I Live In My Gift Box!

This morning I woke up to a box neatly wrapped and placed outside my door. Being raised in an optimistic society, my first instinct was that it must be something spectacular considering the kind of wrapping it had. Well, my imagination went so wild from who could have dropped it to what must be in it but shortly it was zeroed down to the beautiful wraps. I started to fantasize about the texture and prints of the wraps like I was in a daydream. These wraps had an African fabric touch, a spec of something chic and golden that I was so sure this person knows my heart inside out to the extent that I felt this wrap was tailor-made for me. 

Without notice, I eventually became more attached to it forgetting the actual "gift" it carried. When I normalized out of my daydream, I delicately removed the wraps and perfectly stored them in my "jewel box." I can't even count all the gift boxes and wrappers I have kept with me because they glittered more than the gold that in fact they became an actual representation of the gift itself. Sometimes, due to their glittering nature, like a child, I am tempted to find them more worthy..... Don't judge me! As they lay in this jewel box, they are nothing but trash and sooner than later, long forgotten for they already served their purpose.

At the end of the day I reflected on words from a special friend of mine. She said, "our bodies are a hard ware of the spirit in us which ideally is a soft ware of our being/ physical structures." This reminded me of my wrappers. Most of us are often caught up nourishing our bodies and never to give a damn about our spiritual being, that we relate with others basing on what they look like, spend the rest on our lives concerned about the kind of food we eat, the clothes we wear and so on while leaving our soft ware to the fitting of society and never making it a first priority.

Nature has allowed us to live in the moment and let life unfold itself. A week ago I was taught that living is in a single breath and that life has been designed as a gift to us with our individual name tags worth treasuring every single second of our existence but not so much to the extent that we get absorbed in it and forget to live. 

Sometimes, our parents, siblings, friends or neighbors may get the kind of gifts we wished for or dreamed of, but fact remains, their gifts are theirs and ours are ours. Everyone gets exactly what they need and can afford. God won't give us more than we can contain. But if my neighbor was handed a video play station he didn't know how to use, it's prudent that I share my skills, the best way I know how, hoping that his game won't stay idle in the gift box forever. However, the giver of this life won't hand unto us a gift he knows we can't figure out, or one that we may loathe because even if he is a mystery God, he is a good father and  always faithful.

He Could Be Your Lucky Star💫

I have been careless a couple of times which luckily gave me an opportunity to learn and unlearn certain aspects about life. Firstly, my passport literally strolled out of my backpack in a foreign country with all the currency I possessed in life as well as my yellow fever card. A month later, I left my phone in the comfort of a public taxi where I was seated as I headed home after a busy and stressful day (like most of us have). On both of these days, I came face to face with my lucky star.

"In a world full of conspiracies, suspicions, dishonesty and unkind hearts, how can a man be all the good I have always wished for" my fast-pacing heart paused in wonder. In the first case, a gentleman called Chris(not real name) literally put all that was on his agenda on a standstill to look for me through all means possible until I recovered my property intact. When he broke the good news to me I was rather confused than excited because I actually had no idea how a passport in the innermost pocket of my bag had sneaked out leaving all my other useless belongings in it. In the second case, I noticed I had lost my phone at the point when I needed it to order for a safeboda home. The lady at the grocery store heard my despair and she reached out to me. After narrating my dilemma, she offered me her phone to ring mine. Honestly, I was hoping for a miracle that my phone rings from somewhere in the vicinity. Alas, a gentleman picked my call and asked me to meet him somewhere assuring me that he would gladly give me my phone. He was a taxi driver and according to my society  these men are always mean, abusive, vulgar, and often associated to crimes of any sorts.

I have never expressed so much faith in the human race like I did in that moment amidst the confusion and all conspiracy stories that entertained my beating heart. The lady at the grocery store immediately asked that I go after my phone claiming that that gentleman wouldn't have picked up if he intended harm. In fact, she had so much faith that she gave me her own phone to go after mine. I literally shed a tear, not because of my phone but at this lady's kindness without a second thought. It was about 8:30pm when I quickly rushed out in her faith and found the taxi man exactly where he asked me to. He handed my phone back, told me another passenger had come across it when I left the taxi and given it to him. Did I say I shed a tear earlier, now I completely sobbed in gratitude. These were so far three different stars shining bright in my dimming night.

