In the loosest form, freedom means ‘to be free’.
If I am being honest, I still think participating in this all week blogging
activity is not a good idea for me. The biggest reason is because writing
everyday for a week with a group of people is a burden (Sigh at the pressure),
but here I am which goes to say that the title for this post is perfect.
I NEVER have decent good titles let alone perfect ones.
That is pretty much this life; spending a lot of time doing things we don’t
want/ would rather not in a bid to forge a life that will eventually allow us to
write blog posts everyday for a week while sipping our choice of poison at a
beach or something like that.
Having recently celebrated her 53rd Independence day, Uganda
must be feeling pretty free if there is such a thing.
Back in 1962 when Uganda stood up to her oppressors and took back her
country, I am not sure whether the Uganda today is what those people envisioned
for Ugandans to refer to as normal.
Off the top of my mind of what is normal in Uganda today;
1.
The roads: The pot manholes on roads in Uganda
get worse by the day, it’s actually impressive. Someone once speculated that
the roads get worse by the day that it’s almost as though people are paid to
put holes and all sorts of damage on them.
2.
Medical care: Conversations with people over time have
left me in shock whenever the medical insurance discussion comes up. Many
employers gave up on providing employees with medical insurance because ‘they
do not fall sick’ so they resorted to a reimbursement system where one
presents the receipts used for medical care and their money is reimbursed. I
only had one question to this system, ‘What happens if you fall sick and you do
not have the money to foot the bill at that time?’
That however is only one aspect of the medical care since
the good doctors either leave the
country for ‘outside countries’ or are too expensive for ‘omuntu waabulijjo’ to afford their services. Let’s not get into the
state of the medical facilities, it’s been a long day.
3.
Education system: The ‘best’ education facility at
university level has a minimum of three strikes per semester and some even last
for days. Teachers in schools all over the country at both primary and
secondary level strike at least twice a year because of little/ no/ delayed
pay.
4.
Family: 1 in 5 people are from a broken family, of the
remaining 4, 2 have experienced some form of domestic violence in their homes.
Of the remaining 2, 1 is from the ‘perfect’ family where the parents are ‘always’
working very hard to buy the latest anything for their children so they
basically grow up in boarding school or with house helps.
5.
Employment (Or its non existence): Some might say this
ties back to the education system but that’s a different discussion. Employers
want the ‘perfect’ employees who studied the right courses (the more the
better), who have worked for long enough (P.S: It's never enough). Heck it’s a miracle anyone under 25
has a job (which then begs the question of how they are expected to have the
experience that companies gladly advertise) although with the income the
lucky few get, it then makes sense. Some will say people are entitled, that’s
another discussion for ANOTHER day.
6.
Poverty Low income: I didn’t want to go with poverty because
people might picture the type of thing you see in a UNICEF commercial. To sum it up,
the people have been trying to make a living for a while...
7.
Politics: To sum it up, there is acknowledgement of opposition parties
but all hell breaks loose when there is more backing from the people than
expected. I am actually scared for the next few months/ year.
8.
Religion: Division everywhere, everyone wants their
God to be THE one.
9.
Corruption/ bribery
This and more is what people are OKAY with; this is NOT to cast judgement upon anyone. Some have made a choice to keep quiet for various
reasons and others have done what they could but unfortunately it was not good
enough; others have not yet decided and others have decided not to decide.
This is my reality; this is what freedom looks like in
my country.
Labels: #Freedom, #Independence, #Uganda, #UgBlogWeek