Rebel in a Bubble

Dear homeless guy in York, How are you today? Has this Bright but heatless sun shone on you Or are you still sprawled by the street, in your Green sleeping bag? In a city where people apologize for walking too close And the little streets ferry countless feet Including mine, heading off to God knows where, who notices you? While the homeless guy in London Sat by himself on the corner As his colleagues lined up For a free meal on the white van, You stood out, in pretty York. While the homeless guy in Leeds sat with a hat before him And whispered gently 'can you spare some change' even though few Gave him attention, You sat there wordlessly being. While tourists paid loads for petty souvenirs and buzzed around The street you call home, while we Were busy taking pictures and making videos, you sat Quietly by the walls of the great minster, Mocking us, ably pointing out The ridiculousness of your government Who don't value you. You questioned the discus...

These Islands Will be my Death.                 By Patience Nitumwesiga Perhaps I should mention that I’m attracted to terrifying, mysterious, precarious things. THINGS, not people. I’ve also narrowed it down recently to places. And islands are some of them. Once, when I’d just left a very serene island, (Bussi Island), my boat guy was arrested for attempted murder and robbery. The other time, when I was at an island somewhere in Mayuge district, I was told that sometimes, they hide dead bodies among passengers on the boats. But once you love travel, it doesn’t matter what comes with it. And somehow, islands keep luring me. So this one time I’m in Kampala, bored to death. A friend is visiting from Muenster, Germany, and she wants to go somewhere quiet. We decide to go for a boat ride. We head down to Gabba and look at the boats. If you’ve been to that landing site, then you know that it proliferates th...

Riding Bodas in ‘outside countries’ Recently when a friend of mine learnt that I was spending a night in Juba waiting for my connecting flight, he said we cannot fail to meet, for it is unforgivable to not meet fellow Ugandans when one is in ‘outside countries’. I laughed so hard but somehow I actually knew exactly what he meant. There is something so special about meeting a human piece of home when one is away, even if it is as close by as south Sudan. This reminded me of a boy I met on that fateful journey. Angel and I had decided to just sit and watch people as we waited for the police to check our bus and it was taking longer than we had anticipated. Then we met him, and he told us his name was Robert Ndahura. He looked reserved, but when he greeted me and stood next to me, I thought he was rather interesting. Angel and I later sat next to him when we moved closer to the bus, hoping they would notice how impatient we had grown and finish whatever was delaying the set off...

THE GIRL WITH THE TWO BABIES I have heard of stories about immigration. I have seen touching stories about Mexican “illegal immigrants” in the US on Aljazeera. Those painful moments when a family is thrown away as if they were only stones, not even worthy enough to be pebbles, causing no stir in the water at all, in the big sea of this federation of continents. Many times I found myself thinking they were only stories. And when something is a story, no matter how real it is, it is not part of our reality. Even if it is presented in 3d. People find a way of removing their 3d glasses when the images are getting too close. We keep our illusion intact, that it’s just a story. But somehow that day, all those shields came tumbling down and there I was, in the moment, in the story, witnessing challenges of immigration. There was this woman on the bus. Many people had developed a kind of dislike for her by the time we reached the border because she got out of the bus every time it s...