I attempted to give him the money I was left with that evening as a sign of gratitude and he rejected it with a certain kind of grace and warmth in his voice. On my way back, I nearly run into cars and everything moving against my direction.

Later, I thought to myself how we have become so used to unkindness, bitterness and all the bad things that have robbed humanity of its face. A bit of my heart felt that these angelic behaviours were certainly not human-like. This altruistic behaviour really got me by surprise. And then I felt guilty of why I always have to expect the worst of people but I haven't known much better. Kampala is a place that suggests that everyone is always upto something usually corrosive. Probably, these amazing people have been sent from heaven to restore my faith in humanity and I challenge myself to be a clear reflection of the same. You too, could be an advocate for kindness regardless of how life has treated you.

One random act of kindness, could bless and change the world with a happier person at a time. Fortunately or unfortunately the kind ones don't always come in cloaks and veils, it could be that neighbour of yours in a taxi with bad breath, he could be your lucky star.

Mind your Mind

The world to me is as far as my eyes can go, as far as my mind can stretch me and probably as far as I'll ever go. This sounds like an excuse for my ignorance but who should tell me better!? Teacher Betty? Albert Einstein? or this computer right at my desk?

As a child, the spot where the tallest mountain touched the sky is where I perceived the world to end and the sky as represented by the clouds was the ceiling that in fact I thought separated earth from heaven. As I grew older, television and books expanded my imagination and knowledge of what the world really was. I also found the minds of others quite fascinating, a habit I associate with in my adulthood.

Accidentally sliding into the mind of a boda boda rider, a street dweller, a child, a farmer, a lady of the night, or any other stranger sometimes makes me want to stay. When it comes to family and friends, these have permission to opine and we take their minds for granted but now I recognise how they have shaped mine. I owe them my judgement.

Each time I think about my country which I am proud to say I have traversed mainly for political and social reasons, it aches my heart to imagine myself living here for majority of my life when the world is out there with plenty of space to accommodate me and mine. I genuinely love Uganda, Kampala to be specific and my entire neighbourhood but I must say that the nomad in me has got to be freed. I cannot help but wonder what lies beyond the skyline.

Rather than a battlefield with scuffles everywhere waiting on survival for the fittest, I see it as a playground with wonderment, adventure and happiness that calls out the childish spirit in me every single day I am blessed to live again. In the past few year I have been able to travel from villages to towns, cities, countries and continents for various reasons. One thing that I'd never forget is finding a kindred spirit in a stranger. The joy, excitement, curiosity, amazement and all the good feelings that came along to give me a sense of home. Sharing stories and different perspectives about life became a new craving my poor soul never had the luxury to dream about.

Slowly by slowly I began to desire more and more of the travelling like I had been overdosed with that dopamine. By the end of 2018, all my savings were bitten by that travel bug. It started with curiosity but ended up as a necessity. Each time my mind felt like crashing I only wished to escape it through geographical borders. It is only until later that I realised that wherever I went my heavy mind was the first thing I packed. I realised travelling was instead doing me more harm than good because wherever I went I never wished to come back. In fact coming back to normal got me agitated and literally depressed that I blamed colonialism for all the geographical demarcations I have had to deal with as a prisoner of these lands that generously gave me life.

I am training my spirit to have no mental nor geographical borders, like an eagle will soar so high through seasons and all calamities. When the Psalmist says "Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle" I confide in that assurance. In the meantime home is where my heart is and I am steadily learning to dance in the rain with all its mud, joys, flaws (or flows) and anything in between. Travel won't heal my mental discontentment and neither will it heal yours; calling it a vacation won't change a thing either. I am only trying to mind my mind, you too can mind yours.

