Moroto Tales: Of taxis in which Educated Ugandans are packed like they never went to school

On Sunday evening while travelling from Soroti to Moroto crammed into a forbearing Toyota Noah­—13 of us fully grown human beings 10 men with beards and 3 ladies—the driver decided to move us at a uselessly slow speed. So slow that at some point a certain tipsy Ugandan riding a bicycle from a drinking joint, on his way home, overtook us without breaking a sweat. And even had the audacity to engage one of us in a conversation while at it. Now, I don’t understand Ateso but I want to assume that the kaabozi should have been along the following lines.

Colleague in Noah: Hey you. Who rides a bicycle on a highway while drunk at night. Bogus fellow.

Tipsy Bicycle Guy: Wait. You and I, who of us is Bogus Fellow. You are packed in that Toyota Noah like you never went to school while I be here enjoying my ride back home. And you have paid a whole currency point to be subjected to that kind of suffering. I sincerely pity you. Bogus Fellow.

Colleague in Noah: Hahaha. That is a good one. I give up. But we had no option my brother.

Tipsy Bicycle Guy: That is not true. You could have chosen to ride your way back to Moroto but because you young people want to take short cuts, you decided to board that miserable thing. Now see yourself.

Colleague in Noah: But you man.

Tipsy Bicycle Guy: By the way, before I forget who told you this is a Highway, how can a bicycle run faster than a car on a highway? It is not.

Colleague in Noah: Then what is it?

Tipsy Bicycle Guy: Since I am not your primary school teacher, I wont tell you what it is. Go back to school and study a little more about highways

Anyway while the Noah Crawled through the potholes, the guy took advantage, cruised past us and somehow we never managed to catch up.


NB: Apart from writing, we run a Real Estate Agency in Uganda. We buy and sell properties at Musumba Estates. After reading please visit our Facebook page here and let us serve all your real estate needs. 

Is the colonial ring road only a preserve of Kampala?

A picture of Nile Village Hotel and Spa one of the luxurious hotels at Kiira Road

Having read that story about Kampala’s Ring Road and its racial implications, it got me thinking about so many things, particularly Jinja where I spent the formative years of my life. My article is solely based on personal experience as related to the ideas expounded in the article and nothing more. Jinja is arguably Uganda’s second largest town after Kampala (the capital city) with a splendid residential area in the name of Kiira Road which boasts of prime properties along the shores of River Nile (Read Kiira) and also a school nearby in the name of Victoria Nile school, the school to which I went for the entirety of my primary education. It now all seems to me it was for Kiira Road residents (read British) back in the day.  Now I get to know why we were the only school in Jinja at the time (1995 when I joined) where English Speaking at school was compulsory. And this also reminds me of that teacher of English Mr. Okoth Ochieng (he taught us to refer to him as a teacher of English and not an English teacher). He had some of his training in Germany and though he rode a bicycle to school which he happened to have great attachment to, he seemed to find greater satisfaction in the fact that some of his training as a teacher of English was in Germany.

He was very particular with English pronunciations and it was something over emphasized in his classes. I first met Mr. Okoth Ochieng at a Maternal Cousin’s Birthday party whose family happened to have a home at Kiira road which actually had a Boy’s Quarters. Though my father was not a Kiira road resident as he was dealing in selling second hand clothes (which he still deals in to date) he fancied having his first born son study from Victoria Nile School (the good school and also the school where English was compulsorily spoken). I was told my admission was a result of a bribe because I failed the entry interviews.

For me that is undoubtable because I could not speak English at the time which must have been a yardstick to determine those who got in. Off course I could speak, read and write Runyoro plus speaking Lusoga and Luganda but I guess it all didn’t matter. Actually my first day at school, I got the “shock” of my life when my first friend in school Mansoor Nsubuga informed me that “vernacular” was not an option. Its then that I started speaking the queen’s language for purposes of survival and also to escape punishment.

