Here is why all Nkuba Kyeyo should come back home
IMMIGRANTS living outside Uganda send home sums of money annually to support families and relatives here, fund projects and educate young ones. Some spend time with their loved ones during annual celebrations like Idi Mubarak, Christmas or Easter.
IMMIGRANTS living outside Uganda send home sums of money annually to support families and relatives here, fund projects and educate young ones. Some spend time with their loved ones during annual celebrations like Idi Mubarak, Christmas or Easter.
People living outside Uganda are known as the Nkuba Kyeyos. The reality of life outside Uganda is far from album pictures and Facebook profiles. You are forced to compromise your values, dimensions and vitalities to afford a living.
Girls and women are swayed with free tickets and accommodation into Dubai, Tokyo, and Johannesburg for jobs and big pay. When they get there, they are lured into prostitution.
Daniel was a social science graduate from Makerere University who arrived in my apartment at Ponte City (Berea – Johannesburg) in 1996 with little more than changing clothes, a pair of shoes, and a handful of toiletries. It did not take me long to convince him that the easiest job he could do was to be a waiter in a restaurant, a bar tender or security guard. We started working at the same restaurant in a Rosebank Hotel, Johannesburg near Sandton.
A Ugandan lawyer in Pitoli (Pretoria) was told that she could only practise law after studying Dutch law which works in South Africa. Soon she became a professional babysitter.
By then you are detached from your family and relatives in Uganda and yet you have to send them money, no matter where it comes from.
In the name of survival we have the famous “Ugandan architects†on Esselyn Street of Hillbrow, e Goli (Johannesburg) changing fake dollars, stolen cars, passports and cashing fake cheques.
They are the hawkers along Upton Lane in East London connecting would-be spouses to those that want to get citizenship, work permits in the UK and sellers of kabalagala (pancakes), kanzus, gomesis and bitenge in Waltham and Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Many are forced to compromise and settle for ‘arranged’ marriages. And, it is worse for women. They are forced into fake marriage relationships in order to be allowed to stay in a foreign country.
They endure harsh weather, work awkward hours and sleep in unacceptable living conditions. One room in Croydon, Britain, which was raided by Police in London on a fateful Monday, had 10 men from three nations: Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda, living in it. Two Ugandans were sent back home in the next three months.
They do not just live with fear of being deported. Those with semi-skilled education have done nothing to improve their literacy skills. London’s car washers and sweepers in supermarkets vow to only come home for retirement or for burial if affordable.
Do not get me wrong. There is a small group that has gone there to further their education and return home or those sent by the Government for private work. Some are pastors in ministry, but these account for a small number. A person that left Uganda in the 1980s still thinks there is one university by 2010.
Uganda has indeed moved — thanks to God over two decades of stability and peace. They also face the problem of relatives who steal the money they send home for investment.
Amid this quagmire, Ugandans abroad love it when a fellow Ugandan visits them — could be the President or his agents, kings, or local Ugandan artistes. The example of Uganda North American Association events that run annually is only “a drop in the oceanâ€. They welcome high profile visitors especially those that come for a short stay.
I had never seen the sense of unity we had as Ugandans when the Queen of Buganda visited her former American State of Texas in 2005. We were all united as Ugandans, regardless of tribe. It is unfortunate that at home, people are divided along regional, tribal or family lines.
The racism that eats up Western nations and South Africa is what we adapt as tribalism in Uganda. I often ask myself: “Will there ever be a time when we can unite as Ugandans and fight this vice of tribalism like the nkuba kyeyos?â€
I have a dream of launching the long awaited Diaspora Support and Settlement Association (DSSA). This is a registered NGO that will help nkuba kyeyos who return home to resettle. We want people to be able to utilise their potential at home rather than live like 21st Century slaves to masters overseas.
People who have turned the prosperity gospel in churches into visa prayers should know that a person who goes abroad has to be ready to compromise their social status or religious values to make a living.