Digital quagmire

Lately, I have been having an emotional cloud away from the crowd which resulted into a bit of mental constipation and eventually failure to process my thoughts into words. I tried reading my favourite books, daily articles as well as listening to various inspirational audios hoping these would jumpstart this writer's dying heart but none of these would help.

I knew I had so much on my mind to write about, but it just wouldn't crystallize into any of the words you see right here. My heart skipped a beat each time I realised, that one second grew into a minute, a day, a week and finally months just gazing at a digital blank page. I lost my breath to these writing hiccups. Was it my craving for perfection or the many distractions around me or fear or maybe just procrastination that weighed in heavy as what they call a writer’s block? Or maybe my emotional compass just lost direction.

Overtime, I thought to myself, why the pressure to perform? What's the worst that could happen and why exactly writing even just a page was so important to me? I guess it's never too late to re-evaluate our commitments without seeming like we are cracking up reasons to abscond. I must say, this has taught me to breathe, focus on my breath and from it, to draw the true meaning to life, lest I sink in this fast pacing world.

It's very easy to develop a routine and perceive it as a short-cut to a happy life; Or view commitments as though they carry an assurance of happy returns. Well this is true for many but only to an extent. In the wake of tragic news last week, I started to question what if today was my last day? Would my inability to bequeath any properties allow my words to constitute my will? Why is it that we feel assured that leaving our homes in the morning guarantees us a safe return, that going to sleep in the night automatically cracks us up alive for the next day. Viewing life with such big lenses gave me a sense of satisfaction in the now moments and I am truly grateful just for being alive right now. I hope you too are.

One question that lingers on my mind a lot since then is what if tomorrow you wake up with only the things you are thankful for today? These questions have truly unclogged my emotions that I am finally able to latch onto this platform again. Your case might be different, probably work starts to slack or relations suck; I hope life's grand questions of what should matter most keep you on your feet. You don’t have to wait for the fog to clear, take that step anyway.

In my e-Motions

Some days are sunny and others rainy, with much more significance in the moments in between. The sunny days are full of hype, excitement, anxiety, extra energies and adrenaline rush. They are happy days, the extreme of which might sky rocket with wild fires. The rainy days on the other hand are foggy, slippery, extremely emotional, calming, isolating and sometimes depressing. It always feels like I am walking up mountains and down the valleys not to mention the camping sites I have to go through, so dynamic. But the moments at the camping sites help me to discern, evaluate and eventually aggregate my existence. For all I can say, these are due to some creepy invisible tiny little things moving down my body(read throat) called e-motions.

Rationality is not an element emotions respect. In the wake of reason, I find that I have done exactly what I have over and over again warned my conscience against. From experience, I have learnt that they(emotions) co-exist, that happiness is hardly absolute and neither is sadness; that they are so dynamic regarding state and intensity depending on what life has to offer, one minute I am oozing positive vibes and the next I  feel like I just got stung by a wasp. Sometimes I strongly feel love and hate simultaneously, pleasure and anger, contentment and guilt that to make sense out of this is to get lost in such confusion. But like they say, the beast you feed grows, so the magic is in striking a balance. One of my favourite biology topics was adolescence which brought to my realisation the bodily and emotional changes as one adults. Unfortunately, I imagined after that stage the body and its e-motions would stabilise and be more predictable. But all I can predict now is their unpredictability.

At a certain point in time, I used to beat myself about such state of being that sub-consciously arrested me out of my reason. I even thought that I am innately an evil person waiting on my surrounding to stimulate that beast in my veins. I consciously started to distance myself everytime the clouds weighed heavy with darkness until one day when this friend of mine at campus described a lady he was pursuing on a date as being so dynamic which immediately resonated with a being I wasn't sure was mine anymore. Many people refer to this as a mood-swing with the intention of insulting whoever demonstrates it, but I would rather look at it as one of the truest compliments any woman should get in her days. Ever since then, I have learnt to constantly be awake to my surrounding and more conscious of my interpersonal interactions in an attempt to inform my behaviour because I believe that emotions, like emoticons are infectious.

