Friday, February 27, 2009

MY JOURNEY OF LIFE TO THE UNKNOWN FATE

Allow me to introduce my self to you. Am called Quitstorm on this online world,am a Ugandan aged now almost 30 years(i say almost because my birthday will come on 23 March and on that date,another year is added on my life cycle.

On this page,allow me to take you in my long journey to freedom.. This is a weblog of a person whose desire is to find happiness and freedom in life.

Am not sure where to start but being in a country where tribalism dominates(i hate tribalism) i must sadly point on the the tribe of which i belong as i know my Ugandan readers would like to know.Am a Ugandan and a Muganda by tribe. I was born on 23 march 1979. I was born in a peasant and mere protestant family, in a little village with its bedrock on lake Wamala in Mityana formely part of Mubende district,You can also see Mityana Local Government.See details on Mityana

Present-day known as Mityana District and Nakibanga Parish, 57 miles from Kampala.If you have a geographical Map of Uganda or Eastafrica,you may locate this place.(those who are not in Uganda currently)

My parents were not living in normal marriage. My mother was not a stable lady from the information I found out later during my mission to find her, so she left me with my grandpas when I was only six months! Later I found that she died many years ago. I found this when she had spent more than ten years in the in her graveyard in 1998.This paved a way where my childhood was stolen completely. As you read it,you may sense that am not a good narrator,so you have a right to correct me.

My grandpas did an enormous work to bring me up even though it was a painful life. In our families (extended family) we were very many children, coming from different types of families just like in most dominant African families the world over. My father alone had 12 children. But there was other kids from other family relatives.

My father was a cultivator, farmer and a local beer manufacturer(he is now worn out that he cannot do these works on his own). For me, the life I lived was strangely very different from others'. as it was full of hatred and discrimination. I was staying with my grandpas but as a must I was supposed to wake up early in the morning and go to my father's home to help him with domestic commercial work which was good but he over used me with lesser signficants or outcomes as a child!


In school days, instead of going to school like my brothers and sisters, I was sent to look for bananas, which was used to manufacture local beer and "Walagi".This helped my father to exploit me as much as possible and there are many things which my family did to me but I am unable to mention it all in this little time but also time had passed by,that on this day as i write this,am not able to recall each event that took place as i had no dairy.

Amongst the problems I experienced were dealing with heavy works, hatred, being lonely, hanger, lack of parental care, discrimination between my brothers and sisters since we were born of different mothers and lack of not going to school. This problem of being lonely is hitting me so harder that i fail to think of a way to get out of it!.

I could sometimes wake up at dawn to go and milk cows. I could even ask myself why my parents were doing all this to me; but no answer until 4th February, 1990, the day which I will never forget throughout my life. It was a day when my father sent my youngest sister to my grandpas ordering me not to go anywhere before he (my father) came to send me somewhere. On this day, my family disowned me!

I listened and waited up to 3.00 P.M. when he told me to clean myself because it was time to depart for his mission! When I finished, I waited for a little while. He came with my stepmother, my two elder brothers and sister. We left home for the mission not knowing that it was the day that marked the exodus of my suffering going throughout my life.

When we reached the place, we found many people including village elders, local council members, family friends and all our clan leaders and heads of our genealogy. We all sat down and started with the occasion,While observing and listening attentively. It was one of my worst moments in life that you can greatly imagine of!. But in addition,i have been with a fragile life over and over.

On this occasion the intention was to handle me to another man. So my father abandoned me saying I was not his son! After all, the speaker told me to stand and shake hands with my new father. All this happened without any chance to know my mother not even to know her names, origination, her clan and genealogy.I refused to do as they had ordered me. I left the room knowing that there was nothing to do with that. I knew it was time to start my independent life which i have been living almost all my life.

Many questions like what should I do, Should I commit suicide, and many others developed in my life. While struggling to look for solution, I learned that unless I went away, I could not solve anything.I was really fixed between a hard place and a rock.

So I left the place to go for the wild life. On that very age i recall my age was around 10 or 11, I got a friend who was living on the streets. He brought the same ideas to me of going to the street in the next town (Mityana.)

While staying on the streets, I passed through difficult times. I lived a painful and hurtful life. Later I started looking for jobs in town. It was very hard for me to get jobs due to my age,So I started to eat food dumped in the city garbage just like all streets kid the world over. Sometimes I could fail to get even such food and depend on empty stomach day and night.This resulted into strong ulcers that up to now,am fighting with them.


Life was really difficult in that place. Later on, I started to fetch water from the nearby wells on head and through this I could get some little money for food. At the age of 12 years I went back to my home village with a plan of earning some money for education.

