Young men today eat from the plate and spit on the soil.
They lick the spoon clean and forget the farmer’s broken back. They want the mango, but they’ll curse the tree for dropping leaves.
In Nankulabye, we raised Brian and Anthony on trust. We pulled chairs for them at our table. We broke bread with open hands. But some of them twisted that trust into a knife—eyes glued to the plate, hearts blind to the blood that watered it.
You drag a man from the crossroads, wash the dust off his feet, give him a name, give him life, and he’ll gut you in the sun like dry fish and laugh while you dry. No shame. No shadow deep enough to hide that kind of hunger.
And the final insult? After they loot your trust, they drag you back to the table to negotiate how they’ll run away with the loot. You stole from me; now you force me to sit and bargain while you dust my integrity and butcher my heart in public. That’s not theft. That’s mockery in a suit.
Look at the Westerners. Look at the Northerners. They trade with their own, and the scale doesn’t lie. Blood ties make the books balance. A handshake is a contract written in bone.
The Easterners? Half will keep their word until the grave. The other half will smile while they count your teeth.
But Senyonjo Anthony “Yankees,” we fed—these boys from Naku-elabye—they bathed in our mercy and came out dirtier.
You shelter them from the rain today; tomorrow they sell your roof for firewood. They auction your kindness to the lowest bidder. They ride a tricycle stained red from the shallow wells of Masaka, wheels squeaking with secrets, and they call the stain “hustle.”
So here’s the EDUCATION. The BITTER TEACHING:
A plate gets cold. A garden remembers your name. Stop begging for supper. Learn how to break ground with bleeding hands.
Trust is a currency printed in your veins. Spend it slow. Bury most of it. Because once a thief holds it, the price of breathing goes up.
Not every dog you feed will guard your house. Some just learn where you hide the meat. Some study your mercy to map the fastest way to your throat.
Kinship isn’t born—it’s proven. Real kin protect the garden when you’re gone. Fake kin raid the plate while you’re still chewing.
BITTER GENERATION:
If I walk past you today, it isn’t wickedness. It’s memory with teeth.
It’s the scars on my back from boys I called brother who traded me for a bowl of warm soup.
We teach through wounds now. We trust after the autopsy. We verify with fire.
As a shabby savage sits with a decorous to let the primitive, wild-looking, and inhospitable Naku-elabye goon serve the couth's sweat.
Learn the garden. Fear the gardener who’s been robbed. And guard the plate like it’s your last.
At Mass today, I prayed for Brian to hit his head on the forehead of a rhino and Anthony to kiss the lipsticked crocodile’s lips. In Kifuuta, the Leopard is waiting for them in Housing Finance as the branch manager sits on the genuine registered Resolution in a bullion van. Uganda olemwa.
