Child Sacrifice in UG - The Narrow Road: Rose's Journey

There were stories when I was growing of strangers kidnapping people and cutting off their tongues to be used as ingredients in concortions used as cures in withcraft. Once in the late 80s, my grandmother and I visited my uncle in boarding school. We were offered a ride back into town by a stranger. My grandmother was quiet all the way till we got out, at what point she thanked the man sana for the ride. When we got home, she told my mum that she was worried because she thought the stranger was after our tongues. That was funny at the moment. So was the other time when she was in a bus and she heard a fellow passenger talk about how someone or other had taken her 'jini'. When she kujad home, she narrated how she had traveled in the same bus with a person who kept genies. My mum explained that the said person was probably referring to jeans-like a jeans jacket, skirt, or pair of trousers. That, too, was funny. I've also heard stuff about people sacrificing others to the devil to get rich. Devil worship in short. Scary, though I doubt the devil could ever make anyone rich.

When I got to Kampala at the end of October last year, stories of human sacrifice were not too uncommon in the papers. Especially child sacrifice. At first I thought it was all tabloid news (to date Bukedde, a paper in the local language has pictures of dead, sometimes mutilated, bodies on the front page karibu kila siku). Halafu I started seeing them in the main newspapers and TV. Scary stuff. Then I went to Church at Namirembe cathedral one Sunday in Februray, and during sermon the priest advised folks not to let their kids go to school early in the morning when it was still dark,and to always escort them to school coz that when the butchers were on the lookout. Meanwhile, the stories coming from TZ were of albinos being sacrificed.
The first people I asked about child sacrifice here, told me that mostly it is kids who are sacrificed, virgins at that. So I felt safe-plus I have some skin pigmentation which to me meant I was even less desirable for the gods. Someone mentioned that if you have a baby boy, it may help to circumcise him, and for a girl, to pierce her ears. Then one day I somad in one of the main papers again that someone had been beaten to death by a mob juu he had taken a boda boda ride at night, only to turn on the boda boda driver guy and mutilate his body for sacrifice. That shtuad me kiasi juu I thought only kids got sacrificed.
I don't exactly like it (sometimes I get amused) when people show up in my country and talk about the issues there like 'experts', so hopefully I'm not coming off as expertish here. Rather, just telling it from my perspective.
Here is a story on child sacrifice in Uganda, and probable causes. And Rose, a person whose refusal to take part in the ritual led her to her Irish parents (few details availed), and is retracing the steps she took back in 89. All 52 km. (Thanks FaceBook friend!)

NSE from K’LA - IS THERE AN EASIER WAY?

I burned my fingers with the Safaricom IPO, but I’ve been investing more in the NSE lately. The past couple months have not been that bad, but one downside is that the Kenya Shilling has appreciated quite significantly against the Uganda shilling, so I lose money even before I put in my order-1 UGX was roughly equivalent to Ksh 24 when I came here last October, but now it’s trading in the neighbourhood of Ksh 28.5. Maybe I should start exporting stuff to Kenya. Apparently the dollar has appreciated upwards of 34% since last September.

But here's how I do it:
-Go to ATM, get the money
-Go to FOREX bureau, buy Ksh
-Go to broker’s bank, deposit Ksh
-Go to broker’s office, fill out an order form or several, depending on how many different stocks I’m keen on buying
-Wait (I’m advised to call 36 hours later)
-Sometimes I’ll get an email from broker; sometimes I won’t, so I call the next day, or pass by on my way to work.
-Get the statement at broker’s office or receive an email with it. I’m still waiting for an email on how to get my statements online

I haven’t sold anything but I think the process may be easier, probably just a call, but I imagine I’d have to go and sign a form again.
What makes it hard is that banks don’t open till 8:30 am, and I need to be at work at 8am. At lunch, the queue is usually quite long (it’s Stanbic Bank, I think it has the largest piece of the pie in Kampala), and the service extremely, annoyingly slow. Whereas I could send someone else who is not too busy in the office and pay them a small fee, plus their boda boda fare, it’s not like I naturally trust people with my money that easily. I end up spreading all the errands over a few lunch hours (days), during which time the NSE is not static.
Compare this with trading on the NYSE/NASDAQ- open an account, transfer money online, put in orders and trade online any time you wish; no phone calls, no queuing up in banks, no paper filling up paper forms, and movement only on the computer keyboard.

