HELLO ME

I am learning that my personal space is very important if not mandatory.

Often times we get caught up in the crowd and find ourselves losing touch with who we are. So you step outside the crowd and find your true self...work on finding what makes you you, your intricacies and all the gold that makes you glitter.

I have found me in the pages of books, in solitude,in silent nights where only me and my true intricacies meet.

I have loved me, I have faulted myself. I have cried and I have broken all the walls of strong and built them back and yes, In silence I put myself back together.

I learned the beauty of being alone, the beauty of following your song and of singing that song. In the busy of being who we adore or who we are not, there is a true us that springs from falling away from the cut out path.

I am learning what growing really looks like, appreciating how different people’s journeys are and how unique everyone story is, yet I also acknowledge that the story of self, is one to be ventured into and told.

Tell your stroy so that you might find your face, Tell it so that you can face those hard to indulge emotions. Face your truths and wear them like war masks, for the battle to find self is worth it.

In my silence, I learned that; I was resilient in my love, strong in my afflictions...sometimes too strong, exhaustive in my emotions, I learned to live all the emotions as they come, no bottling. And most of all, I learned to love me...more fiercely. In those alone moments I learned that I am enough maybe more resoundingly more than enough.

I learned to trust my gut even when U might make mistakes, they are lessons I am willing to learn. I learned to let my light shine, there is always someone in the dark. I learned to be me...unapologetically.

I hope you find you,

I hope you love you,

And I hope you overflow, for others to bequeath your love too.

AFTER A WHILE

After a while you learn
After a while you understand

After a while you learn to let go
After a while you learn that to walk away was always better than to stay

After a while you understand that love is not enough
After a while you understand that you were never the one.

So pick your bruised self and start to heal
Get up from the wallows of your tears and start to live
Redeem yourself from the grip that once held you captive

For in the while, you heal
In the while,you grow
In the while you learn to love yet again.

On Uganda

If in the ever changing system of governance I was given the powers to weild change and cause a shift in the social and economical development of this land; I would in three ways wish to uplift this land, not in negation of the other areas but in hope that development in these key areas would and can cause major transformation for our country and still cause sustainable development in the long run

Language
It has been said and it is still said; That no Nation can develop in a foreign language. And over time countries that have gained great development have done so in their native languages and have surpassed the cut out trends for development. For example one of the reasons that helped the Asian tigers to develop was their language and all development was conducted in a language particular to their Nation. Therefore I would work on enforcing a unifying language,one chosen by the people and spoken widely. While every tribe will have the liberty of keeping their native language, they will be oriented on using the unifying language as the official language of this land.So we have an inclusive dialogue among each other.

Education
I would do a revision of the available syllabus and work towards practical subjects and towards an education that encompasses the nature of country that we are, digs deep into the African, East African and Uganda issues of the past,present and possible future.
I would invest in hands on skilling, in technical institutes through equipping them with the necessary tools and spaces to provide adequate training of students in their custody.

I would also invest in free education,bent towards scholarships and grants for outstanding performers and underprivileged but intelligent students. I would also invest in research hubs for university students to help them invest in knowledge development other than knowledge consumption.

In the first two solutions,my target or rather end goal would be to harness human capital,to create a people that are proud of their heritage and know their history. To equally create a people that are greatly skilled to create jobs and increase on the job market of this Country.

Industrialization and urbanization
In urbanization I would invest in rural electrification and industrialization. I would push for industrial hubs to be created it of the CBD and have good road works to help increase on the accessibility of goods and services to the end users.
      
I would invest in a tube/subway system to reduce on time wasted on the jammed up roads leading to different industrial hubs.And in that way deal with the number of vehicles that access the Central Business District.

I would invest in Buy Uganda Build Uganda companies owned by Ugandans and also reduce on the goods imported into the country.

I would push for agricultural industrialization and work towards providing markets for value added food stuffs I order to push the farmers to improve on the end products and in the long run,increase their earnings of the increased value of produce from the country.

In conclusion, it is only a dream until some one takes the mantle to run with it and bring it into fruition. What our leaders lack mostly is the patriotism that they should have as servants of this land. There is little that is impossible in a society that has leaders that are for the land and not for the money.

