THIS ONE IS FOR YOU

 

This one is for the girl who can’t sleep at night because her father is coming late yet again with woman number five, six oops she lost count

It is for the single mother who raised her daughter but has only gotten insults and lies in return, tales she can’t recount-

This isn’t for the ‘perfect family’ that goes to Sunday brunch or spends their weekend in Zanzibar

It is for the ones who don’t know where their next meal will come from because daddy is always in the bar

For the girl who lost her youth to chores and fending for her younger siblings when she would really like a day off, okay

maybe that’s too much. How about an hour or two just for her?

 

Here is one for the man whose father abandoned him as a child and still wants nothing to do with him many years later -

The daughter who did not get to meet her parents, unsure if they are proud of her

The son whose dad and mom left just before he achieved his dreams

 

Today isn’t about the curvy confident girl who walks with an aura of splendor

It is for the one who is uncomfortable with her gender

Lesbian, bisexual, transgender-

 

That girl who often hears words like fat, plus size, overweight, weight loss, exercise, gym bla bla bla gosh, when does it all end? So I love juicy chicken, sue me.

But ooh, that isn’t all; the ‘small’ girl isn’t safe either. She is skinny, she is dieting, and she must be anorexic. Do you ever get clothes that actually fit, they ask. You must be spending all your time on fashion magazines, they add. Have they ever heard of genes? I guess not-

 

This one is for that boy who was bullied throughout school and thought the world would be more sympathetic

But all he has got is cruelty and the thoughts of suicide. Surely everyone would be happier without him

It is for that girl who lost her self esteem as a child and is still waiting for it to somehow grow back. Mummy can you hear her? No, wrong selection, it is she that took it away in the first place.

It is for the boy who doesn't belong

Who stands in the middle of a crowd and feels all alone

It is for the girl who wants to know God

But can't take the first step

The one who tried to walk the path with Jesus

But had no one to hold her hand through it all

 

This one is for the wrongfully accused that still serve sentences

The individuals whose existence is questioned because of their resemblance- to this tribe, that terrorist group, no matter how unrelated-

It is for the virgin who was shunned by her partner

The repentant thief that was judged by an angry mob

The girl who was abandoned after her last abortion

Even if she did it to please the man she so dearly ‘loved’

The mother who held her baby for the first time and smiled

Blocking thoughts of the father that fled-

The girl whose little angel didn’t make it to her first birthday

The boy who only hears stories of birthday cake

 

It is for the broken hearted man who swears to stay alone forever

Because the love of his life said she would never leave but sort of meant;

I will never leave you, Mark, James, Earl and pretty much every guy that comes my way

It is for all the smiles you put on another's face

Even as you weep profusely thinking about your life-

 

This one is for the hidden truths

The silent cries

The secret lives

The unspoken pain

The broken families

The poker faces

This one is for you...not the ‘you’ that the world sees but the ‘you’ who battles everyday;

The real..Y.O.U

Always Esther Kalenzi

 

Fronting the Truth

Dear diary,

          You know I do not wander around like a normad, but I am a qualified “Footologist”. Not because of the fuel shortages but because the credit crunch and inflation have been making my money do disappearing acts for quite a while now.

My walks, although not self induced have schooled me in the way of the road and given me wisdom and growth. This has made me “see the light” and pointed me in the right direction.

·        For instance, never walk near a pond… drat! I meant a pot hole.

The experience

This sunny afternoon along old Kampala (martin rd) I got soaking wet because this pot hole was filled with water ( I hope not a sewage let out) but all the same I got wet.

The catch

The car…was definitely one you could not insult. Perfectly nice big wheels (mf$%@@*) could have been the latest range rover ( but I was clouded by my anger and dumb founded by frustration) so you never know

The Lesson

A pot hole Is a potential bath pond, if you do not want to take a shower stay away: this warning applies for cars, boda boda’s and human beings alike.

