“I am the mama of the prostitutes here”

March 29, 2017August 15, 2017 by prudencenyamishana ♥ 13 Comments

“Everyone knows me as the mama of the prostitutes in this area. I came here in 2000 after the death of my husband. He loved me. He pampered me. We had property together. I lost him to sickness in 1999 shortly after the birth of my son. My Husband’s elder brother had been hitting on me even when his brother was alive. This was his chance to inherit me as his wife. I refused. I thought that was shameful. He waged a war, took all my property threw me and my children out of the house” She said as I listened intently.

“I came to Kimombasa.

At first, I was embarrassed to sleep with men, but after months, I got used. I got my first child when I was 15. From my marriage I had four children, from here I got two more. So I have seven kids in total. My first two girls are married. I have a son that I gave birth to in 1990 dropped out of school recently, he was pursuing a law degree at Makerere university. We’ve completely failed to raise the school fees. So he is now working as mechanic and renting his own room away from here. He is trying to save up money so that he can go back to school. His dream of being a lawyer is still alive.

My son, that one you see there is in Senior 4, he is hardworking, he goes to church, he loves the Lord, I was worried for him when he joined a boxing club. My friends had told me that those boys in that boxing club are hooligans that all they do is smoke drugs, yet whenever he came back from practice, he was a better boy, he was cleaner, he respected me even more. He now has 4 medals from the boxing competitions. He makes me proud. I just hope that he can finish school. There is an organization that is taking care of his school fees.

Whichever girl stumbles onto this area, comes looking for the mama of the prostitutes (mama wa bayaye ). I take them in but I have rules – if you drink all the money that you make, I will can’t work with you, if you are not using protection- look, this box here is full of condoms an organization brings it to us every month and I ensure that they are on family planning.

Whatever organization comes in to help, I receive them. I get for them lawyers when they have been arrested on charges of ‘Rogue and Vagabond’. Yeah, police arrests them, charges them, so we have to get them out of jail. Sometimes there is a rapist lurking in the area. Last year there was one I reported him to police. I made sure that I got the girls to testify he was charged 25 years in prison. When they are sick, I assign one of the girls to go to Mulago to take care of them. When they die, we bury them. We buried one at the end of last year, she was trying to abort on her own. She died. Those who we don’t have families, we collect money and they take them to a cemetery. But sometimes when we have no money and they die, we abandon them in the hospital, we know that they will be taken to the mortuary and end up in the cemetery anyway. Now that there are national IDs, I am working towards seeing that each of them gets an ID because when they are arrested, it is easy get them out when they have IDs. I keep their deepest secrets, some of them are HIV+, when it is time to take their ARVs, I remind them. I solve their cases, sometimes they are fighting over men. Sometimes a man likes one particular girl and when he is tired of her, he goes to another. I try to explain to them that that is normal. Oh by the way, I have married off three girls so far, I attended their wedding ceremonies as their Senga. The men got them from here.

I have rooms in this area, they have double décor beds. You pay 1000 for a night. Some girls choose to sleep two on the bed so they pay 1000 shillings each. When they use my beds for business, the pay me 500 shillings for each session.

I am 48 now, I want to leave this business, but who will take care of these girls? As you can see, when I cook a meal, we share it. We are family. They keep coming, since 2005 when I started this small bar, I have had over 200 girls go through my hands, some stay for years, others for months, others get married and others die. Most of these women as you can see them are the forsaken of society, 90% have no families, those that have families can’t turn back. Their families don’t want them back, a lot of water has gone down the bridge. They feel like outcasts. You should be here when their children have been chased from school for school fees, this place is full of children, we let the kids sleep inside and we sleep on the verandas. However, I am worried, at 12, the girls want to join the trade. I tell the women that we have to fight to keep our children in school.

So when I leave, who will take care of them? Maybe that is my life’s mission. ”

I was brought from the village to work as a housemaid #SexWorkerDiaries

March 21, 2017March 21, 2017 by prudencenyamishana ♥ 10 Comments

This is the story of Kemirembe a 24-year-old sex worker in Bwaise Kimombasa.

“When I was 16, a woman picked me from my village in Bushenyi to work as a housemaid. I saw this as an opportunity because I wasn’t going to school. My parents were poor. All I had were the clothes on my back and two others in a black polythene bag. When we reached Kampala, she took me to the home in Kasubi.