So we dream on, we dream that in investing in these areas we will have a people for the land and a people with the desire to better improve their mother land. We will have better educated women and ready to serve their land. But until that day,may the children dream of a better land.

For God and My Country.

Of Bobi wine and Virtual concerts

In the wake of Facebook live and many other ways to get the people to watch the Nation progress, In the wake of Virtual Private Networks and every other way to get the people to connect. I am of the view that Bobi wine can host a watch party on Facebook live and then make a breakthrough even in countries far and beyond.

A mini concert right after his Kyarenga concert (If it ever happens on the 9th of November),right in his compound in Magere or at Busabala would be a very great way to share his music,politics and love globally. I am borrowing this from Afrie. Afrie held a Facebook live concert,one of it’s kind, new,fresh and for a very long time will be a great imprint on her music career.

I am for a change in dynamics, a new thing would do us good and guess what, UCC will have another challenge to face in the ever dynamic world of the young people today.
I am pretty sure many news networks will be able to share this live stream of the concert. We have an icon in Bobi wine.

Someone sell this idea to Mr.Kyagulanyi.

It's how the light gets in

Many times life brings us to places where our resolve,  vulnerability and abilities are put to the forefront.  I know that vulnerability is rare because the world is teaching everyone to be strong,  keep our heads up and to always have it together most of the time. 

But I  have also seen the consequences of refusing to embrace vulnerability...a hardened heart, a numbness  that becomes familiar to us in many ways.  I know so because I have been there. 

He was tall, everyone said,  we should meet each other long before they could find out that we did meet before they could put us together.  I loved him enough to go out with him and a long the way...came the realization that he was emotionally unavailable... scarred and scared to be in a relationship. It felt like an excuse until I  found out his story.

He had been fooled not once but twice,  a lady held a baby in her womb that wasn't his but made him take care of it until on the delivery bed,  when he met face to face with the real father of the Child,  he thought he sired... As he told the story,  I lived his pain.  And here we were...in love yet one of us couldn't give the best of his life because somewhat, the hurt still lingered. 

And I bade him goodbye eventually and for the very first time... I felt my heart break. 

And as sure as broken hearts heals,  so do we find love again.  I did grow out if the ache,  I lived numb but alive.  I survived most times and in moments I never thought of, Love found me. 

He was (for lack of a better word)  Out of his league, me his friend of many years,  not looking to date... Him most probably looking for a fling to wade through.  And there he was playing with the fire that I am. We eventually found middle ground,  I loved him if I am to speak for myself and for the most part of it I think I was guilty of the adagae that he would loves the most hurts the most.  And in all the love that he gave me... I gave double. 

I have been accused of loving too much,  but my argument is love is a mastery of everything that you are and if you cannot give your all,  how then do you hope to make love abide in you? 

He was so much my soul mate because he mirrored the flaws and dynamites that made me me.  In him,  I saw my very self  and I found pieces of me that where hidden. 

He taught me to love myself and to find beauty in my chaos.  He spoke to me in the highest accord of intellect... Awoke my brain to discourse unimaginable and then one day he was gone...

I waited for him to be back,  I yearned to bask in the familiarity of his arms but there was only an ache at the other end.

I feared for my heart again,  I stayed awake many nights praying for this heart not to break. 

I prayed not to break apart and on one lone night after many nights of dreading,  I resolved that if I was to break,  I would feel it with the intestity  that I had loved him.  I have come to learn that to find your soul mate doesn't necessarily mean that you will end up with them... Often times,  it is too painful.  Soul mates serve a purpose for a time. ( I didn't know that then) 

But on that lone night,  I let him go. I stopped waiting,  I stopped hoping that he would be back,  his purpose in my life was over.  And that is when I broke open. 

I felt the heart break,  embraced it,  went through it,  cried,  wallowed,  nursed the ache,  wished it would end,  had a pity party for myself and just when I thought that this life would end,  I found the light break through. I saw myself rise from the pain,  the scorn,  the obsession with losing love. 

When I look back on the purpose of these two men,  the former took me through a phase of numbness even after I went through the heart break.  I stop to cry,  I stopped to feel and no amount of pain gave me an opening to feel.  The years died away blunt and dark and yet I lived. 