·        Never wear shoes to impress

The experience

This re-union had me wearing this cute pair of shoes I had just bought (red and chilli hot, high and sleek looking) then it began to shine my foot (yesu) this had me limping the next day as the fake China plastic material had burnt my toes for real.

The Catch

The compliments…those are what kept me going. They were absolutely welcome and from those O.B’s who truly made the Ugly duckling story credible and all…(stupid shoes) but yeah

The Lesson

Chinese products are a potential nuclear catastrophe. Buy with care!

·        Always watch where your going

The experience

Nasty stuff this to Step on dog poo. Gosh I relish that day…so pips in Kololo who walk their dogs, cat looking dogs or small animals called pets clean after yourselves and your small friends. Keep the Bio (go green) slang/talk on the T.V at all times.

The Catch

The helpful handsome guy whose name I did not catch for the heavy “ muzungu accent” jogging at the time I met with this smelly accident. Stupid dog lovers why don’t they walk their cats, at least they hide their “bintu.”

The lesson

If u have a dog please school it in the ways of the cat ( only do it at home in private)

PS: successful vagabonds are into foot therapy at the end of the day.

                                      Xoxo

                             Joyce Ikonye

A Whiner's Think Tank

The sun does not get the point; dude the equinox is past someone should write it a letter...yeeish! Anyhow am wondering about this and that and over there. And there being no place that memory will not follow, all those mental slides are but a thousand page album.

So as i sit down to brood over my breathlessness, not to forget the sharp jab of  a stitch in my sides  i thought to myself, " is this how Jesus felt on that cross or is this what oncoming death feels like?"

Needless to say, as i pondered  my failing lungs i mentally ticked off  all those numerous nights out  my buddies and i downed those smirnoffs , spirits and concoctions and whatever free liquor came our away.

The scary bit being that if you ask me now who threw those house parties not even the first letter of their names would I guess, but party, that i did and boy did I enjoy myself.

So this failing chest of mine can spare me the drama, for when it comes to drama I am the drama queen here. And the sun, well it can use the milky way as a noose to hung on some star that’s a misfit.

Ps: The wishing stars do not qualify as such

 

      J. Ikonye

 

 

Waging War

Before you get all excited, These aren’t lyrics to CECE WINAN’s heavenly and very inspiring track…..God, I love that song….it lifts me up every time am down….

But no, this is far from that; this is about me and my heart burning desire to wage some major war and set fire on some of the B.S going on these days…..

You might say I’m just whining, but seriously, blow some reefa and you’ll see Things a bit more clearly…. If you don’t, blame it on the smoke or just get a new dealer….

So here goes….wait, let me put this joint out first….

1.      SWAG or what people think it is. This very annoying and repulsive word originated from Scotland and some how made it to the United States and the rest is, as they say, history…..

It has since become a catch phrase for douchebags and tools everywhere. If you got “swag” you probably wear those crazy hats sideways, put on sagging pants and you’ve got crazy fake accents with meaningless words…basically you have no class and chances are you are not paying any taxes….so let’s burn down that “swag trailer park” and go back to the days when class had a huge following. So what do you say?....let’s put these hipsters out of business…..

2.      TREY SONGZ (and others like him)….hey, hey, hey….calm down. Just hear me out, ok? Don’t get me wrong here, I like this guy. I think he makes some of the best “baby making music” there is these days…..but that brother has ruined it for some of us….I mean he has set the bar so high, it’s hard for some of us to reach and am not talking about musical heights here…

My friend Carol (Kero, as she likes to be called) recently told me that her I deal man would have to look like Trey Songz and that when a guy approaches her, “Trey” is always the “marking guide” and her girlfriends totally agree with her on that. I found that to be so shallow on so many levels…. Initially I wanted to blame the girls but now I know it’s Trey’s fault….the guy has put it into ladies’ heads that a guy has to look all buff and tough by constantly flexing his muscles every chance he gets on T.V (so annoying)….and these stupid guys here have followed suit and started hitting gyms like the world is coming to an end…. this is the 21^st century ladies, wake up and smell the coffee, not all of us are going to look like Mr. Songz over there……whatever happened to the chorus that beauty lies within?....I need that back…..so join me and we sign this petition to force Trey to keep his damn shirt on.

