I could get an expression that seemed to mock me; ‘Learn how to understand our language; learn to read the signs.’ This was a challenge. He would then go to the aid of others that, I believed understood him.
I was further convinced that he needs something by a friend at the next piece “if you have something, then give him. At least it is better than having to do the work again and the time is up!”
The masters of the game wait and see you trapped and then go on to make their advances. But I learnt I was not alone. My other friends had gotten in a similar fix in one way or another and had made it by doing what appeared that time as a necessity, the needful. “This is rampant and at times you just have to be pragmatic and do it.” This was Robert’s comment.
How will the office that is to stem corruption and similar vices help people caught in this situation? I believe there are many out there who are found in such a fix. I also believe this type of behavior is entrenched in the higher echelons of our public system. Many a time, the ordinary citizen finds himself in a position where his beliefs and principles are threatened. When one succumbs to such type of pressure, will he be as guilty as the one who corrupted him? Will he serve the same term behind bars with his nemesis?
My friend Robert and the gentleman at the next piece as much as you do know that it pays to part with a coin than to miss out on the bigger work you should have done. Now you know the problem. The old man may continue taking his ‘tea’ and as well go to the bank at the month’s end to take his pay!!
IS THERE SUCH A THING CALLED FATE?
IS THERE SUCH A THING CALLED FATE?
When I was young, and devoted to my catechism in Sunday school,
I grew up with the notion that all that happens(good or bad)
is a result of God's actions. He surely plans for each one of us. God plans for
each minute in every one's life, so I believed I associated God
with fate. To me, God knew whether I was going to have supper
in a given evening.
When a trigger happy soldier or an irate warrior shot some one
on his way or in the market place, I was inclined to believe,
and say of the victim-'that was his day, it was planned by that
supernatural force that decides when to take one's life, even
by that evil hand, to die in the hands of the bandit!
That has been my concept about day to day living, about my
future and the destiny of those around me. That was then.
I do not think there is such a thing as fate; it is us
who shape our destiny. We master it and there is no such a thing.
The future is not set. The future is a stage and the next act
depends on how we act it out, now!
A student who plays a lot and does not take his work seriously
has no reason to think that he will pass exams, at least genuinely
even if through an arrangement by a supernatural force, even if
it is pre-ordained.
The carnage on our roads and the entire transport system is not a
result of fate, or don't you think so? The drink driving, the bad
roads, the old vehicles cause the accidents.
This is not a strategy that is being carried out by an assumed
force out there to achieve its aim. That chopper or vehicle is
not ill-fated. It was either overloaded, had a mechanical problem,
was driven badly or ran out of aviation fuel. Fate is a creation
to escape from the core issue.
We are being told, ‘your life is in your hands’. Can we say it is not?
Do not sit and watch opportunities go by, thinking that your future
is predetermined and that your actions won't affect it; unless you
disagree.
When I was young, and devoted to my catechism in Sunday school,
I grew up with the notion that all that happens(good or bad)
is a result of God's actions. He surely plans for each one of us. God plans for
each minute in every one's life, so I believed I associated God
with fate. To me, God knew whether I was going to have supper
in a given evening.
When a trigger happy soldier or an irate warrior shot some one
on his way or in the market place, I was inclined to believe,
and say of the victim-'that was his day, it was planned by that
supernatural force that decides when to take one's life, even
by that evil hand, to die in the hands of the bandit!
That has been my concept about day to day living, about my
future and the destiny of those around me. That was then.
I do not think there is such a thing as fate; it is us
who shape our destiny. We master it and there is no such a thing.
The future is not set. The future is a stage and the next act
depends on how we act it out, now!
A student who plays a lot and does not take his work seriously
has no reason to think that he will pass exams, at least genuinely
even if through an arrangement by a supernatural force, even if
it is pre-ordained.
The carnage on our roads and the entire transport system is not a
result of fate, or don't you think so? The drink driving, the bad
roads, the old vehicles cause the accidents.
This is not a strategy that is being carried out by an assumed
force out there to achieve its aim. That chopper or vehicle is
not ill-fated. It was either overloaded, had a mechanical problem,
was driven badly or ran out of aviation fuel. Fate is a creation
to escape from the core issue.
We are being told, ‘your life is in your hands’. Can we say it is not?
Do not sit and watch opportunities go by, thinking that your future
is predetermined and that your actions won't affect it; unless you
disagree.
THE WORLD IS A MARKET PLACE
THE WORLD IS A MARKET PLACE
Every one in society represents part of a market, a perfect market
where the sellers know what is in the market, the worth of what they
have, and the consumer exactly knows what he is going to pay for the
good he or she is after there is no double coincidence of wants. One has got something to
gain from the market just as he or she knows what he has got to give
out, in exchange. I have analyzed the forces of demand and supply in
this market and the force behind each of them. I have satisfactorily
come up with three factors that are behind this exchange.
A lot of people aspire to get power from the people they are linked
to. A powerful person in this case has got the reigns of power to
shed as the trader of the equally wanted goods which could be sexual
pleasure gives out willingly. Connection with powerful people bestows
power to those who shelter in the shade of his masterly and
powerful position
Material benefit is one other driving force in this market. Every one in
the world puts something at stake; valuable time or even self respect
or personal freedoms for long term or even for short term gain;
the reason for my pessimism at the efforts to campaign against
cross generational sex. This is a lucrative trade .Young boys
and girls stand to anchor, perhaps for generations to the sugar
mummies and daddies, as long as they earn their daily bread,
sugar and other luxuries.
People also forge relationships and seek association with people,
at whatever costs because of the recognition, fame and everything
that come with this association. It is common knowledge that a man
will associate with people who have got a position of fame in society
if it means having a share of that social fame as kindred of a
social figure.
So is our world a market place? Why not. With mean, astute and
exacting people and also equally over zealous people who can not
if it means getting that position, those marks and those luxuries
they so much desire. It is a give and take world we are in!!
Every one in society represents part of a market, a perfect market
where the sellers know what is in the market, the worth of what they
have, and the consumer exactly knows what he is going to pay for the
good he or she is after there is no double coincidence of wants. One has got something to
gain from the market just as he or she knows what he has got to give
out, in exchange. I have analyzed the forces of demand and supply in
this market and the force behind each of them. I have satisfactorily
come up with three factors that are behind this exchange.
A lot of people aspire to get power from the people they are linked
to. A powerful person in this case has got the reigns of power to
shed as the trader of the equally wanted goods which could be sexual
pleasure gives out willingly. Connection with powerful people bestows
power to those who shelter in the shade of his masterly and
powerful position
Material benefit is one other driving force in this market. Every one in
the world puts something at stake; valuable time or even self respect
or personal freedoms for long term or even for short term gain;
the reason for my pessimism at the efforts to campaign against
cross generational sex. This is a lucrative trade .Young boys
and girls stand to anchor, perhaps for generations to the sugar
mummies and daddies, as long as they earn their daily bread,
sugar and other luxuries.
People also forge relationships and seek association with people,
at whatever costs because of the recognition, fame and everything
that come with this association. It is common knowledge that a man
will associate with people who have got a position of fame in society
if it means having a share of that social fame as kindred of a
social figure.
So is our world a market place? Why not. With mean, astute and
exacting people and also equally over zealous people who can not
if it means getting that position, those marks and those luxuries
they so much desire. It is a give and take world we are in!!
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