I never saw that woman again.

At my newly found place of work, my boss had three kids. I woke up at 5 every morning to prepare the kids for school, prepared breakfast, cleaned the house, took care of the baby, washed dishes, prepared dinner, bathed the kids and put them to bed. I would sleep at eleven or midnight. This was my daily routine.

Whenever she came back from work, my boss would many times yell and hurl insults at me and ask me what I did all day, because to her, the house didn’t look that clean and the food I cooked didn’t taste good. Once, when I tried to talk back, she slapped me in the face and for the three months that I was there, she never paid me a shilling. One Sunday evening, I came back late from church, she threw me out of her house. I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t even have transport to take me back home, I didn’t even know which buses to take.

I was on the streets.

After a long search for a job, I got one in a restaurant. They paid me 2000 shillings daily and gave us a place to sleep. Thank God. I was there for about two years. The owner got broke and closed the restaurant.

I was back to the streets.

I roamed the streets at night. I pitched camp at restaurants to help wash dishes so that I could have all the left overs to myself. I slept on shop verandas or wherever I found.

I wasn’t the only one roaming the streets, we started to notice each other, I made friends with one of the girls. We shared our stories. We protected each other, another girl joined our group. That girl told us that she had heard of a place where girls make money in Bwaise. So we walked from Nakulabye to Bwaise.

That evening, we found many girls all dressed up, with makeup and wigs and one by one, men would show up, take them. We joined the group. That night, I was picked by two men each paid me 2500 shillings for the service I had given.

At first, it was better than being on the street. But then after six months, I got pregnant, I don’t know how that happened. I was careful to use protection. But some men tear the condoms. I don’t even know who the father of my child is.

Right now, I stay at a friend’s place with my boy. I pay her 1000 shillings per night. My boy is now four years. I have failed to take him to school- it is expensive. I make sure that I am on the streets by 7:00pm because I want to make enough for my child’s food.

Some days, you’ll meet a man, who on the onset looks like a sensible human but when you get to the lodge, he starts to beat you for no reason. Some will do things to you that I cannot even tell you. Look at the scratches on my face, these are from a fight with a man last night. These days, I am like a grenade I loose my temper easily. Some nights when I don’t make any catches, I move about aimlessly. I take a little alcohol to help me forget my problems. I feel overwhelmed when I have not taken a little drink. It calms me down.

You are asking me if my parents are alive? I don’t know. Let’s say I have no family, no one for eight years has looked for me. So now that I have told you my story, what is it going to help me?”

Good Lord, I didn’t see that coming. That was a punch in my face.

What am I doing telling these women’s stories? I feel like walking away. But I am comforted by the fact that from last week’s story, two organizations expressed interest in helping these women. You guys that promised had better be serious. The real gutters are down there.

“Please don’t judge me for selling my body at 5000 UGX.”

March 14, 2017August 15, 2017 by prudencenyamishana ♥ 32 Comments

Out of curiosity, last Saturday, I called a friend, a community mobliser, who had worked in Bwaise Kimombasa for years rehabilitating sex workers and connecting them to health care services and education programmes for their children. He had shared their stories with me but I wanted to hear and see for myself. I wanted to treat my curiosity, I wanted to know what would force anyone to go into this “World’s Oldest Profession”. With an open notebook, a curious mind and loads of questions, I was in Kimombasa Bwaise.

Sheila was the first person we met. This is the story of Sheila a 29-year-old sex worker.

“My father worked at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Our home was at Old Kampala Block 20A5BS New park. My mum was a business woman that would go to Dubai for months to do business. I don’t know what business she was doing. While she was away, my father had a different woman every month, some of the women that he brought home, beat me up and one of them burnt me. Look at these scars on my chest, this was a damage by one of my stepmothers because I scored a first grade at P7.

I decided to run away from home. This is where my running started, and since then, I have been on the run. I am 29 but any escape route from this misery I will run. I am a runner.

When the burns healed, I ran to Kasese, a nun picked me up l told her that I was an orphan- at least that is what I felt. I stayed with her for one year. One day, someone told the nun that they had seen a picture of me on TV. My parents were looking for me. The nun gave me transport and I boarded a bus back home, when I got back home, my father asked

“Ogumwana naruga nkahi?” Where has this child been?” My father asked.