3.      Speaking of MUSIC, I’d love to set this new breed on fire. I miss the days (1990s) when music made so much sense….When is the music going to get back to Simple and basic…? Because I want to go back to a time when the music touched your heart , your soul, your mind and your body….Ya'll know what I'm talking about I want to go back to a time when you got out on the dance floor you touched your partner - you didn't have to look for them….yeah I sure do miss those days when real Rock Stars abused drugs and spent most of the time in rehab but would come back with  killer albums….not like these “musicians” who abuse auto tune and all they got going on are skinny jeans and hair bangs…..When are they ever going find that magic?....well, I won’t hold my breath on that one.

So join me and we do battle against the citizens with swag, the work out idiots who are ruining it for everyone and the tone deaf screaming singers; and we shall do it gangnum style.

                              Allan  Nyakana

Sidelined

You’d think people would leave well enough alone. But we weren’t created that way. Anything other than that would mean Adam and Eve didn’t eat the forbidden fruit. To be ambitious is to be man; to want what someone else possesses is normal. Philosophers and theologists propound that man cannot be satisfied with what we have; he strives to better himself; wanting more and more. To what do we strive? Money? Love?

The most common example of robbery is between couples; married couples. ‘The other women’ usually  are campus students and scheming office colleagues (gggrrr). Attraction: the idea of thwarting the wife, money is heady stuff. Women (some of them) want what they can not have. Dancing at a bar/night club, this culprit’s eye will revert first to the guy standing with his girlfriend and then later to the group of single young men. Just the other night, I absentmindedly saw a girl press herself against an extremely good looking  guy’s backside while he slow danced with his date.

I cannot count the times I’ve heard girls, whether in a taxi or among my acquaintances (my friends WOULDN’T. am sure), talk about boys... ‘James likes you’. ‘Yeah, but he’s too sweet. Doesn’t exactly challenge me. What about Dan?’ “But Dan is married. Don’t bother’. ‘So what? I can have him if I want’.

Mark Twain said “Adam ate the apple not for apple’s sake but because it was forbidden”. The fact that a married man gives no sort of encouragement to this girl only serves to make her more interested. Tell a human being she cannot have or do something and she’ll do her damnest to prove she can. I myself have used this method to get a not-so-sharp guy (aren’t they all. Cant read signs and hints to save their lives) to do something.

Plus, I believe young women possess a tiny masochistic aspect in their personalities that likes being mistreated. A married man says “no” “I love my wife. Am not interested”. She reads it as a subtle try a little harder. This masochism is the same aspect that make heart breakers/’players’/’bad boys’ so attractive to girls. Give a little attitude and resistance and she’ll be eating out of your hands. Be the nicest sweetest person, and you’re boring. A special person told me how he was tricked into a compromising situation by one of his classmates. She promised him one of the latest movies premiering and he goes running only to be met by her nude self. While he protested and emphasized that he already had a girlfriend, she assured him that that didn’t matter in the least. She did not mind sharing, she simply could not let him go!

The other woman’s rationale; she wants to believe that she can manage to do what others couldn’t possibly pull of. To prove to herself and others that she has the wiles to attract a married man; to do better than his wife.

80% of men who cheat eventually return to their wives. After being in a marriage or relationship for a long time, a routine is set; many couples forget to keep things spicy, do the things that made them fall in love with each other in the first place. Enter the hot single predatory girl. She’s usually younger, different from his wife in personality and lifestyle... Men mature slower and even at 50, he’ll still want to act like a vibrant 18 year old.

