Rajab Kagoro
15 August 2007
Kampala — If you are not lucky enough, prostitutes will grab you in the middle of the road and demand sex there and then! If they do not, a sting of marijuana smoke will hit your nose and knock you off your feet or a mugger will grab your phone, and before you have recovered from the shock, the rain will pour with such vengeance that you will need a boat to escape from the floods!
You are actually in the infamous Kibe Zone in Kalerwe, less than 5km from Kampala city.
Here in Kibe, anything can happen. This city of mud-and-wattle structures has all types of people - the unemployed youth, women who live by selling their bodies and children who have no past, no present and no future!
This is Kibe, where the local leaders prefer to keep mum lest gangsters turn their wrath on them.
It is not hard to see why life in Kibe is what it is. The houses, which are actually on the verge of collapse, go for as low as sh5,000. Most of them are mud-and-wattle and have no toilets.
Residents use polythene bags to relieve themselves, before dumping the waste in the numerous streams that transport the filth to the nearby River Nsooba and into the Nakivubo Channel, before finally throwing it into Lake Victoria.
"Every time there is a cholera outbreak in the city, it leaves an indelible mark on Kibe Zone because of the appalling conditions," says Margaret Lwanga, a resident.
The women claim they prostitute themselves because they never went to school. "I was born here 20 years ago. I never went to school and I am doing what my mother used to do," Teddy, says confidently. Her colleagues' stories are no different.
Crime is the trademark for Kibe Zone. "The thieves here are active 24 hours," says Sarah Nakatudde, who sells vegetables in the nearby Kalerwe Market. They do not only steal property, they also grab and rape women.
The thugs take advantage of any kind of entertainment to lay their strategy before the next move.
Kibe has several video halls which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year!
"Thugs find a safe haven there when things are not good for them," a resident said. "They then come out to rob at will, stretching their mighty hand to neighbouring areas of Bwaise, Mulago, Makerere and Kyebando."
They use all kinds of tactics. At night, they use force and can even kill or injure. They also con their victims using tricks such as: "I have been to an accident scene, in which a Muzungu was involved.
He was carrying gold in this container and I heard an announcement over the radio that whoever takes it to him will be paid sh0.5m. I don't have time to go there, but if you give me some money I can give you the gold..." The Kibe boys always have all sorts of tales.
Local leaders do not even want to mention their names, lest the hardened criminals pounce on them. One of them, an LC1 chairman, who preferred to be called Bbale, said he had, through the years, tried to improve the security in the area, "but the problem is that there are so many unemployed youth here," he lamented.
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