It is written...

It is written…

Sam Mwaka-karama

That you will not remove a word. You will not add a word. You will not change a word – That, all those you will not do in the content and context of the Holy Bible.

Are you a believer? How then - how do you suddenly turn around and tell us people who are wide eyed, of sound reasoning-mind and of digestive understanding. That, same-sex acts of intercourse were a perfectly normal thing to do? A right of the human being legally and lawfully protected!? How!?

That even the Church was to [suddenly] conduct wedding marriages between men and men. And between women and women!? And you the American powers that be… want us Africans to accept that one, as normal and natural fundamental teaching!?

And that all that turn-around [practicality] philosophy whose thinking [thought foam] theology is still unfathomable unwritten, and of hard to accept [authority] status – and you insist should be surreptitiously accepted by us Africans!?

Aren't you actually laying the new foundation stones of – disbelief? Aren't you the American powers that be… creating a perfect ground for African [Pagan thinking] to study itself?

Don’t you the American powers that be… see it clearly that any situation within the teaching of religion that negates or challenges the known norms and status quo, do actually automatically undermine massively, the natural fundamental [Pagan] spirituality stimulating it to rise-up?

 Don’t you understand that Pagan status… which is a pre-lay status to all fundamental communities worldwide – is in hibernating decline, only because fundamental communities have been cultivated into more organized spirituality – also known as religions?

How then, is your deft demand that Ugandans must accept homosexuality surreptitiously… not be openly challenged, resisted and rejected - on the bases of it being a suspect trait whose grounds of occurrences in people is murky and ill defined even in the Holy Bible that condemns it… why wouldn't instead African tribes begin to look back into its own paganism for guidance?    

In understanding of the living literature – if maybe you are an expert in the study of God, Creation and Salvation. And on the other hand, if you were a learner on the study of the purposes [not the reasons] for the existence of the human being – which is to quote “multiply and fill the earth” unquote.

Now in your expertise and dire simplistic want of wild sexual freedom, how do you dismantle that small piece of living literature in the above Bible quotation? So that in the process, you might achieve what you endeavor – in the process that you might render some iota of legality and lawfulness even right of the human being – on to the [illegal and illegitimate] acts of same-sex [man to man] or [woman to woman] intercourse. How do you dismantle that living element in that living literature against homosexuality? Where do you as an American spirituality expert, begin making those changes? Before demanding surreptitious acceptance… of homosexuality.

So that what was written: […multiply and fill the earth…] might become somehow accommodating of your beyond reasonable doubt acceptable in truth? Whatever like!

Otherwise as it is any persistent demand that Ugandans accept homosexuality carry with it risks of fundamental paganism implications that are entirely spirituality driven – stay warned therefore! That it is not what you want, but what is content in the living literature…

Because with all due respect to you the American powers that be… it does seem to me, that as long as the living literature remains what it is - “multiply and fill the earth” – that alone is what perennially relegates your aim and, quarantine [homosexuality] into being defined as a trait and illegal and illegitimate – and criminal act. For constitutions of various nations to act on and penal measures thus taken against notorious practicing individuals. Period!

Where, its tolerance might only be in banning all media means that aid that trait in the youth – and the youth accepting and seeking organized rehab and reform.

 At least till the day you the powers that be somehow manage to dismantle… that quoted element in the living literature: A huge and strange jinx-man’s awful TASK!*  

            Writer is an Independent Thinker, Author and Blogger

     

  

Taxation and the Indigenous Property Owner/developer

Taxation and the Indigenous Property Owner/developer

Sam Mwaka-karama

SHOCKING – but the local and indigenous property owner and developer is an endangered species – this shockingly is primarily a situation affecting indigenous Ugandan businessmen and entrepreneurs.

Over the last three or four years, Uganda’s brand name property owners and developers have been quietly disappearing [as in dying away slowly] and, hardly do people notice, but the indigenous local rich and propertied are silently vacating their place in society.