The husband’s attraction is new, different sex with a younger woman, resurrection of old feelings. The other woman’s attraction is a chance at a relationship, maturity, taking someone else’s husband (it’s a bed notching deal for some girls); and honestly, a married man is more likely to be wealthy than a single younger man.

80% of women make the mistake of believing he will leave his wife for her. This other woman a lot of times wants more of a boyfriend than a husband.  She wants parties, vacations, mindless spending, and the high life. The husband wants a change in the routine...But he soon realizes age has caught up with him, his priorities have changed, he wants a mature home maker...I.e. his wife.

The other woman realizes that while the clandestine meetings, motels and forbidden love  exciting at first, its not enough any more. She wants more. Nights spent with her. Introduction to his friends. Access to his phone.  A label to the relationship. He realizes the affair is becoming expensive and he wants to break it off with little or no blood shed.

A cultured, classy, intelligent woman would know when to cut her losses and move on; usually after making sure he has set her up in a business or handed over some other asset. An uneducated woman resists the separation, turns stalker, abusive towards his wife. Others go to the extreme and believe that getting themselves pregnant will ensure his love, support and recognition. More likely than not, they get the raw deal.

It’s a long, rocky, unhappy path. Relationships born out of an innocent party’s pain never last. Karma’s a bitch. It may be a phase or knowledge that universally speaking, women outnumber men; but, take comfort in the fact that a lot of women are going gay or becoming nuns. Otherwise you’ll have trouble getting past St. Peter on judgment day.

Sincerely,

Schpiel.

Conscience Crimes

“Corruption is of two kinds: corruption of need and corruption out of greed.”-Hon J. B. Katutsi

The Anti Corruption Act 2009, in its Interpretation Act does not describe corruption; however, Sections 2 to 4 adequately lay down acts of corruption.  Section 2 of the ACA states that,” a person commits the offence of corruption if a public officer solicits or accepts any goods of monetary value or any other form of gratification in exchange for an act or omission in the performance of his public functions.”

But is all corruption “corruption”? Can corruption be of different degrees? Can a police man who gets a 20.000 note off the street regular driver be different from the habitual police man who has an agent in town that he sends people too, to collect his “fines” (and am not talking about a police cashier at the stations)

Can we rightly say that the one who takes the 20.000 note to buy milk for his numerous kids or posho and beans for home is yes doing an act of corruption, but not entirely a corrupt man or woman because the government did not pay him on time, or has not yet sent his salary? Can we rightly say that he is a victim of circumstances?

He was in such dire need that when offered the 20.000 note just like any business he accepted the offer- business sealed. His motivation was for a good cause and not entirely selfish.

So lets juxta pose this with the habitual bribe collector or better still the “big fish” so says justice J, B. Katutsi  his motivation is utter greed nothing more, look at a woman( hypothetically) who gets 18 million a month and embezzles money from a government organisation. This is the type two corruption... “Corruption out of greed”

So can we rightly say they deserve the same term sentence as did the police man collecting bribes out of dire need, not he who collects habitually or what about that man or woman who gets paid 18 million but still embezzles.

Is it only those sort of acts that affect the root of the economy that should be handled aggressively in court or should we all bundle up these petty or big time corrupt persons and throw them into jail, congest the prisons or better still just fine the petty criminals as a warning to the rest....( wise words indeed)

Anyhow, should the acts of corruption have been categorised? But is it possible to know ones intention for collecting the money he did? Or is this just an academic argument? With all these questions In mind and no way near a solution should the judiciary assume corruption is not a strict liability offence but rather needs to prove the element of intention in an act or rather judge each case based on the circumstances of the case.

 

J.P.OROGOT

Intimate Violence

Can we just rubbish the Domestic Relations Bill because it’s trying to create a rift between husbands and wives? Or maybe because it’s trying to launder our dirty linen in public? All those things that happen behind closed doors? Maybe it’s because some of us do not want to have a balance in our relationships? Because God said man is the head of the family? But was he saying domination and suppression came hand in hand with heading one’s family?