Learning to suppress or contain some of these wild feelings which emulate the fullness of my womanhood has certainly been the toughest self-taught lesson but it has dearly elevated my tolerance and maybe that's what some call emotional intelligence. Like creative thinking, debate, swimming, communication and any other skills, maybe emotional balancing/intelligence should be crafted as a life skill, specifically for these menstrual circulating emotions. But if not maybe that's where the point of living is, in being extra at the climax of our feelings. Where is the fun in being ambitive? Wear all your personalities if you may.

I fell In Love With My Oppressor

Growing up in the village, it was kind of normal sharing a home, a meal and clothes with a certain species of rodents, rats. No place was ever too far for them to reach, so we came to peace with having them in our spaces; dining rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and even gardens. They were such self-imposed pets. One traumatizing experience I remember, was waking up in the morning to a bitten foot heel. I never witnessed a thing that caused that but I remember my grandmother telling me what had happened. "A rat has a very extraordinary way of biting a sole; it blows you subtly, sweetly, softly and slowly as it bites to the extent that you are not sure if what you feel is a pain or rather a piece of pleasure," she narrated.

There is a certain pain that can be twisted and intermixed with scanty pleasurable bites that will weaken your knees as it does to your feelings in oppression. Many years later, this experience is still engraved on my emotional memory that my body twitches at the sight of rats.

Crushed and ripped of all my rectitude, I fell in love with what oppressed me and anything that caused me pain because I was caught up licking the sugar-coat off of every painful pinch with a glimmer of hope. I knew I was slightly drifting into my own creation of a mess, giving in to the laziness, anger, anxiety, perfectionism, chaos and competition but I was often torn between the gravity of the signs and symptoms pain brought along. Trying to defend my weaknesses consciously, made me realize that I subconsciously had an strange addiction to pain, not that I loved it but because I thought couldn't live without it. It's easy to think of addictions such as alcohol, social media, sex and drugs, but rarely see pain as one. This pain started to feel like home that it consumed and oppressed me to bits, the lack of which stirred a whirling desire in me. And as they say, oppressed people oppress others which sometimes is not even in the spirit of vengeance for their corrupted selves but because out of the abundance of the heart pours our emotions. It is even more painful to be our own oppressor.

For a while, I never understood why most planned markets in Kampala such as Wandegeya take ages to fill-up and function as intended yet so many vendors circumvent them. Sometimes resettling the slum-dwellers to opulent areas even if they were free of charge or shifting a street vendor to an affordable, well furnished place may not be their best choice. Some of them are used to the rush hours that enable them to sell more to the street passersby and in such spaces, they can easily exercise their bargaining power (freedom). These might seem like bad conditions that the market construction seeks to heal but maybe not because the reverse may come with responsibilities that some people may not be willing to take on. There are instances where some children have been rescued from the streets but still they try to find their ways back to where they have grown to find a feeling of home. These could be rare occasions, but none the less, they happen. Some bad situations can make you emotionally numb that all you desires is just more of the same. One of my favorite Luganda sayings is, "amazzi gakulukutira gyegaali gakulukutidde" which directly translates into "water will always flow in its familiar course."

I believe that it would be better to enlighten these people well enough that themselves choose the lifestyle they desire and deserve because God has blessed us all with free will to the good and bad things. We are destroyed for lack of knowledge about the things of God. Looking at John chapter 5, Jesus asked a thirty eight year old impotent man that had been lying next to the pool called Bethesda where others found healing but he was unable to help himself into it, if he willed to be made whole. Basically anyone would have thought that as obvious, but Jesus demanded a will from this diseased man and so it was done. This shows that sometimes freedom and the will of the people however important does not guarantee us the best nor the life we deserve if misused.

One uncommon aspect however is that sometimes the devil may hand us roses (as opposed to thorns) so beautiful like that scotching sun before it rains; the kind that will blind us from the perfect gifts that God may have in stock for us; the kind that will make us hesitate to seek that justice that deep in our hearts we know we deserve; the kind that will keep us comfortable in that mediocre seat even when we know we are destined for greatness; the kind that will cushion our beds perfectly that we'll literally sleep our way through our dreams; the kind that will caress us gently enough that we'll forget the symptoms of our pain because the signs are gone.