Does anyone know of an easier way out there? Let me know, tafadhali.

Honest Scrap

This post is long over-due. Thanks Maua for tagging me on the on-going Honest Scrap Awards.I deserved it.

The Rules:
1.You must brag about the award
2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger
3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
4.Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.
5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on with the instructions!

Honest Crap (or not) About PKW

1. I love my family very much. Especially my mother, sister, brother, and now my niece and nephew, brother-in-law and sister-in-law; in no particular order. My father is a very kind and good person, and I don't dislike him at all.
2. But I have never told anyone in my family that I love them. The one time my mother told me that she loves me, indeed loves all her children very much, was when I told her that she loved my sister more than me. That was the one of those times she couldn't stop praising my sister and saying how much they (my mother and sister) looked alike.
3.I chose my blog identity when I stumbled upon Kumekucha at a time they were doing a lot of Kikuyu-bashing. But I've never blogged about my pride as a Kikuyu
4. However, I think everyone should be free to take pride in whatever they identity with, tribe being one. That's why I'd never join 'I have no Tribe' because I have one, and I mean well.Otherwise, at one point it will be trendy to have no religion, sexual orientation,race, gender,nationality/national origin, language....whatever it is that people have wrongly used to discriminate against others. It'd not be true, and I think a homogeneous world would be pretty boring.I never feel offended when people ask me what my last name is, what part of Kenya I come from, what my mother tongue is, or even more directly, what my tribe is.But I personally know it's not politically correct any more to ask other people, especially Kenyans, any of those questions, so I don't. I'm OK with your Western name if that makes you more Kenyan.
5. I prefer to remain anonymous to the extent that it is possible. I once worried that at work, people were aware that I was PKW.
6. Therefore, I have met only one person in blog world in person-a Kumekucha contributor. I intend to keep it that way.
7. If I ever need my alarm, I set it to go off about 15 minutes before I actually need to get out of bed juu I like to wake up moss moss.
8. I used to read a lot, but not much these days.
9. I don't want to be fat any more and have made peace with the size of my kabina (tanye in Luganda).
10.I work in what some would call the 'international development industry'. Problem is, it's starting to look like, well, just another industry at best, a conspiracy at worst. I promise to blog about my views once I'm not too emotional about it.

Most of these taggees have more important stuff to blog about. But I tag:

Tumwijuke
Chris of Kumekucha
Mrembo
Ssembonge
Shiko-Msa
Vikii of Kumekucha
ColdTusker

MUNGIKI AND MUKINGO WIN ANOTHER ROUND

MUKINGO (UKIMWI)

Ngai, this past or so has been crazy. My cuzo M has been HIV+ for some time. I feel close to M because we were in high school at the same time, and would always hang out during the holidays, and he had a sense of humour that I really enjoyed. He’s been + for at least 2 years, but in denial for the most part. In fact, I doubt he has acknowledged his situation, and what I know is from my relatives. M has been getting quite sick and may be going downhill already. I haven’t seen him since getting back in September last year (my bad) but we’ve been talking on the phone quite often. He kinda feels lonely and deserted. So on Saturday 11th April (Easter weekend) I called my mum and told her that M feels lonely, she needs visit him etc etc. At that point she told me that even his sister is really sick. Where, I asked? Same disease. The following day, mum called to say that S, the sister, had passed away. Her body was laid to rest on Saturday the 18th. I wasn’t really close to her since she married a widower (connect the dots) when she was really young so we had no time together. But still—-it made me think how short –and difficult-her life was. She was 28.