  Some people still refute the fact that marital rape does exist. They claim. “If the church says you are one (man and wife become one) then how can you rape yourself?” Total rubbish I say, it’s prejudicial against women and even men who are victims of violence in marriage, sexual or physical and this ignorance of the complexity of issues implicit in these silent crimes have not only perpetuated human rights violation but enhanced the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, death, mental illness and carried on the gendering of society.

“Just a mere slap” is a notion that should be eradicated. It voices the thinking of those who condone domestic violence or intimate violence. Why should it be a mere slap? A slap is a slap. Doesn’t it cause physical harm? Why should another person be treated as a cow? And yet our friends in the western world accord rights to their animals as well!

No form of violence against women, wives, girlfriends or daughters, sons, brothers or husbands should be acceptable behavior. We must de-construct these myths that support violence directly or indirectly starting with not just the justice personnel but we as person’s in our intimate relations.

I know some of us may wonder what intimate violence is but just like domestic violence, “ it is those acts that are committed in the domestic sphere and include physical, emotional and sexual violence threatened or actual. “ This may sound like a mouth full but no one must ever allow that they “had it coming” nor “deserve it” this is what Uganda’s  feminist Dr Sylvia Tamale would call “B. S ” and I gladly concede with this opinion when looking at society’s tolerance for intimate violence.

However this comes as no surprise, especially with the number of uneducated women in Uganda still large but having abundant cultural education which most times and in a society like Uganda has promoted gendering of society. It’s no surprise at all that the battered partner especially if female will continue to stay in this situation because she has been schooled to believe that a woman must endure all in marriage. “if your grandmother, mother also endured this who are you to launder your dirty linen in public”

This perpetuation of intimate violence is due to stereo type thinking, not only among the partners in these relationships but also among law enforcement officers. Ever heard a police man say that is a domestic issue? Well I have and I pray you never do because when they say that they are most certainly referring to a battery charge between partners in an intimate relationship.

This acceptance of intimate violence although has been left to inaccessibility to legal services, gender discriminative laws the biggest perpetuators are the social cultural factors e.g. the Patriarchal cultural value system  and power relations at the house hold level that prevent discussions of violence at an intimate level being discussed in the public sphere.

          Certified

J.P.Orogot

O'l Taxi Park

But that was long ago, that was last night...or was it this morning?


I cannot be sure. Night and morning blur as one when merrymaking begins. For that 3 am which my muzungu friend calls morning; and my African brother calls night: for it is the witching hour for all the village "Basezi" to come out and do their night business in the banana plantations.

But fear not, it was around this time that I and two pals sat on the stairs at our beloved Old Taxi Park. We sat next to an askari and a street vendor…the one who sells binyeebwa yes that one.

Ahem'… here we were, seated at the stairs at 3 am looking like lost sheep with the askari pointing out the dangerous spots in and around town as we waited for a taxi or a willing cyclist to take us to Wandegeya when here comes Mr. Scrooge.

This dude,( read skinny, tall and dark) no features whatsoever to cut him some slack, comes towards us swinging his obviously drunk package of the obvious sex and points at one of us (...read the lighter one) , " you how much you are wanted in that car" all in one drunken breathe no pauses, no stops for effect.

Silence...it still haunts me. This car by the way was dark ...that’s all memory can recall. Kidnapper, rapist is all i thought of. But wait, he just confused us for, corner gals… No words can ever explain that. Read ( We were all wearing jeans, well i had on my red high heels and one of us had a scarf we were all huddled in) was he crazy or merely daft..? I’ll never know.

For my question was never answered. Next thing I knew my mouth was opening and daring him to come any closer... “Wandegeya wandegeya” ... That lone shout from the taxi tout had all three of us sprint for the taxi like we had wings on our heels.


Ps: Wink, i love u 2 gals

             Love Pamela Orogot