Today [Friday 20^th June 2014], I was in the Garden City – and met a long time friend of the Kampala streets of the 1970s and 80s. A hard working man of my generation who is now an extensive property owner and developer allowed me conversation with him [name withheld] for over an hour.

As usual we had random chit-chat touching on nearly every topic strictly in the business and trade, entrepreneurship fields…

we have always been free with one another, despite the enormous economic divide now between us - so at a certain moment during our conversation, my mental alarm bell went off – when an employee of his had joined us in a brief drive on Jinja road very much within town.

 My friend who runs his empire from the sixth street, in Kampala, was sending his employee to his other businesses, making instructions – suddenly, I noticed a previously unknown characteristic in my friend, when his temper flared [over such a tiny issue – shouting!] at his long-time employee and, with that I saw a raw and deadly combination of pressure and hyper-tension live!

Such that for an instant – your anger and tension might cause your neck to stiffen and for an angry moment you couldn’t look left or right with ease…

I immediately was concerned even alarmed and, soon as the employee was dropped-off, I softened talks between my friend and myself – what I mean is, without having to be a physician – the obvious raw pressure and hype-tension I had seen that accompanied the eruption, was a telling enough symptom to trigger my mild inquiry into how life was with him lately… at least the last two years I wasn’t seeing him much!!

My friend just groaned and said - “those URA taxation people are killing us”

I have practiced journalism for three years in my life and, I am experienced enough in as far as Ugandan society and community existence were concerned – without being a radio talk show anybody - I have immense backlog of sociology materials and, journalistic experience to deduce a lot out of a tiny comment - I am capable of drawing from my book research and writing experience to place a very relevant and safe pointer on an issue.

The taxation killer… is a real phenomenon – in property.

Taxation is the undoing of property ownership and development in Uganda… unless the [an] association of indigenous Ugandan property owners and developers come-up ASAP with a bright enough piece of parliamentary bill maker… petition in-which the indigenous Ugandan property owners and developers seek a partitioning of the law on property taxation - to separate between out-right foreign property owners and the local property owners if only in taxation regime terms. 

Because, beyond every reasonable doubt the condition the Ugandan entrepreneur goes under to build a structure at all, are extreme and, prohibitive. It is an effort against real odds.

While an outright foreign property owner and developer may have come-in with foreign privately donated philanthropy capital and, overnight, easily invested in the open property markets in the country. The local developer generates capital the harder way. And I think the locals deserve concessions.

This taxation factor in combination with property regulatory ground fees and other trade charges regularly or annually paid; apparently home-in a devastating impact on the property owners lives – who often have to hike their own property rentals beyond affordability of a larger percentage of the local business companies and individuals… since mostly, higher grade properties weren’t fully rented all year round.

A cursory research might reveal that an average mall or plaza and block of flats or apartments, might have annual [un-occupancy] of up to 25% by average easily. What would all the more aid an indigenous association toward convincingly setting a valid parliamentary bill maker.

This [flash and] very impromptu article my latest blog post, is not in any way meant to malice any foreigners doing business in Uganda, but an expression of concern with the life expectancy decline of property owners… who are evidently dying quietly of hypertension  and pressures. A valid area of human concern. And not an insult to any groups of people – but an objective overview. ***      

Writer is an Independent Thinker, Author and Blogger

Love could never have been without experience

      

Love could never have been  without experience

Sam Mwaka-karama

Futility it always was, like in the old saying; running after the wind. To entertain an iota of a ghostly thought, that there could ever be love - outside of experience.

Love is a situational and paradoxical phenomena - it might have not actually been there in the Garden of Eden: for a mate was just created out of one ‘self’… so that if the self I am, should not feel myself in you - woman, then the feeling of love is void - and that is the paradox! Because I am the Adam who waited - alone in the garden - and that is the situation: The paradox and situation of love!