MUNGIKI

Now that M is sick and I’ve been thinking of all the few years we shared growing up, I’ve been finding myself thinking about my late cousin named M as well. Agikuyu (Kikuyus) name all the first sons after the husband’s father, and among all my grandmother’s 12 kids, only the boys (5 of them) lived to be old enough to have kids. So we have a lot of Ms. My brother is the 5th M. The sick M is the third one, and the late M was the fourth one. He was a year ahead of me in high school, and we shared similar ambitions. We were so close that after he had passed away, my mum told me that when we were in high school, she always worried that we may ‘get married’ (read have sex). M didn’t actually pass away- he was brutally murdered by the Mungiki on the night/morning of 6th January 2003 when they terrorized Nakuru. He was 27, married with 2 kids, and lots of aspirations.
I was raised in a village in Nyeri, but we moved to Nyandarua the year I went college. I feel a bigger sense of belonging to my Nyeri village than the Nyandarua one, partly because I’ve never spent more than a month in our Nyandarua one. But that’s where my mum now lives. Mum called me this morning saying she wanted to go Nyeri because “andu ni moragirwo muno” –people have been killed too much. What, I ask? It’s the Mungiki. Mum told me that they killed M the son of G, his brother M, W the son of N, and even T the father of W, and W himself. Even K, a boy whose mother married by neighbour when K was about 4. He finished form four last year. W the son of N was in the same class as my young uncle who is two years older than me, and was married to P, my standard six best friends. Basically, all are family friends. My uncle J is moving to Nairobi to stay with my uncle K for a while.Not sure where my aunt and her young son will sleep tonight. You can read the story here and some a bit here.

I am devastated, my tribal pride hurt. Death, your sting hurts bad.

Mob Justice

Yesterday I forgot my phone in the office, so I had to come get it just in case. Took a matatu to Wandegeya and was walking towards the office when I saw a crowd gathered around a shop on the road that goes to Mulago Hospital. On drawing closer, I could hear a lady screaming, so I went all the way to the front. Inside the shop was one mama with a thick stick hitting another mama who was screaming and begging, occasionally getting onto her knees. My Luganda is still a work in progress so I couldn’t tell what she was saying. At first I thought they were fighting over a man. The mama with the stick was undressing her so that one of her boobs was hanging out as she (the stick-holder) struggled to get the other mama’s skirt off. From what I could tel, some people were saying ‘don’t undress her’, while others were shouting ‘undress here!’ There was also a man standing guard at the entrance so no one could actually go in and help. From what I could gather, the lady-in-beating had stolen lots of money; in fact the stick-holding one was waving several wallets in the air, opening some and asking if she was the one in the pictures inside? Anyway, I felt sorry for the poor mama who had allegedly stolen and was now being publicly humiliated. So I requested them ‘muyitire polisi bambi’ (call the police for her, please), as were some two other men beside me. They responded that she has stolen too much and the police will do nothing, really. So ask, ‘sente meka-how much money? I can pay and you let her go with me?’ while attempting to go in and grab her arm. The dude standing by the entrance pushed me out, asking me if I know here and informing me that she has stolen far too many times. When the mama-in-beating saw I was kinda trying to help, she was like ‘nyambako bambi’-help me please. Then one dude behind me asked me ’how much do you have? She has stolen about 500,000’. Like we could bargain. Not that I walk around Ksh 20K in my wallet, but even I doubted the guy was the one she stole from. Anyway, I got out of the crowd, asked a boda boda guy how far the police station is, and he offered to take me there for UGX 1,000. It was like 2 minutes away. I get to the police station, tell the story, and after a bit of arguing among the officers on who should go (“I’m not in uniform”. “It doesn’t matter you can just take a gun” etc etc) the uniformed officer I was talking to asked me to get boda bodas to take us to the scene. So I go out and call 2 boda boda drivers, but then officer changes his mind and decides we are better off walking. We get there, they take the mama, and the wallets, and me, I proceed to the office, log onto face-book, only to find a Nairobi magistrate has lost his life to mob justice in a case of mistaken car identity.

