A tale of pain at the hands of a dad

Nov 14, 2016

Dad is very quarrelsome. I have had to disappear from him sometimes. One time he misplaced his shoe and he abused me the whole day

Eight-year old Amina Jane Nakasango is not a lucky child. As her friends talk about the comfort of sleeping on nice beds, in good houses, Nakasango cannot share her experience with them.

She sleeps on a street verandah floor, next to her father, with a black polyethylene sheet for a blanket and vehicles on the road flashing lights at them. Nakasango and her dad sleep on the verandah of GTZ building on Jinja Road, near New Vision stage.

This has been her life since 2012 and this is her story.

Every day I wake up at dawn and get the things that we have slept on out of the way. If dad has defecated, I remove the polyethylene bag that contains the excreta and throw it into a KCCA dustbin by the road.

If we have some water, we wash our faces and drink some of it. I then go to school at Mbuya COU Primary School, where I am in P.1.

Dad cannot transport me to school because he is disabled.

Instead, I have to push him in his wheelchair, from GTZ building, Lugogo, where we sleep. Dad fetches me from school at 4:00pm then we go to the roadside to beg for money.

I push him around the city streets every day. When we reach a slope, dad puts me on the wheel chair and we roll down together.

He told me that my mum is Nasim Namulondo. She stays in Iganga where dad picked me from and brought me to Kampala.

When it rains during the night, we wake up and stand on the verandah. But sometimes we still get wet, especially when it is stormy.

When we have made some money, dad sometimes sends me to the streets to get for him sex workers. Then I have to leave them and sit at the bus shed at the New Vision stage. sometimes, I stay in the bus shed throughout the night.

Other times, dad sends me to Nakawa to buy soda on foot.

Dad stole me

I was staying with my mother and grandmother when one day, while playing with my siblings, a man came looking for me. He said he was my dad and took me to my other grandmother, who seemed to be his mother, also in Iganga.

My mother was not home when dad brought me, so she started looking for me. When dad found out that she was looking for me, he brought me to Kampala.

He started buying for me boys' clothes because he did not want people to know that I was a girl. But now I put on girls' clothes.

Our daily menu is chapatti and water. Once in a while, if we have to eat food, we go to Kataza in Bugolobi where it is cheap. A plate of posho and beans is at sh1,500. At sh3,000, we can have beef, although this is rare.

My dad

Dad is very quarrelsome. I have had to disappear from him sometimes. One time he misplaced his shoe and he abused me the whole day. I ran away from him and he looked for me, pretending to be caring.

When I returned, he pushed in anger and I fell on the tarmac road and got bruises. He also beat me up and threatened to strangle me.

Dad gets some good money, enough for us to rent a room. There is even a Mzungu who gives us sh50,000 and sometimes sh70,000. But he spends it on sex-workers, whom he pays sh5,000 for a night.

He never gives me money for school, porridge and uniform. He also refused to give me sh8,000 that the school asked for the exams. I was just lucky that one of my teachers paid it for me.

Dad may be lame, but he is not very helpless. He acts destitute to attract sympathy.

I want to return

I want to go back to my mother, but I do not know where home is. I beseech my mother, Nasim Namulondo of Iganga, to come for me because I am tired of these conditions. I miss my siblings.

Right now, I have escaped from dad and I am sleeping on the streets. I ran away after he beat me and said that I am only fit to work as a sex-worker in a bar.

After eating chapati for our supper that day, he asked me to take the rubbish to the dustbin. I used that opportunity to escape.

 eople say asanga does not really need a wheelchair People say Kasanga does not really need a wheelchair.

 

I know he is looking for me and he has been everywhere, but I do not want to see him. He has a picture that he took with me that he shows people and asks them if they have seen me.

There are some ladies, among them Aunt Matha and Jane, who took care of me the first time I ran away from dad. I request them to come for me, if possible, because they took good care of me.

They gave me nice shoes and dresses, but dad abused them and took me from them."

Fierce kasango

A few days after her story run in Bukedde, Nakasango was again seen pushing her dad on Jinja Road, near Spear Motors.

It is likely that he eventually found her and took her back to the same old routine.

Musa Kasango, Nakasango's father, is a very fiery man, quarrelsome and vulgar. Those who know him say he was not born lame, but fell from a building at Lugogo, where he was working as a mason and broke his leg.

From then on, he started walking with a stick.

They say he can actually walk well with the stick, but he opted to use a wheel chair, to attract sympathy and subsequently get money from people.

"I am a no nonsense man although I am lame. My most trusted weapon is a stone. I will follow up that young man who took my pictures and beat him up," he said as he vowed to take revenge on the journalists.

However, they say Kasango's most trusted weapon is a mysterious stick, which he keeps in his small bag and uses to recite Islamic prayers. It is this stick that he has boasted about as a weapon for fighting his battles.

According to Nakasango, her father always has some good money on him, with which he buys airtime and medicine. She says he rents a house in Iganga, which is full of property. On some occasions he goes there.

The house is currently under the care of the landlord.

What the Police say

A Police source who preferred anonymity said when the story of Kasango and his daughter came out in Bukedde, Police tried to follow up the matter and opened a file to that effect.

Meanwhile, some concerned bodaboda riders grabbed the girl from Kasango and took her to a children's home in Kawempe for safety.

Kasango somehow found out where she was and stormed the children's home and insulted the social workers.

He later reported a case of on the theft of his daughter, alleging that she had been kidnapped from his home in Kataza, near Luzira.

The source said they were considering sending Kasango's file to the State Attorney to advise on a way forward.

The girl could subsequently be rescued from Kasango and if he confronted the Police, he would be arrested and charged.

The Kampala Metropolitan Spokesperson, SSP Emiliano Kayima, said the Police at Jinja Road should investigate to ascertain whether Kasango is really lame.

If he is faking it and is mentally stable, he should be arrested.

The girl can then be rescued and helped in accordance with the law.

This story was first published in Bukedde, New Vision's Luganda sister newspaper and was translated by Mathias Mazinga

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