Of raw emotion

To the men that made me tussle with my heart

 

To you who I love with every being in me

You who love bombed me enough for me to stay over the years

To you who bread crumbed me into a place my heart would not take any more

To you for whom, I prayed for more than I prayed for myself

For you who was the holder of my firsts

For you… for whom staying in faith of your love showing up, would be a betrayal of myself.

Yet I kept coming back to you…Until the pain of loving you would be the cause of my insanity.

 

To you who gave me feels of Lolita

To you who in the bosom of your embrace I questioned my morals

You who gave me joy and emptiness in every experiences

You who taught me that absence can certainly mean letting go

You who in having you, taught me how to choose myself

 

To the one who dropped my heart with no sense of fragility

To the one who for a very long while let my faith run wild

To the one who never thought of the pieces left to be picked

 

Yet I do not hate you for it

My love takes no prisoners

I am still here picking up the pieces and polishing my heart.

I am here rebuilding the little corners within that carry  darkness…

A darkness you left.

I am pained and yet my healing is in forgiving you

In letting you go…I will find my freedom to love yet again.

Of Soulmates

If your Soul mate stood before you, would you know?

I have met my soul mate…

 I have met my soul mate, yet I did not end up with him. Typing those words brings an ache, a shiver in my body and a smirk on my face. Who meets their soulmates and lets them get away?

I met him and I touched him, I felt his hands and sat next to him and I experienced life with him and somehow, he was gone and I was ready to move on… or maybe that is what I have come to believe.  You ask, how do I know if he was my soul mate? I was whole. When he was here, for as long as he was… there was a sense of wholeness that enveloped my being. When he was away for as long as he was… I lost my way.

 With deep affinity I loved him, I prayed for him and celebrated his life’s journey. In him my love was full. I had seen the one they say… “Flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood”

Did he know that you were soulmates? I am not sure, I don’t know. It is hard to tell. Could I have claimed a soul mate in a man blinded by self that he would rather sink into an abyss of loneliness? Could he be selfish enough to condemn himself to the worst kind of human torture? That is a question he has to answer for himself.

 And so, I go on, knowing I have seen the one who fires up my soul into completeness. I have laid in the embrace of the one whose love justifies the rest of my days. Yet our paths drifted apart.

Does it hurt to see them slip away? Every. Little. Bit. But what is my love if it harbors prisoners? May my love be true, that it will allow him to follow his own path, knowing that I will never lose the touch of my soul mate…. for my love will exist across time.

 Life goes on…life will be lived and I go on, I can trust my heart to carry me on into the depths of love and bringing me face to face with the holder of the home for my soul.

 

 

 

REMEDYING THE FINANCIAL CRISIS BEYOND COVID-19.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic is thought to cause a worse financial crisis than that of 2008. Economists argue that it might take about mid year for countries to start seeing a semblance of stability in the economy. 

According to the IMF, “Since the pandemic’s outbreak, prices of risk assets have fallen sharply. At the worst point of the recent selloff, risk assets suffered half or more of the declines they experienced in 2008 and 2009. For example, many equity markets—in economies large and small—have endured declines of 30 percent or more at the trough. Credit spreads have jumped, especially for lower-rated firms.”

As we gear into another financial year, we need to have our checks and balances in order to avoid receding into a grave financial burden. In this fast-moving environment, we need to think in scenarios, rather than pretending to know how the economy will evolve over the next 1 ½ years.

Export earnings have dropped by 4.1 trillion Uganda shillings in the past two months. Ugandan Minister of Finance Matia Kasaija told parliament that the east African country has suffered the effect of the pandemic, which forced the country to lower its economic growth projection for this financial year by 0.3 to 0.8 percentage point.

Kasaija said the projection was downgraded from the targeted 6 percent for the financial year 2019/2020, adding that in the worst scenario millions of Ugandans would be pushed into poverty.

The aftermath of the pandemic is an issue that we should handle with great importance as a continent and as a country.

While the African continent roars with few numbers of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is imperative to note that the numbers continue to soar on the continent and in the world.

As a Country, we have been commended on early response to the pandemic and early execution of the lock down in order to put in force complete social distancing.

In his presidential addresses, the president intimated that factories within Uganda were responding to the pandemic by providing material for use and also making reusable masks for doctors as the need continues to rise. In the end, supporting local businesses to stay afloat as we go through this health crisis.

In the presence of the Covid-19 pandemic, schools are set to reopen soon with the hope that the disease would be contained by then and movement will be restored to that effect. 