We have all experienced and reacted to oppression in different forms that our outlook may differ. But as we grow into advocates for social transformation, may God break our hearts for what breaks his that our compassion to those we attempt to help see the light never fades simply because they don't will for what we find worthy and may we will for what God wills for our lives always.

My Ex-moments

The customer experience

Getting lost in a crowd feels so mysterious like a secret kept in the public. Accustomed to taking evening walks,I found myself down the street in the calmness of the sun where I could easily fuse into my head and feel unnoticeable in the crowd. There is so much peace in solitude especially in the middle of the chaos on the streets with the lights flashing in, cars hooting, boda bodas rushing and vendors pulling everyone from everywhere.  On this particular evening, as I approached a kiosk along Makerere Hill Road in a bid to purchase airtime, this one lady excitedly wooed me to her corner and she didn't mind showing it at a distance. I made my request known to her and the airtime was sent directly to my mobile phone. All was well until I gave her a 50 thousand note to deduct 10 thousand (Uganda shillings). She first ignored me for a minute but to her realization, I wasn't going anywhere especially after I had fulfilled my part of the bargain. "If I knew, she bubbled, I would not have bothered to give you my airtime." I honestly was bewildered by this young lady's statement but well, I imagined she must have had a stressful day, like any young person trying to make ends meet in this tough Kampala. It took me about 30 minutes to leave her presence in an attempt to get my change. I left her fuming as if a piece of her heart had been crushed. But as I disappeared in oblivion, many incidents reflected back in question.

Is Customer Care a Nicety or a Necessity in business? 

Do people even care about the Customer Experience?

Many a times we hold people dear, so much until we get what we want from them. There are these small small habits people grow into or out of that break or make an entire business. We all have those "ex-moments" that probably draw us back into the arms of the people we have transacted with before, starting with how they treated us when we mattered most to them, to their actions and the words they said or didn't say when it was all over. Sometimes it's not enough that the products are user-friendly, cheaper, luxurious, or with good quality. Our experiences will take us back to some place for less quality just because the attendant made us feel like we mattered. It's good that we get to be welcomed nicely but what sticks with us is how we feel when that goodbye knocks at the door.

Human beings have a natural yearning for the VIP treatment that digs more into their details. I remember in the early days of my leadership, the hardest thing to practice was to treat people after being elected as fragile and affectionate as I treated them during my campaign. In my defense, I thought to myself, "who campaigns after an election anyway?". However, this always left me restless, guilty, and sometimes I felt manipulative. Upon the realization of this emptiness, I worked even harder to put myself in a better accountable state, with reasons (excuses) to go back to the people who had trusted me with their vote. It could be the same case in a dating relationship where the roses and other pleasantries may never see another day after marriage. We are innately selfish I may say, always going after our personal needs first yet it's very hard to serve if we don't appreciate what's in it for the other person.

The very first time I got born anew, it felt like I had made it to heaven literally. My heart was at peace instantly, the storm around me was calmed, family was amazing, friends receptive, school was all perfect, to mention but a few. However, the more I got deeper in relationship with God the more I saw things shift as though the world was literally waging war against me. I remember it was so appropriate, at the time, to quote the words, "this world is not my home, I am just passing through." It felt like God had set me up so high only to expose my insecurities and then drop me. The shame came crushing in, the anger, bitterness and confusion that I started to question my decision. I remember thinking to myself, that I was safer loving God at a distance, to keep myself from all the disappointments.

We have built walls of expectations around us that disappointments take pleasure in wrecking down. Being expectant is good, it feeds our optimistic selves but it also limits our experiences in life. When we get to the end of the tunnel and realize that the light we saw at a distance was  in the arms of the last person we may have wanted to see, may we have the grace to be grateful and trust in the process. May we learn to handle our disappointments with content. May each moment we live in our term of service get the same energies like that last campaign day. May each day of our marriage have a one night stand impact. May that wondering soul find peace in the goodness of the Lord, because He may seem unfair but always faithful and just.