I will revert back to Mr. Okoth Ochieng later and that Birthday Party.  Birthday parties at the time were a preserve of the rich and fortunate. We were often invited by our cousins for the parties but never got to return the favour because it was not a privilege we had. I always had reservations indulging in such parties perhaps because of some tinge of envy which should be natural for anyone who gets invited to birthday parties but does not even know his own birthday. It was to some extent an alien concept to us. Anyway long story short, I attended. We trekked from our muzigo owned by an Indian on Napia Road opp Jinja Bus Park to Kiira Road.

Our life at the Muzigo on Napia Road was a stark contrast of the life at Kiira Road. At the Muzigo our opposite neighbor was a lady whom as children we only knew as Mama Fatuma. Mama Fatuma woke up every early morning half naked with a lesu draped around his large body and knotted above her bust in front of her Muzigo, blowing green powder in the direction of our habitation. For some reason we were told that Mama Fatuma’s powder was a charm sent to our beckoning in what proved to be a futile attempt to bewitch us. All this was in the noisy neibourhood of the bus park where we had mastered the horn blown by Gateway buses and Kiira Coach when they were getting into the park. 

Conversely Kiira road was the home to luxury and as you may guess a hugely quiet neighborhood. We were warned against going to Kiira road at night because most homes in the neighborhood kept trained bull dogs which they let loose at night to pounce upon any potential burglar. I guess many of those being guarded against must have been residents of Napia Road because burglaries at our muzigo were not uncommon back in the day but we had no dogs to stop them. The lush compound at Kiira Road was littered with a fleet of abandoned Mercedes and a lorry. Opposite our cousins’ home was a double storied house owned by a white who often came out to seep coffee on some nights and enjoy the cool breeze of River Nile on his balcony. The man in the home, our uncle was an affable, old gentleman who held a senior managerial position in one of the big industries in Jinja at the time. In our mothers family he was the darling muko because he was nice and he also had good bullion.

So on that birthday party, Mr. Okoth Ochieng was the Master of Ceremonies at the party. He juggled our minds with a riddle about a farmer who wanted to cross a river with a lion, potato leaves and a goat. He asked us to find answers to how the farmer who had only one boat for his transport got across the river with the goat alive not eaten by the lion and the potato leaves not eaten by the goat. It was a great night, we cherished the challenge of the riddle. I can barely remember who got it solved but it was the talking point when we got back home. I got to meet Mr. Okoth much later as my teacher of English in Primary Seven. He never got to know I was at that party because I was not a friend of teachers in primary school and it was so long since Primary two when we had that party. However there is something particular we got from Mr. Okoth Ochieng. He always made us pride in good English speaking and writing. Actually over the years I have sub consciously prided in the fact that I scored distinctions in English at Primary Level and O’ Level. Off course I am one of the people who hate the fact that I speak and write fairly good English but the same cannot be said of my abilities in Runyoro or Lusoga.

Pupils of Victoria Nile School in their school uniform 

However, there is a silver lining to this because I have realized that many aptitude tests employers set in Uganda are disguised primary English, Mathematics and Logic tests and it actually pays when you went to schools like Victoria Nile School.

So to me, the colonial ring road is not only in Kampala, it also probably exists somewhere in Jinja separating Kiira Road from Maggwa, amber court, Jinja Regional Referral Hospital, and other places. This would require thorough research to be established as done by my brother for the case of Kampala but there are some pointers as highlighted here. The figurative colonial ring road also seems to exist in our employment today where jobs are ring fenced for them who can best express themselves in the colonial master’s language and logic.

Choking on the allurements of Karimojong beauties

When you are a young man who has been favored with a good education, acquired a bachelor’s degree in law, a relevant post graduate qualification in legal practice and chanced upon a job in an upcountry station where you are paid in big dollars and treated like an expatriate by the community you serve, a swagger in the poise is to be excused. But be ye not deceived, the good value of the bullion I earn is not all there is to my job placement. As a matter of fact my employment benefits include among others the privilege of being chauffeured around in a brand new Isuzu Double Cabin pick-up, it suffices to note with tinted glasses, the true reckoning for a gallant son of the pearl of Africa, who has read his books and earned his place in the echelons of influence. Anybody who has read Henry Barlow’s famous verse knows the role of the chauffeur and the chauffeured in building the nation and perfectly comprehends what I am talking about.

