Give Us a Break, Kyeyos Tell Relatives Back Home
Ugandans working outside the country are fed up of relatives back home pestering them for money.
"Although we have some money here, which we would like to send back home for 'big projects,' we cannot do so because those people [relatives at home] are cheats," a Ugandan working in the US told The EastAfrican recently.
He said that in all the meetings they had with other Ugandans in the US, everybody present had complained about being conned by relatives back home.
"It is only when you go to Uganda that you realise that you were conned of your hard-earned money," said one Rwebuga, a Ugandan professional working in the US.
In different interviews, Ugandan and Kenyan exiles in the US and UK told The EastAfrican that they were fed up with constant calls from home asking for money.
"You cannot believe it; every phone call we get from home is asking for money. We have reached the extent of not taking overseas calls since every time we know it will be somebody asking for money money," said John Sewava, who is working in the US as a dentist.
He said the situation had been worsened by the advent of mobile phones have made it practically impossible for us to run away from those asking for money," said Sewava. While international calls remain very expensive, international SMS text messages are now quite affordable.
He said that some of this relatives even text him to ask for airtime money to load their phones.
Kenyan citizens interviewed by The EastAfrican in the US expressed similar sentiments, saying people back home needed to be told how hard it was to survive in the US.
"We are trying night and day to provide for our people back home who do not even appreciate us for it," said John Kamau, who works in the Oregon state. "It is good you are here and can write about these things objectively."
In Uganda currently, most people own or have access to mobile phones, including those who do not have permanent jobs or any source of income. Even students have acquired phones, which have turned them into beggars always on the look out for money to buy airtime.
There are over 450,000 mobile-phone subscribers in the country but the users number over five million, since the major towns are dotted with small providers who hire out their phones.
"If you get a chance, tell those people back home about the situation here and how we work through the night," said Sewava, adding that life in the US was not as easy as people back home thought.
"Many of us want to go back home but shrink from the thought. If people are demanding money from us when we are still here, think what what it will be like when we come back," he said.
According to Ugandan embassy officials in Washington DC, there are well over 50,000 Ugandans in the US, most of them based in Boston. Those who are not professionals, work extra hard in order to make ends meet.
The official added that, although not all were doing well, Ugandans have developed a culture of working hard. This has not only helped their families, but boosted foreign-exchange earnings for Uganda.
Remittances from expatriate workers, especially in the US and Britain, has become the biggest source of forex for Uganda, overtaking coffee, tourism and cotton.
Officials from the Bank of Uganda told The EastAfrican last week that earnings from nationals outside the country were fetching more than $500 million every other year compared with coffee earnings of slightly above $100 million.
Some Ugandans with relatives outside the country justify their demands on the latter by pointing out they were only able to travel abroad because their relatives and friends had pooled their resources to buy their tickets and visas.
"Their success in the US or UK is a family affair," said a Ugandan who only identified himself as Michael.
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