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Uganda: Homeless Dreams
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New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
10 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Kampala
In Kivulu, there is this hideout where three youths meet to smoke marijuana and nurse their broken lives. Tony Mushoborozi
visited them and was surprised to find a hopeful and hard working lot
AT 7:00am, under a slight drizzle, I walked down a dusty turned to mud road in Makerere Kivulu. I arrived at the water channel flowing between Bat Valley and Kivulu slum, where homeless youths hang out, away from the rest of society.
As I approached the hang out, I paused to say a prayer as my hand unconsciously felt for my camera and mobile phone. "Will they steal them?" I wondered, all the while fervently praying "Lord, have mercy on me. These are bad people and you know it, Amen."
There were three of them sheltering under a shrub by a high perimeter wall. The youngest, who looked like a mere child, was puffing at a huge marijuana joint.
After a generous drag, he passed it on to a colleague, who also passed it on, after taking his dose. The place was filled with smoke. The smell of marijuana was choking. The drizzle had stopped.
Trying hard to hide my fear, I greeted them in Luganda and explained my mission. On learning thatâ-àIâ-àwas a journalist, one of them, calling himself Lucky invited me to take a seat and calm down. I sat on a nearby concrete slab.
As we got talking, I was impressed by their hospitality; I'm sure they would have eagerly offered me a cup of tea, if they had any.
Although they all claimed to be homeless, I could tell that once upon a time, they each had a place they called home. As we chatted, the youngest walked off into the bushes by the stream.
He soon returned with a toothbrush and soap, and headed straight for the protected spring that feeds into the Nakivubo Channel. From where Iâ-àwas seated, I could see him wash his face and begin to brush his teeth. The eldest, Lucky Patrick, spoke first.
Lucky Patrick
"I was not born in a ghetto," the 33-year-old begun. "Eight years ago, I had a home, a wife and four children. I rented a house, and I owned a bodaboda. Then my motorbike got stolen. I began riding other people's motorbikes, but I wasn't so lucky.
I was involved in several accidents and I had to spend the little money I hade made on medication and garage costs. Slowly I became poorer and poorer. I didn't know what to do.
The biggest blow came in 2003 when my wife said she could not handle it any longer, and left me.
"I couldn't bear to see my children suffer, so I took them to my mother in Kiboga. The need to survive led me to sell my property and I foolishly began smoking marijuana with some friends in Kivulu.
A year later when I had nothing left to sell, I left without paying the pending rent and began sleeping at my friends' places."
"By March 2004, I was sleeping wherever I could - unfinished houses, bushes, anywhere. My only solace was ganja. Since 2004, I have spent much of my days and nights here (Kivulu). I think I own this wall," he jokes
Patrick spent his childhood with his mother who was a cleaner in Makerere University. He never saw his father at all something that haunts him. He dropped out of school in P7, because his mother had lost her job.
He later got a job as a bodaboda rider, which he did for six years until he bought his own. "How do you get your meals?" I ask him.
"Ahaah, that question is hard. Let's say I am a trader. One of the boys can bring an item like slippers, a shirt or an old handbag which I may buy at sh 500, then go and sell it in Kivulu at a small profit. That is how I survive.
Some days I sit here and just smoke ganja and think to myself, 'What has gone wrong? I used to feed a family of six. Now I can't feed myself. What happened?' At such times I believe my brother who says my ex-wife bewitched me."
Several times, Patrick has considered getting saved, but always stops in his tracks. "How can I get saved when I don't have a job? I would be lying to myself to think that I would stop stealing! How else would I survive?" Patrick still has hope that things will get better.
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"I have hope that one day I will get sh 80,000 and become a hawker. Then I will stop stealing and become saved," he says.
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