In my deep sleep I have always waited for you. That you might be availed-off me - and to me, I waited sleeping. I waited for the phenomenon of your creation and availability…

Your imaginary spritely arrival that dewy and misty morning - was accompanied by the cautions: ‘Thou shalt not...’ An inhibition. A warning. A fright. A scare. An admonition - the reprieve was to also set-up mortality. But alas! How? The journey hadn’t yet started.

The birds chirped and tweeted and sung gaily… in the mid-morning sun when the mist was gone and warmth bid life to the flowers, where the bees buzzed and warmed the fruits - just when the mood was set for a feeling and grace for each-other…

When suddenly had the feeling of melancholy come upon us - and the drift... we momentarily parted!

Faust’s ‘Old Heavenly Aunty’ - serpent! - had arrived, that the reprieve was thus set - to trigger indulgences with and eating the outlaw forbidden fruit… Aunty serpent the old wine bag had preempted paradise…

Love, the situational and paradoxical phenomenon, had been thus stayed even averted - for what should have bloomed in the paradise of the Eden and gradually and naturally spread throughout the world was instead forced-out: by the burning flame of the Angelic Sword that sent us cowering  in shame and terror - out of the paradise. That we might never look back to Eden again! For innocent we were no-more and, cursed we would always be.

There was sun heat. Wind. Gale. Cold and the refuge in Caves. There was the scorching desert and there was the treacherous forests and jungles - that between us as humans love had become an ‘experience’... Suddenly, we knew that we loved one-another. That a child was born to us. It was by the experiences of life that made us family.

For without experience - futility it always was, like in the old saying; running after the wind, is to entertain an iota of a ghostly thought, that there ever could be love - outside of experience.

Because falling in love was experience - knowing love was experience as well: lucky were always they who find love while busy working in the vast fields of humanity: Sports, Industry, Services, Education, Career or urban and rural life… for they found love without looking for love.

For those didn’t fall in love with love; like they weren’t inspired into love by some other pair in love. For they busily got closer and closer - and then suddenly experienced Eve’s misty early morning dewy arrival. The Eden love that was stayed by Faust’s Old heavenly Aunty Serpent.

Aunty Serpentine; the sisterly old wine bag who might have seduced Satan and triggered the rebellion that blew the sedate  calm and quiet of the ‘dark surfaces’. That slithery might suddenly have descended upon Earth at the dawn of humanity and wrecked havoc in paradise forever!!!

So that; You only love once. And once was the only way to love! And too bad, for best it always was falling in love by experiences. And that the clutters of challenges left behind for you and against your love affair by old Auntie Serpent - always break your heart!!!*

Writer is an Independent Thinker, Author and Blogger         

The Rumbling

The Rumbling

Poetry Ape

Sam Mwaka-karama

Luke warm - Tender - loving - Friendly. Are the virtues what all want

That morning warmth, the tender malleable nature in a luke-warm bath

 The friendliness of the whispering gossiper on the Fm window sill

The easy lyrical words of rumor mongery, poetic ballad serenade – you are agog…

Fascinated by the soothing warmth and lure – somnolent in the soapy gossip and rumor

Comfy in unending steamy warmth of success – lulled by the haunting opera!

Home love comfort – you shall not want – sardonic smile melt your heart!

Basking in the foam and heat of a personal sauna - with a loved one somewhere, anywhere…

 In the vastness of the inner sanctum of your sprawl – life was great!

When you tuck in shirt to designer trousers – you are demi !

You, you and nobody else it was who made it

You worked it out personally with the best architect in town

You gave it the personal touch – with the interior décor guys - brought your secret desire to life!

No! Hell No - not anything you were not forgetting, a vintage fireplace included

That you now confidently stand elongated at the back of beyond

Not a former life! Be off you silly-little gnome of a thought! What former life!

It was nobody else’s dream, but your personal one… and you did hatch that egg!

Yes it was on the fast track, only for a while… but then came the Crooke’s scare!

