The things that can be treated in Uganda

She can hardly walk anymore and the doctor say that she needs to get her surgery done before it's too late. She has been suffering with this disease for so long that she does not know how to leave without pain. The parents who stay in Mateete a town in Sembabule district have done everything possible. This includes even visiting witches. When they could finally mobilize enough money to come to Mulago in Kampala, they decide to come and try. They have been at the hospital 4 weeks and now they don’t have what to eat. The father of little Alice went back to the village to work in one of the large village coffee plantations to try and make some money.  He earns about 12000 a week which he had to send to his wife at Mulago.

There was nothing to eat for these two yesterday until the patient lying next to them on this crowded floor shared his meal. The little girl cannot talk anymore, you can see and feel her pain as she struggles to breathe. She looks to tired to keep her eyes open. One cannot believe she is 13 as the mother says because she looks too small for a 9 year old. Her story like many around her is disheartening. It could drive Hitler to tears.

The problem is, she is not a celebrity, she is not in a upscale school. She also has no media presence say Facebook, twitter or Instagram. The mother cannot even afford to call a radio station, not that she knows any. There is not even a single way in which she could raise this money. The truth is, she is going to die, definitely going to die. Not that death is such a bad thing, but because she could have been saved.

The next intern checks on her with sorrow and struggles back her tears. She explains to me her condition with medical terms I cannot understand. From her conversation though I manage to pick out that Alice could have been helped had we had the facilities need around. She now needs about $30000 to travel to India for treatment. That is about 105,000,000 Uganda shillings. It is hard to tell the mother to give up because she already has. She plans to go back to the village and prepare her young girl for death.

In case you did not know, Alice is one of many Ugandans in the same dire situation. This week alone for example, there are more than five people looking for funds to take them to different parts of the world for treatment. And as if that’s not enough, the interns at Mulago hospital are on strike over non-payment. But before you think that everyone is suffering, let me bring this also to your attention.

A few weeks ago, Muhanga told the world that she managed to sell her goats for 10 billion shillings. After some days of trolling, we left that at that. Then there was Mutabazi who used 105 million to travel to Rwanda, which is the money Alice needs for treatment. But that’s not so bad, right? Our MPs who we so dearly loved and voted to parliament have after exempting themselves from any kind of taxation decided to approve for themselves a supplementary budget in excess 10 billion to buy new cars. That is before I mention that the government said there was no money to buy a new cancer machine when the one we had broken down.

We shall therefore continue to troll our `hilarious` leaders. We shall watch our loved ones die. Just so you know, let me take this opportunity to inform our legislators, that you have undressed and we have seen your nakedness. We are waiting until you realize that all along, you have been naked. The revolution was not televised.

image by daily monitor

In-between

Between empty spaces and waiting caresses,
I wait,
Wheels are wheeling the road as its winding,
I watch,
The symphony of synchronized scenes and seeding
The match,
Between sitting and actually feeling the wind
Between,
My breeches and eyes as if its separating,
The two,
Rendering me mute by way of confusion,
Again,
Like it was in the beginning,
When,
Between empty spaces and waiting caresses
I waited,
Watching wheels winding down this road,
Matching,
The thoughts of kissing you or just hugging you
Because
You make me linger,
Between,
This thought and that,
I,

kitumba jr

do you need a gallery in your building

I have been all over houses in the los Angeles, Hollywood and many others around the world. It's amazing the role that art plays in the daily life of an individual. The modernist designs of this era are purist and quintessential in their aura. They portray a marxist belief that buildings can exist without life or the urgency with which they require its very existence. In essence therefore, unlike the 19th century Victorian home which was more or less scattered with detail and clatter, the 21st century home is the less of the idea of things.

It’s the belief that man can live without things that has led us to this place or perhaps the ever growing need for more and regarding these ideals with less. Take for example, where one needed a radio, cassette, a television set, a telephone and a computer for that could afford, all that one needs now is a smart phone and a smart television. Could our buildings therefore be demanding the same of us? Yet what is an empty wall for someone who demands too much, or a large double volume room with a piano in its midst. These may even seem foreign to you or distance in some form of Kardashian documentary manner, or superstar million dollar mansion show. This in its very sense continuously compels one to tag such immensity of space with a large checkbook.

To go back to the question. Do you need a gallery in your home/ house? where I begin to answer is the place of memory that is not oblivious to both, architect and client. Even for the one who needs no architect, it is not strangely forlorn that it should be dismissed. The gallery exists, how pertinent, how elevated is a matter of consideration.