While companies, government offices and all of the non-essential services are on hold for the moment, key concerns raise on the frailty of the Ugandan economy and how it will muscle back after the pandemic.

Therefore, as we progress through the lock down days, fiscal policies need to be adjusted to reflect the times in order to create shock absorbents for the Ugandan tax payers. fiscal policies will play a critical role in mitigating the negative impact of the pandemic on economic activities and challenges in the affected sectors, while monetary policies will help reduce the impact of the deterioration of the Balance of Payments

Policymakers and economists need to understand and prepare for the threat that the economic system is more likely to face and work collaboratively on appropriate strategies and policy measures to counteract the downturn.

It is clear by now that COVID-19 is going to have long-lasting negative consequences on the economy. Policymakers must apply their measures optimally to counteract the downturn. They must ensure that their decisions are well-informed and based on thoroughly conducted empirical evaluations.

The pandemic also brought to light the struggle and redirection needed in the financial budget for 2020/2021. It should be able to cater for the health sector in regard to provisions of hospital equipment, safety gear, remuneration and revamping of the whole sector. It is evidently clear that a viral infection has the ability of wiping a whole country off before a gun can. 

In other words, while we allocate resources to military artillery, we should also invest heavily in the health sector in the next financial year.

Uganda after the Covid-19 pandemic needs rapid response in creating shock absorbents for Ugandans in order to avoid people running into debt or much less out of business. The strategy for survival should be reflect in the tax culture, in the prices of commodities and in the access to services after the pandemic.

Also key measures taken to stop the spread of the pandemic should not be turned into status quo in order for people to be able to move ahead and work back the lost time in business.

There is life after such a pandemic but the ability for us all to survive a financial death/ drowning is going to depend on the effort of government and it’s financial wing. The solution will lie in their ability to steer Uganda out of red zone poverty worse than before into a progressive standing, short of that, many Ugandans might not be able to thrive and survive the aftermath of such a pandemic.

UBUNTU IN THE TIMES OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

As of March 19, 33 African countries had reported more than 600 cases and 17 deaths due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new corona virus. More than 40 people have recovered.

From the beginning of the pandemic, the World Health Organisations warned of the risk that COVID-19 will have on Africa where there are weak health systems, poor sanitation facilitates, water scarcity and urban crowding. These pose additional challenges to the fight and prevention of the COVID-19.

On the 19^th Of March 2020, MTN Uganda issued a cut down on their tariffs and put aside 500 million Uganda shillings towards the fight of COVID-19. Airtel Uganda as well, removed transaction charges for the next 30 days of the lock down.  On the same day, Solidarity Uganda took food supplies to the quarantined Ugandans at the Central Inn-Entebbe as a sign of standing in Solidarity with them. A gesture of our collective responsibility and ubuntu-ness as a Country.

While we cannot come together and radically serve the community, sharing in society responsibility is going to be a great resource for Ugandans in the face of the corona virus pandemic. Ubuntu will help us serve our communities better beyond the selfishness that usually engulfs us in the face of capitalistic and monopolized survival. We are only going to survive if we acknowledge each other’s contribution to society. I am because you are—Ubuntu. In that spirit, we will be more responsive in practicing measures that not only benefit us as individuals but as a society.

With our health care institutions in dire need of revamping to prepare them for the outbreak and a lack of rapid response units in every district, there will be a need for doctors and nurses to volunteer their time and resources in the coming months. Arguably, Uganda even in the presence of meager resources has managed to put up measures to contain the pandemic. The Ministry of Health has been critical to quarantine people coming into the country with 14 Europeans exiting for refusal of being quarantined.

Crises have a way of making us realize our unity as Ugandans. We have weathered a lot of crises together as a nation. We went through the World Cup Final Bombings, the Budo Fire, the Ebola Outbreak and recently the Boat Cruise sink-in as a unit. We can only but win the outbreak of COVID-19 as a unit. Let us rally around washing hands and providing clean water to vulnerable and less advantage people in our communities. We can also adhere to the lock down and protect our families. Small efforts will help us in avoiding exposure and also save lives.

During this time our success stories will be in the collective responsibility and togetherness. Our efforts towards working together will be the highlight in the fight of COVID-19. It is this collective responsibility that has helped us survive other pandemics like Ebola, Marburg and HIV/AIDS in the past.

Uganda registered a COVID-19 case over the weekend and it is in our combined effort that we can work towards reducing the possibility of a spread of the disease.