Irony of poor health, illiteracy and suffering lying between Mulago hospital and Makerere University 

A reporter once said there were flocks of houseflies on the roads of Katanga and with every step he took, the flies took off like helicopters, landing on children’s heads and food as though they were the airstrips.

You can take this as a joke until you reach the slum he spoke of. With the houses built too close to each other with little or no corridor space between them, of course there is no space left for constructing pit latrines for each household, which has resulted into faeces being disposed of anyhow by the residents.

Government came to their aid and built public toilets for which a fee of Shs 200 is charged to use. A few weeks ago, The Observer team, following a volunteering group called Precious Baba, took a walk around Katanga.

Katanga is a slum in the Wandegeya suburb, currently surrounded by nice business buildings and student hostels that it is absurd a place like this with people in these living conditions exists. The entrances to Katanga are well constructed like they lead to an urban residential area, but the tarmac runs out as soon as you take your 12th step forward.

The smell of chapati and eggs floods your nostrils from the countless rolex (chapatti roll) stands, and as you proceed, a foul smell hits the air from the drainage carrying waste all the way from Mulago through the congested slum dwellings. Some houses are actually constructed on top of these drainage channels carrying murky black water clogged with a lot of polythene bags and used diapers.

I had to walk through Katanga to the football pitch where we were to converge before starting a cleaning exercise. I could not find a path that leads directly to the football field. The houses were packed too close to each other there was hardly any space to walk through, but people were coming and going from every open space.

I asked a young boy to take me to the football field and with a big smile on his face, he led the way. I could have sworn we turned left, right, went up and down between the shacks like it was a maze, jumped horrendously dirty trenches all the while praying not to fall into one, until we finally emerged out of the maze and onto the field.

Bordered by a huge drainage channel and without a fence, I wondered how often players on this pitch have to fetch the ball from the filthy water!

The group (Precious Baba) arranged to clean Katanga in hopes of fighting malaria. They aimed to drain all stagnant water in the area, collect the non-biodegradable waste, give out a few mosquito nets and warm clothes, and also sensitize residents on how to prevent malaria.

The leader of the group, Ghana-born Precious Baba, said: “I googled which area in Africa has the highest cases of malaria. Katanga in Uganda came up first.”

She was in for a very shocking experience. Before the group commenced, the chancellor of Katanga, Sharon Kemigisha warned us against picking up the ‘flying toilets’ that surfaced in the night. The group was confused; so, she elucidated: “This is Katanga, where you can find most people’s budget is Shs 2,000 for a whole day and they cannot afford to lose even Shs 200 of that money. So, they buy food from the shops and the kavera they get as packaging is where they poop, tie it up and sling it as far as they can. So, be careful what you pick up and please wear your gloves.”

The shock on the organizers’ faces!

As we cleaned the drainage next to an old lady’s home, she was quick to report her neighbours (right in front of her house). She said: “Even if you clean, those women that live in that house always throw their faeces in buveras in that trench, because it flows through their compound and they have a gate. When you see them stepping out of that house very clean and looking beautiful, you cannot know what they hide in that house. I know they go to Makerere University. My house is always smelling like poop, but this is Katanga.”

The chancellor tried calling out the residents to bring their rubbish so that it is loaded onto the garbage truck, but none responded until she started shouting: “People have come to help us, but we cannot even help ourselves. I want all your rubbish put outside the door so that it is loaded onto the wheelbarrow and taken to the truck!”

Slowly, the residents started to deposit their bags of rubbish on their doorsteps, making its collection easier. With every collection a new garbage bag was left behind. We chanced upon a trench running with crystal-clear water and I was intrigued to see where the only clean water I had seen in Katanga was coming from.

I walked upstream and it disappeared under a house. Behind the house was the spring source, with a free-flowing pipe for residents to collect it easily. This well was put in place by a few residents, and according to one of them, the first pipe used to bring water from Mulago.

When it first got broken, or in the event of rain, the water can be a bit dirty.

“The second pipe was broken and put together again by residents and this pipe is from the ‘flush toilets’ that broke down some time back; so, we just redirected the water to here,” the resident said.

Sadly, the pipes are running next to a manhole. The residents claim to only use this water to wash clothes and mop houses, but others boldly admitted that they boil it and drink it sometimes. As we continued the journey, Precious asked why there were so many children playing and out of school on a Monday morning.

“Isn’t education free?”

I approached a group of boys playing pool and asked why they were not in school. The answers they gave were the same: no money for school, no requirements, no uniforms. So, all they do the whole day is to play and chill. They said they were pupils of Makerere University primary school, a KCCA-run, Universal Primary Education school about a kilometre away.

Parents have to buy uniforms and requirements such as books and pens/pencils. The only other school easily accessible and affordable for the Katanga children is located next to the football field. The teachers there were very shy to speak, but the children were not.

The school with no name, caters for classes from primary three down to kindergarten. The school used to be a church that was partitioned with wood to form classrooms. We walked through another path to a makeshift bridge over a wide trench and the sides of this trench were caked with waste, mostly non-biodegradable waste.

It piled and piled on the sides, one could mistake it for actual solid soil. Precious asked again: “When people here get sick, where do they go? Because I have not seen a single pharmacy or clinic.”

The residents that heard her ask laughed at her. One gentleman then replied: “There is no clinic or pharmacy in Katanga. When we fall sick we go to Mulago hospital which used to be free but nowadays they ask for kitu kidogo (something small/bribe) to see the doctor or get medicine, which kitu kidogo we don’t have.”

Precious asked, “What is kitu kidogo?” – another question that sent the residents into laughter.

The whole community has one well (the one mentioned earlier was an improvisation, and is a secret to only its makers and the people around), which was built by another volunteer in the hopes of helping the people here.

Despite the living conditions, the little children are so sharp and seem to understand the theory that nothing good comes for free. As we were sweeping the football pitch, a tiny boy was sprinting from across the field in a very big shirt that almost touched his toes. He looked like he was coming toward the group; so, everyone watched and waited for him to reach.

When he reached us, the young boy said: “Hello; give me a broom to sweep so that you can also give me water.”

I was in awe of the fact that a boy that young already knew the concept of trade. At the end of the cleaning, the group took the piles of garbage to the KCCA truck they had called for the day, and I asked the gentlemen why they never collect garbage from Katanga, which opened another can of worms.

The cleaners said, “We have been working for over five months now without pay. We don’t know who our bosses are; so, we do not know who to go to, to complain. As you can see our coveralls are all torn, we have no safety equipment for cleaning and Katanga is a very dirty place. We need gloves and boots, but we have none. Even now as you can see we are barehanded as we collect the rubbish. When we go to the district to ask for our salary, they want to kill us and they bring men with guns,” one of them said.

Well, there are many problems troubling our nation, but it gives hope when people look out for one another like Precious Baba and her group have done. There was a lot of joy on the residents’ faces when they received the mosquito nets, sanitary towels, clothes and shoes, among others.

And if you are part of ‘the haves’ that are stealing taxes and money for services meant for the ‘have-nots’, hope you enjoyed the tour of how the other Ugandans survive in their country.

ashleymwesigye@gmail.com