Cannot go back home again
© Nelson Yiga 2006

Makerere the small town in the City:
Located two miles from the Capital City, Kampala in Uganda, Makerere is a small town that is thought of as for Landlords (Bataka) and the learned. Reason being that the Main University in Uganda is located on that hill which is one of the seven hills the capital is well known for. Kampala got it's name from antelope look-like animals called Impala. When the King at the King visited this area centuries ago, he saw too many of these Mpalas and said this hill is for Impalas which later turned into Kampala to date.
Kampala was named after the type of deer family animals called Impala. And when the king visited one time he said that the hill on which he was standing is of Mpala so Ka which means of was ascended to make Ka-Mpala. Which meant "for Mpala".

Makerere was very sweet, silent and ohoo so beautiful for residents that had lived there. Because it was known for Landlords (People that owned LAND), many of the elders were so much respected and pride, joy and happiness was seen in the eyes of everyone that lived there. The place had attracted many people among which retired foreigners from Italy and India who had built mansions with vast gardens that brought clean air to the environment. Makerere is just two miles from Kampala.

Not so many kids in this area were found loitering after 9 PM, and if there were any, then their parents had sent them to the shops to either buy groceries that were forgotten during the day, or get dad and mom some bottles of beer. Unlike those kids there were a few that had just been from working at the Market at Kaleerwe a mile away. And these were the un-fortunate ones from families that were mis-treating them or even poor in a sense that children had to work to feed their relatives. This is where many thieves took over in the middle of the night to burglarize people's homes, using machetes to break in or ak-47s. In The middle of the night, you would hear mouth alarms of women and men trying to shout the thieves off.
Even those that had iron fences with fine green thorned trees around would still face these money hungry gangs that would wait at the gates to get in with the owners coming home or even cut holes in fences so they can be met by the unsuspecting owners.

In this beautiful side of town is where I grew up after being born around November 15th 1972. Reason I say "around" is because not concrete records were found about me while I needed to get a passport to start traveling.

It was at this place that I learnt working, made friends, engaged in relationships, got first training in politics and had my first born son, Andrew Lord Yiga or also known as Wamala.

In January nineteen eighty nine, my last year in Ordinary Secondary School, I had stopped going to school and the only education I was getting was being a senior chef in my step mom's restaurant. And there came a woman who had just built a home just next door. Beautiful, light skinned, tall legs, with an accent in her English, she approached and asked who I was and why I was not in school.

Since it is forbidden for us to speak behind the backs of our relatives, I was forced to say "dad has no money for "me"!" When she had the exclamation in my tone, she was forced to call me to her house and later I went to narrate the story of my step mother and the mother of mine that I had met only three times and never again. This woman was Elizabeth Rutabalengya Adyeri.