The former taught me how to love me right back to restoration,  in him leaving,  he gave me back my ability to be anything that I wanted to be. He gave me back myself and like a thread untangled from a cloth,  I felt myself unravel into a version of me that I have waited to meet. 

Talk about "a fall in the pit and a gain in the wit"

So here I am,  learning that we break sometimes  or even many times  but it is in our brokenness that the light gets in.  And this light makes way into our beings and restores us back.  It is in our dark moments that the sun shines brightest because we need the light to find us and bring us back redemption for the broken pieces we hold. 

God bless the broken roads of our lives,  they have led us straight into beautiful ends.  

GRIEF HAS A FACE

There is something about grief that makes me humble.
Humble to the reality that it is a mater of time before all this fades away into a distant memory.

Grief re-echoes my limitations my fears and my vulnerabilities. In the quiet of my pain, I wary and worry for the impending future. I then hope to find peace within for what is yet to come.
I wonder if the dead have it easier, if only they would tell us. I ache with the pain of knowing that this life makes it impossible to go the long stretch  without re-sounding the bells of pain and fear, heartache and grief.

So I sit here, caught in my grief, captured ever so to what is unknown to me.
When will the darkness lift? If it lifts how do I pick up my cage and rebuild new walls? Do I just go on with my grief hanging around my sleeve? Will this pain ever be redeemed? Will loving another soul change the story? For I know the tale keeps on, the cycle doesn't change.

So I grieve and carry my heart open. I grieve and let the tears flow. I let the ache for a while, for no one ever tells you of the amount of pain in grieving. Grief has a face.

But ever so subtle and real, I hear a still small voice say; " Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal" And in that moment I know, everything will be just fine.

IN MY EULOGY

 In my eulogy

Remember that I lived

That I stood the taste of time

Remember that I made it to this end

That I fought the good fight!

And in my eulogy

Remember that I loved in my own way

Remember that I cried for my dear ones

And remember that I shared this life with them

And in my eulogy,

Laugh!

Laugh at the mistakes I made

For in those moments I was human

Imperfect to the core!

Mourn the things I didn’t get to do

For in them, was my hope for a better day;

And then dust off!

Right there as you sum up the life that I lived

Dust off and move on

Keep living

Keep laughing

Keep merry

Make sure you eat

And dance and stay happy

For I want you to keep on keeping on

I want you to be happy

To be hopeful

That while I am gone...

I am only off to the other side

Until then

Sing the psalms of life lived hopeful.

For I will be in resting for a very long time

So long dear ones.

And then you will say

Rest child...Rest In paradise

DEATH WHERE IS YOUR STING?

When a friend dies, it hits you hard!

It hits you so bad because then you start to wonder, "Did I love them enough, “was I there to support them and give them all my best?" You start to re-evaluate what would have been, what you should have been. And then you sit cold and frozen that they really are gone.

The night comes and as the night goes on, you pick yourself up between the spasms of fear, and you ask silently, "Are they really gone?"  But you know the answer to that question. So you cry bitterly to the power that death displays every time it takes a loved one.

When a loved one dies,

It stings, it re-awakens every dead sense in you, you desire to hate less and love more. To spread more hope and peace than you would otherwise. It calls you out on your trivial indulgences in bickering and endless fight among each other and within yourself.

Death makes you grow before your time but grow you do. Death steals from all of us; from our every core she dances with us all day long only to snatch the best dancer at the peak of their dance. And she drains what is left of the being. I wonder not where her sting is, for I have felt it and lived with it.

This somber state too will pass but the real fight is in keeping these people alive in our memories, the guilt in forgetting how they really looked, the search for old photos, the search through what you used to say, the need to keep you alive. I know I do see each of you in still photos where time held you static and kept you forever, yet I wish the memories to come would bring you along...

It never gets easy to keep saying goodbye; there was never an easy goodbye... Maybe beautiful beginnings and amazing in betweens but never one easy goodbye. So we dare to move on, we dare to leave the place where your candles burnt out. We dare to go on without you, we risk losing you in the busy of life but each step we take, and we carry the burden of yet another heart break.

We long to know what the other side is, we long to believe that the ever after really holds you waiting. We long to trust that you are okay now but we know not of what is on the other side of the grave. So we cry bitterly at the realization that you are gone and only what you did in the dash (-) is what we are left with.