I started my school when I was 13 years. I have been struggling to promote my education as well as meeting my needs like food, clothes, house rent and others. Whenever I recall the past I break into tears especially when I think of the life style I lived in my father's family and on the streets ,however i dont regret for having been given the opportunity for life!

At the age of 15,i become a born again Christian. I thought that turning to Jesus may solve my problems but that was a joke,i proudly say that while many people claim freedom after joining a certain religion,i claim my freedom after i denounced any divine powers on me including God.

Well it never worked as I thought. I went to a theological college and trained as a missionary with the Support of Baptist Missionaries who were working in our area. After that, I travelled to Kenya with the Help of Churches there to work as a missionary in Kitui,Machakos,Nairobi,Kisumu and many other areas.


In 1998,when the President,through the Media and society went against Gays,I came up openly to campaign for freedom of expression,associate and Human rights for GLBTs.

I have appeared on local and international media including the Community channel Television in the UK and straight Africa-Voice of America TV where i have made live calls during the straight talk Africa show.

When the Church knew about my role in supporting rights of all people including GLBTs,they ex-communicated ,disassociated from me and hence leaving the church alone.

But also before that, I was somehow homophobic not really knowing that i myself was a Humanist/Atheist whose principals does not allow me to discriminate anyone because of sexual orientation. Now having discovered myself,am a freeman doing all what it takes to make Uganda a better place for all of us. I would like to see everyone on this planet Earth enjoying a more happier and better life.In other words,i want humans to be better than well!.

I went ahead with activism until when it was about to cost my life after countless tempted arrests and death threats, eviction from houses and public transportation, and public places, banning of my organization’s expression from the media houses and news paper that even now,if I write an article,they cannot allow it to appear in any news paper.

From my little travels,I had met many people of which some of them were just as me,and they were called the Humanist, call them Atheists if you like..So I was interested in knowing who are really the humanists,haaaaa thats how i discovered myself once again.

I attended a Humanist event and met other people from the International Humanist and ethical Union summit in Kampala in may 2004.It was really fun learning more and more of the Humanist values and principles.

I became a transhumanist,now am strongly developing an association of Transhumanist within Eastafrica,but it happen not to go as I expect. I hope it needs time.I do hope that life is really funny and more interesting to live.

I have gone through a lot but as i say we need an evenning walk and a cup of coffee to experience my journey of life,still its nice that you are following it via this blog of which i think i will be able to post on and on.

The more I lacked love the more I became selfish; the more I suffered the harder and storny my heart became. I suffered a lot but I knew that life is like a bicycle, you cannot stop pedalling unless you ........................... Now am a loving,passionate,not easy to get angry person!.


I now know that you have many questions for me but its okey for you to ask and I will answer.. In reality,i never completed my education, am proud because I do things that even those who hold degrees cant do sometimes however,in Africa having education a a strong key to better lives.

I have what I call a brain power and am really feeling happpy when someone seeks my help in any way or another. At the age on 28 I tried to go back to school and do my UCE exams but hey,i felt very negative when i saw that i was 10 or 15 years older than the classmates,so i dropped out again. May be one day i will get a chance again when am even much older. You are free to comment and see whats ahead of me.

Quitstorm

Webale nyo (thank you)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Micheal, am not sure what to say. Am ma mother and would die if i saw my son go thru that. Why do human do that?
You can always go back to school, or do online courses.
Am speechless may be my next comment i will be more calm. Am so mad at every relative of yours and your father doesent deserve to called a father ....

MPAGI.M.MICHEAL said...

Dear Mother Namanda:
When I found myself on the streets, every day--every single day--was a struggle just to stay alive. I didn't have time for school for approximately the same reasons many kids drop out of school to work on the farm. Except in my case, I didn't have family, farm, or other industry to help me. I was lucky, however. I was born male. We find thousands of kids every year in Uganda who simply die of starvation, or were abducted for the international sex industry and who end up dead. We don't hear the details from these kids. But I'm alive and learned the English language and became computer literate--so that with me, you can hear from one who managed to survive.

Having been there, like so many others, I pay attention to what happens to kids in other countries. In India, a kid or adult can die in the streets of Calcutta and people just step over them. Eventually, someone comes along and picks up the rotting carcass.

There are many reasons why I'm an atheist. And one of them is the utter irresponsibility of ministers of religion (imams, priests, preachers) who condemn birth control and abortions and who bully their uneducated flock into having as many children as a woman can produce--regardless whether they can support all those children for a full 18 years.

People who give ANY money to any mosque or church have contributed to my difficult struggle just to stay alive. For the kids who died--FIRST blame the religious leaders. And they do lead--to the path of abject poverty and death--all in the name of their nonexistent god. But the uneducated don't know that there is no god.