Caroline Mbabazi
5 October 2008
Yusuf Ali, a 27-year-old resident in the ghetto of Kisenyi has just been released from Kitalya Prison today without bail, trial, or any known legal procedure. "I used to shout at the policemen everyday, threatening them that I would revenge.
I think this scared them and they decided to release me," he said. He has been in jail for the last 17 days, since an SPC policeman carried him away. "He found me here (pointing to a seat at the corner of a house) with my friends and said I was a criminal, and forced me to leave with him," he narrates.
While in prison, Yusuf and other inmates almost starved to death. "We were taken to work on hungry stomachs until one day I was forced to kill a kob, which became the only meal for me and the other inmates in a week," he recalls, pulling a small animal's leg and tip of a tail from his wallet "This is evidence that I killed the kob, I will always keep it as a souvenir to remind me of those hard times."
While in jail, his dreadlocks were cut off by the policemen (he bends to show me his clean shaven head, now covered with a scarf. "They ripped me of my identity; my dreads represented my religion and the person I am," he said, swearing that one day he will revenge. He now turns and gets back to work; he is splitting little pieces of metal from which he makes jewelry for sale to survive.
Ali's tale is one of so many that exist amongst people who have settled in the ghettos, and have forged their own lifestyle, language, means of survival and now call it home.
How these poor off-the-grid slum dwellers in Uganda survive, I wonder.
That was before I decided to spend my day with them. Through a friend, I made an appointment with another 27-year-old, Kassim Kasumba a.ka Busta, who has been a resident in this place for the last seven years and is now popular amongst most of the ghetto dwellers. Kassim is a self-trained computer programmer. "I couldn't afford to pay school fees to learn computer so I decided to buy a computer and learn slowly from daily practice. I am now able to do a lot of things with it," he said.
He records music CDs and up-loads music at a fee of Shs5,000. I asked Kassim if he would shift his business if he were offered an alternative better place to run it. "I wouldn't, I feel like the ghetto is home; these are my people and I feel safe and happy around them," he said.
Neighbouring Kassim only a trench away is 28-year-old Anita Nakalanzi, a mother of four. Her husband, Mukiibi Robert, is a dealer in second hand metallic spare parts at a nearby market. When I asked her why they chose to live here, she said, "We stay here because it's in the city centre; I don't need transport to walk to the city. It's impossible to find a home like this at a low price in the city."
Andrew Sserunjoji has lived in the ghetto for five years. For him, it has created the family he never had. He deals in secondhand clothing at the neighbouring Owino Market but spends all his free time in this ghetto. "I feel safe here, this is my home," he said.
What was interesting though is that each of the homes I visited had a minimum of five children all not necessarily the owner's biological children. One of the children, Aaliyah, was picked from one of the so many rubbish pits around. Her mother (adopted), who refuses to mention her name, is miserable.
Aaliyah was picked from a dumpster and adopted.
"She doesn't have toilet paper, a broom and books, and yet she started school on Monday, now she's going to be sent away," she said, frustration all over her face. She stood right in front of me and demanded for Shs5,000, which, she said, was all that was needed to solve this problem.
When I gave in, Busta, as though the ghetto elder, summoned three year old Aaliyah to his working station "You had better read hard Aaliyah; you can see how mother is suffering to get your school fees," he said to the stunned three-year-old.
When it finally clocked lunch time, everybody seemed to go by their business, not eat.
The person next to me was shaping a piece of metal into a star, the other was painting, the women were still on their stands selling their merchandise, and the children were playing between these houses with barely any leg room.
Finally, when I reached a group that had gathered for their lunch time break, they were all chewing on leaves, their mouths stained green, with mira, a local drug. When I asked Kassim why they chose to chew on leaves other than buy food, he said since they can't afford a meal for the day, they chew on this drug to survive throughout the day, missing all three meals.
When I looked around, I noticed that there were more stands selling this drug than those selling food; it is big business here. The leaves, wrapped in banana leaves and tied with banana fibre into the shape of a ball, could feed a group of 10 people, I am told, and goes for only Shs1,000; which is definitely a lot cheaper than food.
Mouths full of leaves, the group paid a musician to sing throughout their break, sealing off their lunch hour. When I looked around, it was obvious that half the people here worked harder than most people I know, for barely any pay. What keeps them going? "The fact that we have to survive through each day; if you can earn what can take you for a day, that's enough," Henry Kasirye, one of the residents, told me.
The general lifestyle in this place is amazing; it's almost like a family, with people bound together by their insufficiencies, speaking a language only they can understand (almost sounding like Luganda but twisted).
They don't curse whine or cry; they laugh about their troubles and smile at what I would break down over. In a community where drugs are sold off on the merchandise shelf in your compound and are part of the daily menu, and where each person knows the value of making it through each new day, I am once again re-assured that good and bad are capable of emerging from one source and yet every time it happens, it's never less stupefying.
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