Rest dear ones, for in due time death will silence us too...Until then. We bitterly miss you

P.S: In memory of my departed loved ones:

My mother; Vidah Namuddu Zirimenya

15 years and it feels like yesterday

(1966-2003)

Danielson Barbara (Babzee)

(1992-2014)

Joel. B. Ntwatwa (Nevender)

The grave robbed me when your candles where brightest

We carry on, but we dare say that, anything can happen even to us here...It is never a win-win with death.

DON'T FEED THE PIGEONS

"Feral pigeon nuisance is a common problem in many cities around the world. Feral pigeons are not afraid of people. They roost and nest readily in man- made structures and have a diverse diet. The droppings of feral pigeons may help spreading harmful germs"

In Hong Kong, one can get a penalty for feeding the pigeons roughly $1500. 
That is the case for pigeons but translate it into the streets of Kampala and it is the street children. Today, I boiled two eggs and gave them to a hunger stricken little guy on one of the hills of Kampala. I just had to give him those eggs but he didn't eat!!! I knew he wanted money so he was in for a long wait before he could finally eat his eggs. 

Every time, I want to pick money out of my pocket, I remember my friend who always tells me,''stop feeding the pigeons if you want a clean city" turns out the analogy of pigeons is what is suffering the city of Kampala.  
Let me first put out a disclaimer: I am a very compassionate person, I love people and I do charity.

But let us see our reality for a few minutes, the little children that beg on our streets suffer our hearts and our compassion but also are the true definition of what is wrong with Uganda.
If you are going to help a person, do more than give them a coin a day. In our need for validation and a check on our christian or Muslim  values, we give money to the poor and pay zakat respectively. But what if in what we are doing we have nursed out a begging syndrome? We keep on giving the street children money and have created for them a living in that way, they will keep festering our streets and soon enough they will grow old enough to sniff fuel and collect plastic bottles and when the lucrative part of that job is worn out, they will go into organized crime. And lo and behold! we would have been part of the making of the feared Kifeesi and other crime gangs in Uganda.

So don't feed the pigeons if you don't want your city to be dirty, The other day, I saw a mother let her baby do number two by the road side and after she got some papers, pick it up and threw on a growing dump of waste that was made by them. I thought of how dry it would be soon and how the wind will blow the seemingly cleared feaces into the air, then when the wind comes I will come and breath that air or even have the dust on my face. Ewww. 

The downside of  this development is that while we have street children,we do not have the mechanisms and the safe nets to take care of them. And as we all know, "some lady ate their money." We all know that the street children are of karimajong descent.
That aside, while these children go through traumatized childhoods, rape and pregnancies of men that are questionable in character, we continue to keep them on the roads by giving them miniature bites of silver and gold coins just to keep them going on. We have not equipped them with systems to rehabilitate them, empower them and take them off the streets.

What we could do as a society, is build shelters and rehabilitation centers separate from drugs abuser homes. Homes to rehabilitate street children. Most of these children, their greatest problem is a run away syndrome and hunger. They need to be taken off the streets! I dream of a day when I take a taxi, or uber I don't want someone wiping the windows with a dirty rag just for a coin. 

I guess we all need to stop giving the street children money then they will be gone off the streets.

BE YOU. BE FREE. JUST BE

If you ever feel cornered to compromise, remember YOU.

The world has taught us, that people matter, relationships matter, their opinion as well as their silence. We have been taught to live selflessly and to love others, to take compliments and in the world of social media to love the likes and the comments. God how we hate it when they don't like us or even when we don't fit in with the group.

But that suffocates the "You" that you are. It creates mini versions of society's kind of people. It creates undertones and soft treading. Eventually we are afraid to step on each others toes and we can't dish out good criticism and we as well can't help but stay on the offensive. We become judges of this world and we second guess everyone's actions towards us. And then we wonder why we have a generation of depressed, anxiety filled and panic stricken beings.

We are worked up by how people act or how they respond to us. But they are just being themselves, I am an advocate for real. Be you, be the jerk that you are or the princess that you are, be outspoken or gentle in speech, be all that you are maybe you will in the end attract your own tribe. The universe has a way of bringing us to what it is that we are looking for. And in those moments you will find liberty in owning you and in living without pretense.

