A little light in the shadows

"This Way madam Grace", said Kabugo showing me a very tiny corridor which I thought was a door to somone's house and I had halted a bit, so he he knew what I was thinking and immediately I followed him.

Through the shadowy and very low roofed corridor, I was led by Mansoor Kabugo to yet another tiny outlet but this time with some little light. Kabugo and Kayiwa Fred are the ones who run the Kampala Junior team which engulfs many other activities, like the computer club, music, dance and drama and many others. These boys are a few of the very wonderful people I have ever met.

Today I only had Mansoor because Fred was out for his lectures. The corridor was so tiny that once in a while a running child would bump into us , but finally we came to our destination. This is home to twenty young boys in the age range of 8 to 13 years, being orphans or former street kids,solely catered for by these two young men.

In the small muddy room , I was welcomed by a lady, possibly the one who helps cook for the children, she then took leave after greeting me to give room for our discussion. After a while two of the boys came in, these seem not to have attended school today , because they were not in uniforms. They were introduced to me and they too like the lady, left the two of us alone.

The whole place look very pathetic. An office-come-sitting and bedroom. It's not really a big room to begin with, and it took me some time to get fully settled. A computer occupies the "sitting room" area and a chair or two very close to one another that you hardly find space to move freely. Separated by two wide curtains are what are meant to be the ' bedrooms" At one end, is the triple decor that supposedly nine boys are supposed to sleep on , three on each bed ! Then the other end has one large bed and Mansoor told me it was for him and three other boys. This makes 12 of them and I was wondering where the other 8 would sleep( because he had earlier on told me that they were 20 boys living with him) , then he told me that at night they remove whatever is in the "sitting room" and put down some mattresses for the rest.

Anyway this is Kisenyi, one of the most congested and dirty slums in the city center, thousands of crimes are reported daily here. But more surprisingly almost all local metal fabrications are also done here , interesting isn't it? It must have taken these young men lots of efforts to make something come out of here.

Soon you will read about what actually lives behind this shadowy corridor!