FEATURE , Wednesday, August 8, 2012 31 Kikubamutwe a ghetto haunted by hooliganism PICTURE BY RONNIE KIJJAMBU Until October 31, New Vision will devote space to highlight Ugandans Making the plight of slum dwellers. At a Difference a later date, we shall profile those offering selfless service to improve conditions in these areas. Today, STEPHEN SSENKAABA exposes the squalid conditions in Kikubamutwe

I was game; good game. I knew this the moment this fair skinned prostitute cast an inviting eye in my direction. Her intentions were clear. Her wiggling bottom teased my eyes as she approached my table with amorous intent. Soon I could not keep my eyes off her. She tapped me lightly. I pulled a chair for her to sit. Improving slum “What is your name?” I asked. Aine.” conditions “Aine what?” “Ainembabazi… How much do you have? Kikubamutwe. “Sh5,000.” “Women of all ages come from “No, make it sh7,000.” all over the place to engage in Ainembabazi had a good case. prostitution here,” she says. “Listen,” she implored “How do you Kizza attributes this trend to expect me to take care of my personal absence of jobs and a permissive needs with just sh5,000? I need to society. pay the owner of the lodge and keep some money for my children when A stealth neighbourhood they come to visit.” Kikubamutwe is stealthily For just sh7,000 Ainembabazi was sandwiched between Kabalagala and willing to offer me casual sex. lower . It has a tiny entry, off “But it would be only the ‘short the Kabalagala-Muyenga Road,which one’,” she said, to mean that if agreed you never see until you come close. It upon, our session would not last disappears into an alley of little dirty An aerial view of Kikubamutwe slum at Kabalagala in Division more than a couple of minutes. shacks made of shops, food stalls, We were to have it inside an boda-boda stations and one-room adjoining room that serves as an rental houses. of temporary materials that cannot his way through a chapatti baking extension to this bar. Not even the Along the way, you find a church, maintain their stability for more than exercise next to an open roadside dim lights in the little dungeon where a clinic and a hospital. These stretch three years. sewer. I found Kizza seated in a we sat on plastic chairs could hide several metres from the main entry. « makeshift shelter in the company Ainembabazi’s anguish. “I do not like Life is difficult here, but somehow A hub for hooligans of bloodshot eyed men sipping at to be a prostitute,” she said, “but I people manage to push on. In a tiny Hooliganism haunts Kikubamutwe glittering glasses of waragi. It was just need to earn a living.” mud-and-wattle room, we found a This area was notorious like a ghost. “Every night we have midday. A single mother, Ainembabazi lives young mother, 24-year-old Yudaya to be on the look-out for thieves,” in a single room with her two teenage Namaso (name changed) with her for armed robbers in says Namaso. Such is the mark of Making a difference in difficult children. “I take care of them myself,” two-year-old child. hooliganism that this place got its circumstances she says. “We live here with my mother and the 1970s. Whenever name from it more than 30 years ago. Dire as the situation might be, Every night she has to sleep with two brothers,” she said. “In the 1970s this area was there are people who are trying to a number of men to secure enough A long tired sooty curtain divides they were caught, the notorious for armed robbers, who improve the situation in this sorry savings for herself and her children. the room into two sections — a waylaid residents and stole their neighbourhood. In this collective She also has to share a certain bedroom and a living room. property. Whenever they were caught, effort to check security, the residents percentage of her proceeds with the “When night falls, we pull out a robbers would be hit these robbers would be hit on the formed security committees to ensure owners of the lodge as payment for mattress and lay it on the ground of head as a punishment,” recalls Kizza. that residents are protected from the space where she has sex with her the ‘living room’ for my two brothers on the head, hence the Since then, this place has been armed robberies and other forms of ‘clients’. to sleep. I share the only bed in the referred to as Kikubamutwe (which crime. “Are you ready,” she asked. house with my child and mother,” name loosely translates to ‘head-hitter’). “We have been pooling resources “Sorry, I don’t have enough money,” she says. There is suspicion that the as residents of this place and putting I said. She angrily walked away. “At day break, they all walk out of hooligans, who terrorise this this money together to pay security We were seated in a little nameless the house to their jobs and leave me neighbourhood are the unemployed personnel to guard our homes and shack that doubled as a bar and behind to take care of the home.” dwellings in (that is with young men who loiter around during property, especially at night,” says lodge in Kikubamutwe, a notorious Namaso says life here would be more than two persons per room) is day. Many of them are believed to be Kizza. slum in . It was bearable “except that they are too 49% in the urban compared to 56% on drugs. Residents responded well to this midnight and life was just starting. many hooligans around”. in the rural. The living conditions of “Thousands of our young people call and indeed security had slowly Ainembabazi works in this bar as Ainembabazi and Namaso are the two women fit well into the UN- today are jobless and this has led improved. However, she remarks, this a maid by day and a prostitute by among 64% of Uganda’s slum- Habitat definition of a slum as lacking them to crime,” says Kizza. “I am good initiative is being undermined night. She is one of the many young dwelling urban population today. safe water, proper sanitation, security concerned about all this, but I by lethargy. “People are no longer women, who ply their trade in this Their shacks comprise the 64.3% of and are usually overcrowded. understand why things are like this. keen on paying this money,” she shabby slum every night. all the dwelling units in as The conditions resonates with the People don’t have money.” laments. According to Betty Kizza, the revealed by the National Household Uganda Population and Housing Frustration is written all over A cocktail of problems afflicts chairperson of Muzaana Zone, one of Survey. Taking the attribute of living Census (2002) finding that more Kikubamutwe — from the little boy Kikubamutwe, but life goes on. The the 13 zones here, prostitution is one space, the survey further shows than 70% of the dwelling units in the scouring the rubbish bin for food residents have tried, but not done of the major economic activities in that the percentage of overcrowded country are substandard — built out by the roadside to the lad sweating much. They seem to be overwhelmed.

Do you know any individual, CBO or business contributing towards improving the condition of slum dwellers in the fields of education, health and sanitation, environment protection and household incomes? Nominate them for an award. Write to the Features Editor, P.O. Box 9815 Kampala or e-mail [email protected] giving name, telephone contact of nominee and reasons for nomination. You can also nominate by SMS: Type Slum (leave space) name and telephone contact of nominee and send to 8338. All nominations should be in by Wednesday October 31, 2012