Posh and poor living side by side
Within spitting distance of plush
mansions live the wretched of the
earth
By Angela Nampewo
The railway draws the line between the rich and the
poor in Namuwongo. The poor to the left and the rich
to the right. As you emerge from your posh house in
the morning, poverty stares you in the face. It?s
not a comforting thought that the slum children who
were eating at the rubbish pit in the morning will
still be there when you return from work in the
evening.
The swamp to the left of the railway line supports
most of the slum although there are some slum people
who have elevated themselves to the other side, as
if to say, ?Hey look, we are not part of them.?
From the main road, all you see are shops and
industries sandwiched by posh homes. You don?t see
the slum beyond until you get into it.
?What is the name of this area?? I ask two girls on
their way to the village well.
?I don?t know. You go and ask those people in the
centre,? one of them replies.
On my way to the centre, I notice that most of the
big houses where the well-off people live have been
constructed right in front of the mud slum houses.
Some of them even share walls and boundaries with
the slum.
The rich have to bear with the noise of the video
hall, which comes straight in through to their
bedrooms all night. They must also bear with the
view, which includes rubbish pits, latrines and
muddy water. Visible in the distance are the tiled
rooftops of Bugolobi?s residential area.
A little boy of about 12 shouts out from the depth
of what looks like a sewage pit, ?Hey, come and see
this dirty water where we wash our feet.? He jumps
into the yellowish green water and resumes the task
of washing his slippers. A smaller child joins him
as he washes. I am horrified.
?Where does this water come from?? I ask.
?It is spring water,? replies the boy in vernacular.
?It?s clean. Some people even wash their clothes
here,? he adds.
But the stench of the place is unholy. As the warmth
of the sun reaches the ground after a rainy morning,
all the ungodly smells rise and mingle with the air
around.
Nobody wants the stench of the slum coming into
their posh sitting room but that?s the way things
are down here in Namuwongo. One of the big tiled
houses in the neighbourhood has a drainage channel
filled with smelly water running side by side with
the wall of the house and within spitting distance
of the bedroom windows within. There?s even a bridge
between the wall of the house and the smaller slum
houses on the other side. It?s not clear why.
There are retail shops down in the slum for those
who are tired of regular good meals at home. They
have kabalagala, fried cassava and many other
delicacies that people who live in walled houses
tend to miss.
The ?Rock Bar? is at your service in case you are
looking for an authentic kafunda where you can
?catch? potent stuff like Kasese, which is just as
well because you?ll need to be intoxicated to walk
comfortably through the slum.
Human waste is a common sight along the waterlogged
slum paths. As I jump across to avoid putting my
foot in it, a woman squats along the line and takes
a short call. It is a horrible sight in broad
daylight - even more so because the public latrine
is only 50 metres away.
The short call woman jumps up just in time to avoid
being hit by the speeding train.
I?m caught between a moving train and the soggy
waste filled area. It?s hard to make a choice.
On the other side of town, students make their way
to Makerere University?s medical school through
Katanga slum. For five years, medical students have
to squeeze their way past the filthy,
mosquito-ridden swamp where the wretched of the
earth live. On the other side is Mulago Hospital
where the slum children and their mothers seek
refuge when malaria and diarrhoea strike. Though
worlds apart, Katanga and Makerere meet and mingle
in Mulago.
In recent times, Katanga has come even closer to its
affluent neighbour, Makerere University. The world
of rickety shacks has not changed and the swamp has
stayed put, but the slum continues to drift towards
Makerere University. Wandegeya is the reason why.
The trading centre is the answer to the various
needs of the increasing student population at the
university. It is also the bridge between the slum
and the university.
With the coming of the private sponsorship scheme,
student hostels have sprung up every where, even in
the middle of Katanga slum, an idea that was
previously unthinkable. At least two multi-storeyed
buildings have risen up alongside Katanga?s mud
shacks.
Taibah Hostel is a four-storeyed yellow building
whose sparkling clean walls reflect that the place
is newly painted. Three young people in casual dress
chat away on the topmost balcony. Occasionally they
crane their necks from the top of the buildings to
get a better view of the goings-on in the slum
below. Right next to Taibah, noisy machines and
workmen are hard at work, trying to put up another
storeyed building.
A short, medium sized girl, in a green knee-length
skirt, white blouse and shiny black heels, walks up
from the direction of Taibah Hostel, jumps over a
puddle of waste water and heads for evening
lectures, small black handbag and notebook in hand.
The girl with the shiny heels and the long braids
appears unperturbed by the muddy water and scattered
food remains at a nearby eating joint where a woman
is rinsing saucepans from lunch. Next door is a
whole set of rickety iron-sheet sheds containing
bags upon bags of charcoal. A he-goat crosses the
road to join its mate on the other side, leaving
droppings in its wake.
The students who live in these Katanga hostels must
leave the sanitised environment of their rooms and
re-enter the slum before reaching their lecture
rooms in Makerere University. Either the slum has
gone to Makerere or Makerere has gone to the slum
but the two have arrived at a balance, somehow.
Apart from servicing the university, Katanga, with
its maze of paths and shacks has the ability to
swallow up the robbers who terrorise the richer
neighbourhood.
It is therefore surprising that well-off people
frequent Katanga in the evening. They park their
cars along the muddy road leading off Haji Musa
Kasule Road into the slum.
Although there are many cars parked along the sides
of the newly graded Katanga Road, not all these car
owners live there. For some reason, this area
favours car-washing bays and motor garages. As they
wait for their cars to get washed or repaired,
cheaply, the car owners chill out at Jolly?s Joint
and other bufunda in the area.
Welcome to Katanga, home of the one-roomed bufunda.
The slum environment provides a safe haven for
cheating spouses and business people trying to cut
shady deals.
The pot-bellied men with the posh cars must retire
from Katanga after the drinking is done. They need
to return to the tranquillity of their civilised
neighbourhood in Ntinda to catch some sleep. It is
just unfortunate that they must drive past Kifumbira
Slum as they go past Kamwokya on the way home.
Published on: Saturday, 16th November, 2002
__________
bwanika
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