So, after 13 years of living away from home, in 10 countries within Africa and beyond, I have decided to pursue my dream career to be a medical doctor, to serve my nation.
I am now in my fourth year at medical school at Kampala International University.
The writer is a student of medicine at KIU
People living outside Uganda are known as the Nkuba Kyeyos. The reality of life outside Uganda is far from album pictures and Facebook profiles. You are forced to compromise your values, dimensions and vitalities to afford a living.
Girls and women are swayed with free tickets and accommodation into Dubai, Tokyo, and Johannesburg for jobs and big pay. When they get there, they are lured into prostitution.
Daniel was a social science graduate from Makerere University who arrived in my apartment at Ponte City (Berea – Johannesburg) in 1996 with little more than changing clothes, a pair of shoes, and a handful of toiletries. It did not take me long to convince him that the easiest job he could do was to be a waiter in a restaurant, a bar tender or security guard. We started working at the same restaurant in a Rosebank Hotel, Johannesburg near Sandton.
A Ugandan lawyer in Pitoli (Pretoria) was told that she could only practise law after studying Dutch law which works in South Africa. Soon she became a professional babysitter.
By then you are detached from your family and relatives in Uganda and yet you have to send them money, no matter where it comes from.
In the name of survival we have the famous “Ugandan architects†on Esselyn Street of Hillbrow, e Goli (Johannesburg) changing fake dollars, stolen cars, passports and cashing fake cheques.
They are the hawkers along Upton Lane in East London connecting would-be spouses to those that want to get citizenship, work permits in the UK and sellers of kabalagala (pancakes), kanzus, gomesis and bitenge in Waltham and Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Many are forced to compromise and settle for ‘arranged’ marriages. And, it is worse for women. They are forced into fake marriage relationships in order to be allowed to stay in a foreign country.
They endure harsh weather, work awkward hours and sleep in unacceptable living conditions. One room in Croydon, Britain, which was raided by Police in London on a fateful Monday, had 10 men from three nations: Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda, living in it. Two Ugandans were sent back home in the next three months.
They do not just live with fear of being deported. Those with semi-skilled education have done nothing to improve their literacy skills. London’s car washers and sweepers in supermarkets vow to only come home for retirement or for burial if affordable.
Do not get me wrong. There is a small group that has gone there to further their education and return home or those sent by the Government for private work. Some are pastors in ministry, but these account for a small number. A person that left Uganda in the 1980s still thinks there is one university by 2010.
Uganda has indeed moved — thanks to God over two decades of stability and peace. They also face the problem of relatives who steal the money they send home for investment.
Amid this quagmire, Ugandans abroad love it when a fellow Ugandan visits them — could be the President or his agents, kings, or local Ugandan artistes. The example of Uganda North American Association events that run annually is only “a drop in the oceanâ€. They welcome high profile visitors especially those that come for a short stay.
I had never seen the sense of unity we had as Ugandans when the Queen of Buganda visited her former American State of Texas in 2005. We were all united as Ugandans, regardless of tribe. It is unfortunate that at home, people are divided along regional, tribal or family lines.
The racism that eats up Western nations and South Africa is what we adapt as tribalism in Uganda. I often ask myself: “Will there ever be a time when we can unite as Ugandans and fight this vice of tribalism like the nkuba kyeyos?â€
I have a dream of launching the long awaited Diaspora Support and Settlement Association (DSSA). This is a registered NGO that will help nkuba kyeyos who return home to resettle. We want people to be able to utilise their potential at home rather than live like 21st Century slaves to masters overseas.
People who have turned the prosperity gospel in churches into visa prayers should know that a person who goes abroad has to be ready to compromise their social status or religious values to make a living.
So, after 13 years of living away from home, in 10 countries within Africa and beyond, I have decided to pursue my dream career to be a medical doctor, to serve my nation.
I am now in my fourth year at medical school at Kampala International University.
The writer is a student of medicine at KIU