Scared Kidogo: I was Rude to a 'Big Person'

I'm not sure why the phones keep getting directed to my desk instead of the reception. So I've been having to run other errands like transferring the calls, giving messages etc, which has been a little annoying. I've stalked to the relevant people for some time now but it hasn't been fixed. So this morning the phone rings:
PKW: Yes?
Other: Eish, is that XYZ (the project manager)
PKW: No, it's PKW. Not sure why but the calls are coming here instead of other people's offices. Has been happening for some time
Other: Anti you people fix your phone
PKW: I don't work on phones
Other: But since it's your office...
PKW: I just don't like how I get distracted from my job all the time.
Other: Are you a staff of...? (It's a project with several partners, and at this point I figure out she is from the main partner)
PKW: No
Other: What's your name?
PKW: PKW
Other: And you work with which partner?
PKW: Let me tell XYZ to call you back, OK?
{I hang up}
Then tell XYZ to call his main office, realizing that I didn't even get the caller's name.
I'm now a little worried because I think it's the second highest office holder on XYZ's partner organization in UG. And knowing just how much 'Big People' are feared around here, hope I've not just made a big mess. I feel like not answering the phone for some time today.

MTN MobileMoney, Nakumatt Oasis na Kadhalika

Mobile Money
MTN, the mobile network with the largest market share in Uganda started offering mobile money transfers modelled exactly like Safaricom's M-pesa a month or so ago.Called MTN MobileMoney-Go send Money Now Now-I like they used that Luganda-ish phrase-people often say now now, directly translated from kati kati-right away.
Just like M-Pesa may have made it difficult for some people to instantly switch to Zain despite the Vuka tarriff in Kenya, I think MTN MobileMoney will make people stick to MTN.
I'm an MTN Mteja, for the mere fact that it looked more popular than Zain, Warid, UTL, and Orange when I came in.Additionally, most of my contacts at home are on Safaricom and I'd only get local rates -UGX 2000/day (about one USD) when I'm calling Zain-Zain only. I only know 2 people on the orange network in Kenya, so didn't even check them out. Plus I can call Safaricom in Kenya from my Safaricom line for 10/= flat...Only thing I don't uderstand is how MTN discounts their MTN-MTN calls; it could be 0% discount one moment and jump to 60% once you're done talking.

Oh well, too bad multi-currency, cross-border mobile money transfer is still a dream. If Zain introduced Zap regionally, forget number importability, I think I'd move ASAP. Or if Yu in Kenya sold to MTN, as per one Kahenya, and the mobile money thing went cross-border.

Nakumatt Oasis
It's set to open on April 9th at (or is it next to?) Garden City, if all goes according to plan.Some major competition to Uchumi next door, no doubt. Garden city is where the life-style shopper goes.

Moving out, and on
I moved into a nicer apartment the last weekend of March. Not the one I'd talked about in some earlier post. I'll have to do a whole post on it. Bad thing is that my commute is longer. Matatus go to the New Taxi park, which gets real muddy when it rains. Was not planning on getting a car this year, we'll see how that goes as it gets wetter.

Easter Plans, Scenic Uganda, Triathlon
Had talked with Tumwijuke about a possible Murchinson Falls Park visit, but due to some 'complications', may end up at Bujagali Falls. Uganda is v. beautiful, and the people nicer than the Kenyans, I feel. I went rafting on the Nile on Valentines Day weekend, and participated at the Entebbe Triathlon a couple weeks ago by cheering on a couple colleagues that are more athletic than I. Gorilla viewing at Bwindi is too expensive-close to $500. Not willing to part with that much. But paycheck allowing, and God-willing I wish to see more of this beautiful country.