In my childhood home, the pictures of different family moments hung on the walls in a manner that is explorative, or of mundane quality. These are always begging to be forgotten, to be smashed in some manner after an earth quake, of utmost unimportance they regard selves and yet we put them there. So, what if every memory is important, after all it was captured, what if every moment it of great value after all they make us? Where then will you decide to uphold these as they should, as they were in your head? You need a gallery, not for the image alone but for the memory to. It is said that memories make persons and places. Therefore should be the habit of all things.

At the start I waylay the story of los Angeles the place I have never been, and considered the modern house you are constructing or one that you are living in. Art has the ability to command self, to give life to a place. So many are our white walls that they cry out often in dire need of something to give them life. Like our presence, the gallery will give life to your home, to your office, to your building, all you need to do is to spare a wall.

check also; https://www.entrepreneurship-campus.org/ideas/4/3094/

the greatest school you can go

Thomas Edison the man who invented the light bulb went to school for only three months in his life time. He went ahead all the same and made perhaps one of the most profound inventions of the 20th century. The man himself has a desire to learn. He had the desire to make a difference just like the person you are.

The list of great men, whose only form of school was the world they lived in, the people they associated with is perhaps endless. Leonardo Davinci perhaps the genius of his time was profound in art, architecture, medicine, engineering and a dozen other things.

Let's perhaps go back to the world of Davinci in order to understand this clearly. In this world, the greatest invention could easily be the wheel, a couple of cutting and piercing instruments, a compass and great ships. There were not a lot of books to read apart from poetry and bible or religious theology. There were a number of teachers, philosophers to be exact as the world had just arrived at the `age of enlightment`. During this time, on the mind of any was the search for knowledge such that whoever came up with a thing as a well measured statement about life was considered wise.

We had just come from the place where sailing the sea was much a miracle as were certain if not all diseases considered acts and results of black magic and witchcraft. Not to say that a sailing ship is not a miracle in the eye of the poet, not being lesser, or even in the marvel of it.

At the time, the artist had to collect pigment for his piece from the wild flowers, he had to scribble on papyrus and paper not so much formed as is now. The sculptor had to go dig the sand and clay himself even without a manual of how much he should mix. The men of this time had a desire, a zeal to the world that so often lacks in us. The man Davinci was, no wonder in a world were perspective literal as it sounds now was not a thing heard of, able to produce one of the most amazing pieces of art ever.

The Monalisa, a work of Davinci is kept in the French louvre, valued at millions of dollars. It shows on selected days for a couple of minutes before it is taken back for safe keeping in a dark room lest it is damaged by the sun.

Every household since the invention of the light bulb that has electricity has had the honors of using such or its predecessors.

The best school you will ever go to is the world around you. I hope that earlier in your life you notice so. The birds in the sky are the aeronautic engineer`s greatest inspiration as is the cheetah to the maker of the Lamborghini. The architect listens to his site. The poet hears and talks to the stars. The teacher learns from the student. The hustle and bustle of everyday life is the best inventory of the great musician. The great soldier learns from the chameleon or the snake, the doctor from the frog and the trees in his compound.

God made the world with everything we need to conquer and subdue it. I will say again that the best school you have is the world around you. All it takes is a heart like that of Edison, a restlessness like that of Davinci, a soul quiet as that of Beethoven. And on and on the list will go. How I wish you can add your name to this.

just to touch him

Would you move through the crowds, if you saw your favorite star, walking the street? What if there were crowds pushing, what if there was a barricade, and no one was even allowed to touch him, would you still try?

The stars we admire in this world are many but men like us, and yet we go through our way to reach them to get an autograph, a picture, a selfie, a story to tell the friends we have, an image to hung in our rooms, but for what, to admire, to boast.

I remember one day watching a video of kids meeting their favorite football stars, how the cried, the gaping expression on their faces, the tears of joy flowing down their cheeks. It was sensational, it was emotional. I had to leave my cooking, just to watch, just to take it in. The flaw is, that the people we struggle so much as in to touch are mortal men, flawed men, `unclean`, `dead` as is described, Num 19:13, Whosoever touches the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifies not himself.

The bible has several instances of God commanding man not to `touch`, this or the other, many instances of God touching people and the awesome things that occurred afterward. Most profound are two descriptions vivid when man reaches out to touch a king. In Esther 5, it is described, that the king `saw` Esther and the word for seeing actually means perceive. The king saw Esther as she was, for who she was, for her appeal, beauty, for the favor she bore. The next thing the king did was to extend his scepter to her so she could touch. The scepter was the ultimate symbol of the kings authority, in fact when she touched it, Esther 5:3 Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what [is] thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.