The problem with neglecting who you really are is in the fact that no one really cares. No one cares that at the end of you being nice and stepped on and abused and being nice and holding back, you actually are miserable. You are dying and no one really cares that you are.
So stay miserable on the account of others. No way.

They will tell you, be selfless and think about others. The truth is no one is thinking about others in the long run, they are thinking about themselves. That is the irony of life and that by far makes living worthwhile if we can do it for ourselves. Until you meet someone, willing to really live for  you.
When that time comes, you will not second guess the need to be selfless, kind and all in. You will see it in their lives, in their continuous struggle to stand with you. And you will try and you will reciprocate their concern for you.

In the mean while, Do you. Be you. Embrace the opportunity to flourish and to laugh, laugh hard(they will stare and judge) laugh anyway. Love hard( they will underscore your care) love anyway. Go to bed happy, you deserve a dry pillow. Call who you want to call, they will get used to hearing your voice in  the end. Go where you want to go, try to challenge your status quo. Do you girl, do you big guy. Eat what you want to. We already have enough judges for the world, don't be one of them. Don't be grumpy, be comfortable in finding  peace in the You that you are.
So I am here, typing and someone will read this and roll their eyes. Roll them if you want to. I am good. Some one once said, "I is a very selfish letter"

BE YOU. BE FREE. JUST BE

AS WE LIVE ON

It is of great joy when we learn to live in calm, in hope and in expectation of what this life has to offer us in due time.
Between the chaos of life and the peace our hearts desire, we find oursleves in the onset of strife and we try so hard to make this life work.

We look around and it seems like we are stuck in moments, sometimes we have no hope of getting beyond where we are.
Do you ever sit and feel like everyone has managed to make it across life apart from you? Ever wonder where your dreams went or why they look to be on hold?
Between such moments we forget to see the hope in front of us.We miss the love, the joy set in our bosoms, the laughter that eases the ache and the people set on our journey to make it lighter and easier. It is in those many moments that I want to stand with you and tell you that life should not get in the way of you living.

Live and enjoy the moments, laugh, cry and then pick yourself up and live. Life is many things, yes the storms come and for that they will be many of them but so does the sunshine, so does the rainbow. Give yourself permission to be happy and to take the joy set before you in this life. You have that choice, I pray you choose that.

Many times, we are so busy comparing our journey with others that we fail to enjoy our own.We look into the things happening for others that are not happening for us and we miss the details of events that would have changed our lives.
It is your journey  and it is to your benefit that you live a life that you would be happy to remember. Live large and live fully. You don't have to have it all figured out, you just have to know where the road leads, and where the joy comes from.

Remember this life is all you've got and it is much better to walk through it with your head held up than with your head down,missing the beauty that life  often is. It is beautiful when you start to live, to laugh, to dance, to love and to be alive in the moments of life.

See the beauty that life is, and in the end the load will be lighter and much more bearable. It will ease the ache in the heart and the churn in the stomach.It will make life a better place.
So don't stop fighting for joy, don't stop finding peace in the storm.

Find a way of living and letting life go on.

Of poems that make me calm: Lemn Sissay

INVISIBLE KISSES

written by Lemn Sissay

If there was ever one
Whom when you were sleeping
Would wipe your tears
When in dreams you were weeping;
Who would offer you time
When others demand;
Whose love lay more infinite
Than grains of sand.

If there was ever one
To whom you could cry;
Who would gather each tear
And blow it dry;
Who would offer help
On the mountains of time;
Who would stop to let each sunset
Soothe the jaded mind.

If there was ever one
To whom when you run
Will push back the clouds
So you are bathed in sun;
Who would open arms
If you would fall;
Who would show you everything
If you lost it all.

If there was ever one
Who when you achieve
Was there before the dream
And even then believed;
Who would clear the air
When it’s full of loss;
Who would count love
Before the cost.

If there was ever one
Who when you are cold
Will summon warm air
For your hands to hold;
Who would make peace
In pouring pain,
Make laughter fall
In falling rain.

If there was ever one
Who can offer you this and more;
Who in key less rooms
Can open doors;
Who in open doors
Can see open fields
And in open fields
See harvests yield.