Disbanded the groupie, when guys and dolls began falling like thorn trees felled!

Mowed-down by the angry hands of the tree feller

Groupie had scampered desperately – friends became suspicious foes

The invisible moth of the anthill gnawed away in the veins of the unknown victims

Chaany! Then Chaany! You only knew when a friend had crushed down cold!

Then came the hysteria of who has it! Who is next on the death raw? And who gave it to who!

Dark suddenly it had become very – people on the streets trudging face-down

Sometimes you ran into someone you thought you knew… looking bad now and, veered off pointedly

You looked. And then looked! The silent quickened step of the type that went to oblivion…

Then came the time too, when counseling and discussions – gave hope to the next generation infected

The participants survived, gained confidence and peripherally lived

Now you were cold – because you thought and worried your personal warmth away

The invisible moth of the anthill gnawed away in the veins of the unknown victims

Comfort, if only you knew how far you went – if only you knew! If only you knew.

But now it is too late – for no one pays a visit anymore – the trauma rules

And the Bob Wade Fm is vain – for the stigma is freeman now – your vein is now yours**

     

  

Running and the Spiritual setup Dilema

Running and the Spiritual setup - Dilemma

Aping your Poetry

Sam Mwaka-karama

The runner’s dilemma was the innocence – the free will

The free spirited livingness that carried the runner on his way

The runner was spiritually picked!

The colonial master didn’t know the running man – he was of the village!

There were no sports training to determine his picking…

But the runner was picked for his task – he was designated

And the runner performed…

Every day the runner was the daily - tasked with his responsibility

Barefoot, in a loincloth, held a long thin javelin

Crack tipped at the top – javelin clip-held a letter

At the crack of dawn it was flag-off

And the runner picked-up his rhythm and the beat was-on

Chap-chap, chap-chap, chap-chap

And then the song came to mind and heart…

Okwanyo gudu Lumule diki-dwogo/

Wange rii ki yoo/

Wange ki yo do – kel alyeka anen/

Aliye-ker

  

Chap-chap, chap-chap, chap-chap, chap-chap

Sweat popped-out and ran down the face, neck and chest

Sweat streamed - down the back

The old song in mind and heart, tap-tap-tapped the rhythm…

Colonial authority had a Khaki short quickly replace the loincloth

Olel! Was the recognized runner – the herald messenger

The harbinger of communication

Between Governor’s Gondocor in Nimule and Gulu…

Anglo Egyptian colonialism extended to Acholi and Lango in Nothern Uganda

 Teso and Karamoja in Eastern Uganda

The scant road dug; Gulu to Nimule, by the Luroni Men conscripted

Road workers of the PWD pida – cheered the runner on his way

The workers sung for him as he jogged past waving…

They praised the strong road runner for doing us proud

and meeting the challenge…

They sang even as he was long gone; down the valley

Up the hill and round the bend – they sung…

Okwanyo gudu Lumule diki-dwogo/

Wange rii ki yoo/

Wange ki yo do – kel alyeka anen/

Aliye-ker

 Olel – was a short man of quick small movement of the body

Walked in short quick-steps, talked in short quick manner

The runner was a nonstop restless man…

But was never a breathless man

Olel – in Acholi was also the nickname of Rabbit the Hare

The Fable Rabbit that is known in folktales World wide

Olel – the colonial runner died in absolute obscurity!

His legacy spiritually squashed – as a girl, mama was his fan.*

Childhood: how you really went!

Flash Poetry

Sam Mwaka-karama

You are gone childhood, leaving me empty.

You really was my driver - my extra pound came from you. 

Childhood you made me happen, you gave me joy,

it was your childhood laughter that won me friends, it was your hope

that made me forget the wrongs and difficulties that poisoned my life.

Childhood, how you really went!

You took away fondness - how I now am lost without you!

Where O! Where

Where do I go childhood, without you - am vacated, am empty, am done.