The other incident is from the diseased woman who touched the helm of Jesus's garment. Scripture paints quite a vivid picture of crowds pushing around Jesus, clamoring just to get near him. Even among the many, there was a woman so diseased, so rendered unclean that her very presence in that place defiled the many who could have known, let alone her touching the Lord. She must have thought to herself, `only if I` then shall I be well. And indeed her infirmities left her, her plague was gone but not just that. The bible says, Matt 9:20 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind [him], and touched the hem of his garment:. Note, that she is described as woman in this passage, with the Hebrew word, `gune` which literally means ordinary woman, female. The word used here for touch is,`haptomai` unlike the one used in other places `naga`. Haptomai, literally means to rely, to cling to, to fasten oneself around whereas the latter means to touch, to strike. In other words, she did not just touch and let go, but instead she clamored to, perhaps that’s one of the other reasons Jesus noticed her.

The second is what happens afterward, Matt 9:22 But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. Notice that from being a woman, she becomes `daughter`, the hebrew word used here is, `thugater` which means Daughter of God, acceptable to God, rejoicing in God`s peculiar care and protection.

Friends, what you touch labels you ether clean, accepted, rejected, accursed or it declares you, righteous, acceptable to God, beloved of Him. Let us then like the woman rush, strive to touch Jesus, for his life, for acceptance, Matt 14:36 And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole. Yes that we may be made whole.

father`s day

`so now that everyone has their father as their dp, check your watsapp contacts to make sure you are not your firend`s step mum.'

This was one of the many snipped comments perhaps the best that went viral on watsapp on father`s day. I must say, whoever wrote it, kuddos. I imagine they are a few who heeded by that same advice and found it to be truly useful. Others might have been in for the surprise, yes, there are others who might also have realized that the people they were dating are their `distant sisters or brothers` if such things exist. All the same thanks to such a day or a week for such truths.

So in the so likely case that as you were scrolling, you realized that your so called hubby/ sugar daddy/ boyfriend/ cross generational friend/ boyfriend father/ friend`s father and therefore father, which makes you your friend`s step mother/ her mother who is also your mother`s co-wife, I would pay for the look on your face. Trouble is that this is not such an unlikely phenomena from even the various confessions I have had on radio.

I would love to ask the men, the fathers we were celebrating, but also our, peers in terms of the women we are dating, what is the problem? Is it some new mentorship scheme that has grown in the 21st century, where as we should admit many things are in the making? And to the young girls, are the young men your age short of sight, size or stature to meet your standards?

To slow with the questions, I should say that time tells stories. Yes speed has become such a thing of value that we forget which things should take time and which others should not. If he is driving a range rover at 50 and you want to ride along, when he lies still and 55 you may just follow or not. I wish I knew how to end this, all I can say anyway is, patience pays. Young lady, young man, work and wait your time is yet to come. We love you fathers who are fathers and not other things.

a girl`s letter

'Dear future husband, here is a few things you need to know if u wanna be ma one and only all ma life, take me on a date, don’t forget flowers every anniversary, u gotta know how to treat me like a lady even wen am acting crazy tell me everything is alryt, if u wanna get that special kind of treatment tell me am beautiful each and evrynyt, after evry fyt, just apologize coz you know am ryt even if I am wrong make tym for me dnt leave me lonely, buy me a ring.'

The actual words of a girl desperate or maybe not, but to have a man who treats her right, like a lady, who loves her like the angel she is. She is tired of men who behave as if they are monsters, the liars, the cheats. She has had it all, in fact she has been hurt by countless boys who call themselves men. She is reformed and despite all that has happened to her she is a repentant soul. She is waiting on God, she is waiting for the right man to pursue her. She has decided to dress appropriately, to be in places worth a lady of her stature. No more will you find her bent over and pushing hard in front of a man`s groins in club. No more will you find her staggering with a bottle in her hands. She is reformed. In fact she no longer pumps up her breasts for the perfect cleavage. And when her husband comes, she is well deserved, she is the gem he has been looking for. He will treat her right, just as she wishes.

No, this girl is noble. She has waited all her life for the knight in shining armor. She is pure, beautiful. She has her priorities right. She is hardworking. She is the woman this knight has had his mind set to find. He has searched and finally he has found her. It is therefore imperative to hold her dear. He has it natural to tell her how beautiful she is. He cannot afford to have her cry. He will do anything, anything to put a ring on her finger.

Or this girl desires all these things. She does not stop at that, she still desires the `life` so she will post a  photo every two hours on social media of her in some sort of skimpy attire, with her lips pouted. She will be seen in the news for her roundness and her beautiful eyes. And when the night comes, every man shall want to lay his hands on her. Now, what about the knight?, shall he fight for such a one? Shall he protect such a one?

I was never called to scrutinize or reply such a letter, but I will answer anyway. Do not ask, because that is unfair to your dear husband. Deserve, and if he does not act accordingly, he is guilty of more than murder. Remember you attract what you are.