Then see only my face
In the reflection of these tides
Trough the clear water
Beyond the river side.
All I can send is love
In all that this is
A poem and a necklace
Of invisible kisses.

VIDAH NAMUDDU MIRUNDI ZIRIMENYA

VIDAH NAMUDDU MIRUNDI ZIRIMENYA [1966-2003]

You have been gone for so long;

I can't fathom how long;

Now I seek you yet I find you not;

They don't teach a mother's love down here

And even if they did, they would not teach your love:

I miss you in oceans...

And then I drown in them.

You have been a piece of me that I have held on to for meaning.

So maybe someday it is going to make sense

Perhaps the pain will fade

Perhaps the heart will stop aching,

But in bouts of pain, I think about you.

I may not be sure of a lot of things;

But I am sure that you are forever my love

My reason for going on;

the reason I keep trying;

So for every moment, I can say;

"Mama would be proud"

I miss you today and even tomorrow I will;

But I pray that the heavens help me live one more day

In the hope that you might not be here

But everything is going to be alright.

I miss you mama; I really miss you Vidah!!!

THE BEAUTY OF ALMOST

I have had my share of almost!!! Almost fell in love, Almost got the scholarship, Almost got the job....I have many almosts, eventually I started to think I was jinxed but I washed the idea away and then I thought maybe I was doing the wrong thing expecting the different results but that was not it ether, so I just sat and enjoyed the almosts. As they came, I must have resigned to the pattern life had set. Until,I saw the beauty in my almost. At the end of the teary days, there was a glimpse of new hope that I found in my almosts.

When you are 23 and have almost got it right on a lot the things that life has to offer, to get it wrong on some, is heart breaking. I have lived it, I have cried through it but most of all I have grown. I really have grown!

So I am here to say, almost counts... it does a lot! Almost teaches you that dreams can be put on hold. Almost teaches you to keep hoping, it could be the next stop. Almost is powerful in creating hopefuls. I am a hopeful, there is a raw deal in knowing you are about to get there. Almost is a check on your patience, don't give up just yet, maybe it didn't open up this time but there is always a next time...there are always many next times. Eventually, you get it and you serve it up. You get your next in line moment. You fall in love, You get a better paying job, you study above and beyond. Eventually the odds line up in your favor. But the "Almost" created a bridge to keep going on.

And in the end, if you never get there, you tried  and you almost got it right. Almost counts.

LORD I NEED YOU

"Teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus, You're my hope and stay"

 Through the day I have been meditating on these lines from Matt Maher's "Lord I need You".

I have come to trust the convictions that come from meditating on the same thing. So I sat and thought through why I was stuck at this point in the song. I just could not stop thinking about what it brought to my heart.

I want to always  to be able to say to God; " Teach My Song to rise to You When temptation comes my way." so my song could always rise up to the Lord in times when sin wages war. I know many a times, when I find myself at the place of vulnerable indulgence  there is usually no praise on my lips for the Lord.

 I want to always have my praise up for the Lord, in my song I can always have my eyes fixed on the Lord. My song has to rise so that the path of temptation is ever brought a close or even a dead end. That way, the path to sin is ever narrowed in my life. 

David said of himself, " Your praise is always on my lips."

I definitely want to be able to let my guard down in beautiful surrender to God and be able to say, " When I cannot stand I'll fall on you. Jesus, you're my hope and stay"

 He should be the only anchor for my soul. I need to learn everyday to let God be Lord over it all. I battle with surrender, to know that I have no control over the outcome of my life is threatening in itself, to know that the ship has it's own master other than me is scary but I want to be able to tell God, I cannot stand on my own...help me. Stay with me and help me see tomorrow.

I am banking on the fact that God knows it all, and that he wants me to let him have control over the situations of my life.

One man sang, " I love the way you handle my situations"

I want to be able to say that to God, that he has handled my situations through and through, that he has opened a way for life to be all about his cares on me and his protective arm all around. I want to fall always in the arms of God. To find strength for my feeble knees not in any place but in God. In reckless abandonment to what he can do for my heart's situations and circumstances.

In all of it, I hope I never reach a place where I stop needing God, Not in this lifetime. Never. May my earnest plea for life always be, "Lord, I need you."