If you do not care about the healthy of your Neighbour, community, how will you care about your Country?

What kind of neighbor or resident are you in your community? Are you a self centered, not open-minded, proud and full of yourself kind of human being? I have decided to open this article with those questions for only one particular reason, that’s our environment within our home boundaries.

Am very disturbed by increasing bags and hills of wastes dumped on all the enrooting corners of our community throughout Kampala. It’s like Kampala’s streets and all the roads in the suburbs are dumping sites but who is doing this dumping? Kampala is so dirty but those with cars on push their screens up and pretend not to see the problem. Apparently, it’s clear that it’s these owners of these cars who pay small boys to carry the bags of wastage and dump it on the sidewalks and on all roadsides of our roads. I have personally witnessed a car stopping on to dump a big bag of banana peels into the trench of the road. This act is very selfish, 95% of Ugandans are religious, and so this act is sin since it’s a result of selfishness. To atheists like me, we do not sin but we can break the law, so how should we address this?

I took time to meditate on the residence of my landlord. I have been staying in this home (I stay in the same closet with my landlord) from December 2009. The tap of the running water is very close to my entrance, that’s where we all correct water. On the morning of my first morning in this parameter wall, I observed that the grown up-educated youth (children of my landlord) come on this tap to clean their faces and brush their teeth. The sounding from their mouth and the noise made by the running water was not good to me especially when it’s always at 6am, when I awake up. I went to see and guess what, the boys spit everywhere, the whites Colgate and the thick flue-like fluids were left on under the tap and it didn’t look nice, so I complained to my landlord. Nothing have been done to stop this activity, am allergic to it and as a result, I have decided to always the brush and clean the place, even though I have done it continuously, these so called younger people, can’t have an idea that what they are doing is simply not right hygienically and socially.

Previously, they were dumping the wastes outside the parameter wall. They used to go and burn the wastes up, and the smoke could go through the ventilators and into my house, my entire rooms and clothes all smelt the smoke of the wastes and I complained, nothing was done, so I made it a decision that every time they light up the wastes, I go instantly and pour water in it. And this forced them to rethink what they were doing. I proposed a better waste collection which seems like not creating sense to them, so now all wastes are there. Am observing what will be done on it.
This weekend, I chose to walk around the premises to check where all the water from our residence goes!. I was alarmed to note that it runs through other people’s homes, and stinting so badly, our neighborhood is note complaining because they are doing the same thing-letting their wastes run through other people’s home, it’s like an acceptable norm of the society. Almost every year, Kampala gets more cholera outbreaks especially during rainy season, many lives got lost, and why can’t we learn lessons from that? Cholera is a simple disease to prevent, but how will you prevent it when you are not doing the right thing for the environment within our boundaries? Be a model to others by improving dumping process.

Kampala is a very small place. People own very small pieces of land where they simply have their residence inside an enclosement of a parameter wall, mostly its 50ft by 100ft.Everyone is squeezed. The townships are not well planned; the authorities seem to be powerless to enforce the law since they are always being disrupted by supporters of the ruling political party. Kampala is rotten, nasty and not a good living place. What can we do? Can’t we save the country from rubbish and bad management? If you do not care about your community and allow your wastage run through their homes, how will you care about the city and the country? When will we stop politicking and endorse smooth service delivery for city dwellers?

We the city dwellers deserve better, clean and smooth delivery, be part of that campaigns by improving g your dumping behavior!