Off course the young man at university still struggling to make ends meet and hoping that the gods will smile upon his fortunes like they do on mine will grin with envy at this tale of a good life but the good life can also be an albatross of sorts bedeviling one’s progress in some ways. I will lend an explanation to the assertion. Of late I am almost chocking on the soft allurements that have been thrown my way by the matronly denizens of Karamoja who are possessed of stock in the form of marriageable daughters.

I must say, there is something about money that makes men, even those with the most haggard of features, handsome; not that I think of myself less endowed in that regard, far from it, on the contrary if there was any doubt, based on the recent developments, this question has been settled beyond debate. I am handsome. Because everywhere I go in Karamoja, I see girls clustered in groups of two, three, sometimes four, throwing glances to my beckoning, evidently praying for a possible opportunity of engagement, pointing to the direction of my going, and speaking in concealed whispers, there goes Mr. Handsome, one of us must marry him. A Muganda would say Musumba Zak ayogeza aba karamoja obwama. And they imagine I don’t hear them but I do. I obviously distrust their motives and I do suspect that their entreating may constitute a bigger scheme aimed at channeling my hard-earned cash to their whims but I also know that there are some amongst them who honestly think me handsome. But even then I must avoid the temptation.

At the Karamoja Cultural Gala 2015. Photo Opp with a random participant in the Gala

No wonder that these days when I sleep I dream of Karimojong girls waylaying me and threatening me on gun point to either serve them with my seed or get murdered in cold blood. Fortunately I always wake up in the process of bargaining for my life, before committing to the abomination of giving away my seed in such coerced circumstances and before the trigger is pulled.

Evidently, some guys will assess my case and accuse me of squandering opportunity. They even call it opportunity. Truth be told, I agree that for every person, male or female, there is nothing unpleasant about being courted. That is why my belief is that anybody above twenty five years of age who claims to be single and contented must be living in denial.

Yet to everything in which I am involved I must consent.

Besides, I am a product of GLOVIMO, that age old campaign by which we pledged to stay chaste till the nights of our weddings. Therefore, to avoid the eminent temptations and to regularly remind myself of the commitment, I have pinned my pledge card somewhere on the walls of my house and recently accompanied it with a notice on my door which reads “Whatsoever is kept under my trousers is a precious gift to be unveiled on my wedding night, not now, not tomorrow, not even the other day, so please keep off.”

At Karamoja Cultural Gala 2015. Random photo taken of participants in the Cultural Gala

The 7 habits of highly effective lovers (Part 2)

As promised, Part 2 of the 7 habits of highly effective lovers has come upon us. Just in case you missed part 1 click here otherwise let us jump straight into the fray.

4. Think win-win

Now many times when those we love refuse to click our vibe, we often get hurt. Some of us even cry. But why should we? It’s not that the world is going to come to an end because some girl said no when you tried approaching or some boy is too slow to as the lawyers will say take judicial notice of your coy blushes. So there’s no reason why you should sit there and mourn. You surely deserve better than that. Whether she yes or she says no, and whether he takes judicial notice of the blushing or he doesn’t. The truth is there is nothing to lose but everything to win. So stop being a loser and just become the winner you’re supposed to be. Just step out and be happy no matter what he/she feels about you.

The 7 habits of highly effective lovers (Part 1)

Lately I have been thinking through the work of the famous writer Steven Covey in his book the 7 Habits of Highly effective people and I thought his ideas may help instruct us through the basics of love. Actually this was supposed to be counselling material for those guys who are just about to graduate but who also want to get married as soon as they get out of university. So here we go.

Friend zoned again? Here is the way out

Friend zoning may not be a familiar term to all my readers. So I will start by defining the term. Friend zoning is as what ladies do to guys whom they cannot out rightly reject and kick out of their circles. In other words you go to a girl, tell her what’s up and she suggests that you should remain good friends instead of taking things to another level.