I crave for just a little more of your innocence... if ever aging could allow

Look O! Look

Look now, am surrounded by all the dreams I had all my life... all the dreams you made me see, they float and speed-by. My dreams are in every Mall and Plaza!

My dreams are on the roads, the highways, on the streets everywhere

How do I breakaway - how do I hop onto the fast lane dreams you made me see

so long ago - just look how my dreams roll by and am here looking.

Just looking O look, childhood

the dreams don't recognize me anymore - sad, how just simply sad!

O childhood - how I wonder what happened to you...

Now I see it all - and it hurt me so!

You had protected me... O! childhood how your innocence took me places

And now you are gone - you are nomore and, how alone you left me!

My dreams are afloat on the wind

at every turn of the road

in the homes and villages - I now see it all so clearly

now that you went - childhood how you really went

O how you took away your childhood love from me *** 

Writer is an Independent Thinker, Author and Blogger

Urban Pizza Survival

Urban Pizza Survival

The Afropolitan story

Sam Mwaka-karama

                Cyril, a hand in pocket slowly took the stairs down, fiddling with his phone. Lunch time. The ultra modern office blocks were emptying as staffers chattering away walked out to various eating places, cafes and restaurants – with all these fashionable young, where you ate mattered.

                Fast and dead slow. These young men and women were defined by dress code: Jeans or Khakis and checkered or fine golfer polo - in black, gray or charcoal trousers, white, blue or checkered shirts, tie or open neck were the new young office workers. Mob on the streets mid-day.

                 “Cyril, where do you have lunch?”

Asked one of the more senior staff in the organization where Cyril is a new employee. Patrick heads the ICT team Cyril works in – Patrick and group passed by walking-on a bit faster to go secure table before the place was cramped. Wherever they always went for lunch.

“Aha I am not sure – I will find a place” answered Cyril a bit off guard.

The rowdy pompous group went on talking the Kiganda dialect, this younger generation Baganda love their language.

“Hi, Cyril – you know any eating places around, where do you have lunch?” asked one of three young women also just out on the lunch prowl.

“Hi Jane, I am headed a bit far out in town”

“Okay see you back in office then” said Jane as Cyril quickly skewed across the large double avenue waved and dashed off. He wasn’t sure of all these sudden interests in him – better get out of the way.

As a new employee, and coming all the way from Gulu in Northern Uganda, where he had his entire education. Cyril naturally has a bit of a task adjusting. In the couple of months he worked, he learnt that there is a big social divide between Northerners and the Southerners – and in-between, a whole lot of outright foreigners. The economic valley was also deepening and widening every day.

Today, his lunch money was short for his usual meal, so he went and bought a chapatti and the smaller bottle of fruit soda. Cyril normally went for his traditional Acholi dishes – lately they have become as much expensive, there were days he wouldn’t just afford them.

Back in office after the obsession and gig called lunch-time, he was back on the day’s website design and hosting busy schedule when his phone rung; picking the call, he saw it was a company client – Cyril glanced at his head of technical design and hosting as he answered and listened.

“Hello! Yes speaking… good afternoon” answered Cyril

After listening for a moment he, turned again and glanced at his department head and this time he found Patrick looking at him intently. So he said.

“Okay, I’ll get onto your website right now and check-out what is happening – call you back, errh alternatively let me put you through to my department head, Patrick”

And Patrick seems to have sensed something, was already moving towards Cyril… the new employee quickly explains the issue handing over his phone to the department head. Patrick tells the client that they would be with them in an hour considering the driving distance and traffic.

∞

At the client company offices, they were complaining that their website done by the design and hosting company had suddenly become erratic and unstable. So Patrick and Cyril went trouble shooting. And after perhaps an hour, they had identified and rectified the problem.

“Okay we have identified your problem… and it is all fixed” said Patrick “you will have to guard your code very closely – anybody might access and destabilize your site”

He then wrote out a work detail invoice payment demand note and handed it over to the client company CEO – the client complained immediately.