He beat me badly, my latest mum pleaded with him to stop. She was the only mum I liked.

I asked my father that I would go to the village so that I can study there, I had been a city child, in primary, I studied at Kyaggwe Road Primary School. Life was different in the village, I walked a mile to school. My grandmother would park my food in a banana fibre, many times, I ate the food before getting to school. The walking was too much for me.

I decided to run away again.

I got into a bus to Kashenshero to become a housemaid, in that household, my English accent was better than for my boss’ kids they asked me to start coaching the kids. She took me back to school up to Senior Four. I had good grades but I couldn’t tell them that I was a Kampala child, they would chase me away. My boss liked me, she wanted to help me be a better person, she requested that I at least show her one of my relatives. I knew that this wasn’t going to end well for me. I would end up at my father’s house. I didn’t want to go there. I never wanted to get there ever again.

I ran away again, to Ishasha at the Congo border through Kihihi, I made sure I have enough money to get me to my destination, it is the bus conductor that bought me a snack on that trip.

In Ishasha, I got a restaurant Job, then moved from one home to another as a house maid.

I was tired of running. I went back home but then the neighbors told me that my family had shifted to Kabalagala Kironde road where they had built a house. I looked for them. I found them but my father was dead.

“You girl, where have you been?” My mother asked “Don’t ask her many questions she will disappear again.” she said. “Kwonka mwanawe nozenga”

She called my seven uncles her brothers and my father’s brothers. At night, they mobbed me and flogged me like those petty thieves in the market. To them, I was a disgrace.

“Why did I come back home?” I wondered.

I should have followed my gut feelings. I didn’t have a relationship with my mum, she was never there. The only woman that gave me some love was one of my many ‘mums’. Unfortunately, she is dead.

From my housemaid experience, I had learnt how to work. I busied myself with house chores as I nursed my injuries and hatched a plan for my next move.

I wish my mum had sat me down and asked me why I was doing what I was doing. She said that if I ever tell anyone about the beating, I should die without ever coming back home.

When the bruises were healed, I ran again. This time to Arusha, with a man, who took me with him for a tour. I had a good time, he cared for me. Unfortunately, he was married, he escorted me back to Kampala, gave me some money and returned to his family.

I couldn’t go back home. From the money he gave me, I went to a lodge. I met a friend who told me that I don’t have to suffer alone. So she took me to her workplace at night. I started selling my body.

People ask me why I am selling my body. But they don’t know what I have been through. I don’t enjoy sleeping with men. I sometimes make up my mind not to go back but then I submit to hunger. In 2014, I vowed to stop, someone connected me to a rich man in town to work as a maid. I was sure I would save and start a business but one of their sons raped me, I conceived, when I gave birth, I was chased away, I couldn’t take care of the baby, I took the baby to a babies’ home. I went back for the baby but they have refused to give me the baby. I don’t even have papers to get him because I left them at that place I used to work.

Look, I have three thousand shillings, I made 5000 shillings yesterday, I ate 2000 shillings so that I don’t have to sleep with men today. Please don’t judge me for selling myself at 5000 Uganda shillings.

Last week, my best friend was killed in a lodge in Kisenyi. When I learnt of her death, I drunk so much that I wanted the cars to run over me but they all kept dodging me. I feel lost. This friend would call me to remind me to take medicine. I am HIV+, now she is dead. I think as you listen to me you realize that there are some people that are not meant to be alive. I think I am one of them. I am lonely, I feel alone, I keep to myself these days.

I wish my parents had understood me. I have no family; I am my family. I last went home last year to bury my mother. I don’t want my kid to suffer, I don’t want him to end up like me. When I am with women around here, I cry- Yeah I cry all the time these days.

You know that song, I know who I am? I don’t know who sang it. I know who I am. No one around this forsaken place believes my story but I know who I am.

You know, I like Juanita Bynum, Oprah and Joyce Meyer. I like their stories.”

For the next couple of weeks, one story each week, I will be documenting the lives of sex workers around the slums of Kampala. Why am I doing this? I don’t know. But how about listening to the other side of the story. Thanks for passing by my blog. I hope to see you next week.