“What! This is the ransom we have to pay… no there is a mistake – this is too much and not commensurate to the maintenance work you have done”. Said the client CEO

“Well, this is high tech – you can keep your money, but then your site won’t be ineffective and eventually might collapse” Said Patrick packing his stuff in his back pack. They talked for a while.

“Okay, Patrick between you and me tell me one to one, how can we go it cheaper”

Patrick laughed!

“Mr. CEO our work cannot be defined in those terms ‘Cheaper?’ ICT and high tech don’t come cheap – the service provision is a chain from land based to the satellites, we are only a small unit in the entire structure – let us see how do we make it affordable? Because in a sustainable business whose services are constant, the unit price for the service has to be affordable – that is the principle”.

The client CEO was quiet a moment… swiveled on his seat looking out the window.

“Okay give me your new terms… otherwise I rather close the site; because we have no income, business is on the downward spiral – we thought the website would boost business but in over a year there is no improvement”

Patrick, the website design and hosting department head looked at Cyril intently for a long moment. In his mind was a serious predicament: he was a mere employee in the web company, he personally had jinxed the website to provoke this situation – he needed side income. But then now evidently the client CEO has a point; business was slump, it is all over the press and media… which would mean some smaller companies might opt-out of being hosted. It all has to do with developed world control of direct financial transfers, limiting lower level transactions, slowing of the oil projects, monetary rates, trade imbalances, the anti homosexuality act. Mutual political suspicions and ultimately extreme travel visa control. All these conspire to make business slow. A rather dicey situation – but here and now the cubes are in his hands and the smooth felt is waiting… he has to roll out the dice.

“Alright, let me be fair and very frank with you - ignore the invoice company services demand note; you pay me personally fifty percent of that invoice value, deal? And I will be available on call to maintain hosting services at that rate… all you do is call Cyril or I, whenever there is a problem.”

The CEO picked the note and tore it up… and threw it in the trash!

“Deal”

He said and, opening his drawer, counted the money there and then.

In the car Patrick said to Cyril that life was tough and uncompromising - he would rather do that with a Northerner - because his own fellow Bantu would chew the money and still fart the information to the company directors.

“Look Cyril, you need to fit in – dress well, eat in decent places, take a nice chic out once in a while – how do you do that on your monthly salary? There are degree guys hoofing it on the streets with the under-dogs. Your brother or sister in Kitgum needs mobile money once in a while – how do you meet that? What I want from you Cyril, is dead silence in office and do exactly as I tell you – a Muganda boy will not do that for me, so I would rather cooperate silently with you.”   

They had stopped at a coffee shop and had a long chat and, worked-out the details. They had nearly twenty good companies on their income list and all they had to do was jinx a site once in a while – then wait for the call.

∞

Benon, the department head for marketing was a heavy set proud and very loud guy from Rukungiri in Kabale western Uganda. The Kiga fellow was a good marketer and field man. He had brought in nearly all the companies hosted by the web and hosting firm. Benon ran into the two; Patrick and Cyril outside the lift – the former rugby player grabbed hold of Patrick by the elbow pulling him aside.

“Patrick, been looking for you – am on the trail of some good clients but, first I have some meatless bones to pick with you”

Patrick laughed as he quickly placed two notes for twenty k in Benon’s breast pocket – they scattered out of there laughing. They belong to a soccer watching pub in Bugolobi… but Benon only suspects that Patrick was a rat with many rat holes from where he seem to make lots of cash.

While Patrick parts with whatever cash he has to Benon, because he was actually the guy pulling in the client companies who often gets jinxed by him. So whenever he made the money, he has to also try to sometimes waylay Benon in some chance meet – like weekends. Just to pass on the proceeds. This has made them friends. They both enjoy eating pizza and soda and running the girls. ***

     The writer is an Independent Thinker, Blogger and Author