The Oracle has spoken! And when the Oracle speaks in Kifuuta Katooke, Kyotera Buddu, even the small dogs stop barking and sit down to listen!
WAKE UP EARLY! GO WORK! MUKOLE!
That is the whole constitution of a poor man! That is his Bible! That is his Quran! That is his national ID!
My children, listen, because the world is lying to you:
The freedom and peace of a poor man is not in Parliament, making noise! Not in TikTok, dancing like a headless chicken, shaking your butt for strangers who will never pay your rent! Not in shouting on WhatsApp groups from morning to midnight, abusing Museveni, abusing Bobi Wine, abusing Besigye, and then sleeping hungry with zero in your pocket and cockroaches holding a conference on your plate!
No!
The freedom of a poor man is in WORK! In his two hands God gave him! In his own sweat that falls like morning rain!
When you work, even at small jobs, you get almost everything you need! That is when you can stand in a shop, measure and take whatever you want according to your size! You say, "Give me this one, not that one. Give me half a kilo, not full." Because your pocket is talking with confidence, not begging with fear!
A short person, where he reaches, is where he stops! Omuntu omumpi wakoma wakwata! Abange, that is not an insult; that is wisdom older than Jinja Main Hall! That is the proverb our grandmothers whispered while peeling matooke! You don't need to climb your neighbour's ceiling to steal his beans! You harvest your own low beans, you cook them with love, you eat them with pride, and you sleep like a king in State House! Peace is knowing your height! Peace is eating what your hands have reached! A tall man reaches mangoes; a short man reaches sweet potatoes. Both eat and get full! No envy!
This world, this very world you abuse every day, is very, very sweet when you have money! Even small money, but YOUR money! Money that has your sweat inside it, money that has blisters inside it!
Then you can get what you need according to YOUR means! Not according to Instagram filters! Not according to your girlfriend's lipstick wish list! Not according to your friends who are posing in hired suits on Jinja Road!
According to YOUR means! One chapati, one Rolex of 2k, that you bought at 7 am with your own hands still dusty, my friend, tastes sweeter than a full chicken of 50k that you begged from a woman who is tired of you! Because in that chapati, there is dignity! In that chapati, there is a signature: "I worked!" In that begged chicken, there is shame that will follow you even to the toilet!
But now, ahhh, look at most of you young ones below 40! My sons! My beautiful daughters! What happened to you? Who bewitched you?
Temwagala kunaba! You don't want to shower! You fear water like a cat!
You wake up at 11 am! The sun is already beating your iron sheets like a drum! Your eyes are red like you slept inside a war in Somalia! Your blanket smells like you slept inside a kitchen where fish was fried for three days without opening the windows! Your mouth smells like a dustbin in Kisenyi! And the first thing you touch is not a toothbrush, not a jerrican of water, not a broom. You touch your PHONE! You scroll! You scroll ghosts!
My son, your odour smells like rotten fish by the lake shores of Kasenyi! Like empuuta that has stayed in the sun! Like that black mud where boats sleep and fishermen vomit! And you wonder why people shift seats in the taxi when you enter? Why that girl you have been toasting on the phone for three months blocks you the moment she meets you in person at Victoria Hall? My son, first KUNABA! Shower! Water is still free at the borehole! Soap is 500 shillings at the kiosk! Showering is not for rich men; showering is for RESPECT! Even a poor man can smell like a flower if he showers! Even a rich man smells like a latrine if he doesn't! Cleanliness is the first interview. Before you speak, your smell has already spoken!
And laziness, that sweet poison, that honey with glass inside, keeps you on your phone from morning to midnight! Chatting with girls you have never met! Girls you will never meet! You are in a single room in Katwe with a leaking roof; she is in Dubai, working 18 hours cleaning houses, crying for home. But because you are hiding in space, hiding behind a small screen, hiding behind a fake profile with sunglasses, you fool her:
"Mbu, I am the son of Sebalamu! Son of Kirumira! Son of Sudhir Ruparelia! I am the one Sultan Maktoum left in Uganda to look after his buildings in Nakasero! I am a tycoon, but my money is locked in Bank of Uganda! Just send me 100k for a lawyer!"
My friend! You are lying in a bedsitter in Bwaise or Makerere Kikoni with one plastic chair, one mattress on the floor, one socket that sparks like lightning, and a curtain that is your door! And you claim you are the son of Sudhir! My son, even Sudhir himself, that old man with white hair, wakes up at 5 am every day to go to work! He goes to count his buildings in Kololo! You wake up at 11 am to go to work at LYING! Who is richer? The liar with an iPhone or the worker with a jerrican?
And the most annoying thing that breaks my heart, that makes me chew my tongue in Kampala today:
The needy hold more iPhones than the super-rich!
I swear by Kiyira River Nile! You see a boy with no job, no shirt, no breakfast, no underwear, but holding an iPhone 15 Pro Max! Shining! Three cameras like a gas stove! A cover worth 80k from Dubai! But his pocket is yawning like a hungry hippo! No 2,000 for data! Always begging: "Nsindikila airtime! Mpa ku ka data! Nzijja kukusasula lwakuba!"
He has a phone worth 5 million, but he cannot buy sugar worth 5 thousand for his mother in the village! He is taking photos with filters, snap, snap, with dog ears, with tattoos, but his stomach has a filter of hunger! He posts on his status, "Living my best life, soft life, God did," while his rent for two months is not paid and the landlord is knocking like the police at CID!
And the real rich man? The Indian on 6th Street who owns the whole street of hardware? The farmer in Mityana with 50 acres of coffee flowering like snow? The Mukwano with lorries that never sleep? He holds a small Kabiriti phone! The screen is cracked like River Katonga in the dry season! No WhatsApp! No TikTok! But his Mobile Money is ting! Six zeros! Seven zeros! He can buy your iPhone and your bedsitter in one minute! Who is fooling whom? My son, the iPhone will not cook beans! The iPhone will not pay the Mukono landlord!
I have seen many young men, oba boys, with wide gym chests! Looking swollen like they swallowed a car tyre! Like a toad that has been beaten with a stick! Chest out, arms big, veins popping, vest tight, oil shining like fried chapati! They go to the gym for three hours, they take pictures in the mirror, they post, "No pain, no gain, grind," but they don't work! They make wish lists in the air! They think being big is brain and power! As if huge is power!
My friend, if huge was power, we would be using elephants to guard our homes! But we use small dogs, embwa, because they have BRAINS! The dog is tiny, but it barks, it knows the thief, it knows its master, it dies for its home! The elephant eats 200 kgs, sleeps the whole day, breaks your fence, and runs away when it hears a gun! Which one do you want to be? Elephant or small dog?
Muscle without work is just meat hanging in a butcher's shop in Nakasero Market, waiting for flies! Brain without work is just decoration in your head, like a flower vase with no water: beautiful but useless, stinking after two days!
And these days, the final madness that made the Oracle cry: they have started waking up in shrines and churches!
4 am! Cold like water from Rwenzori! Instead of going to Owino to carry sacks of onions, instead of going to wash cars at Shell, instead of going to dig at someone's farm, you are in a shrine or church in Mukono! Kneeling! Mbu, Baba, pipe mindi, bakwate muwala wa bijodolo, bifekera, nze njagala kukwasa muwala wa Ntake, njagala mukyala omugagga!
My son! A shrine or church will not give you a job! A shrine or church will give you debt and fear! That witchdoctor and pastor himself wakes up at 5 am to go to work. His work is to con you! He takes your last 50k and tells you to bring a white hen, a black goat, and a bottle of waragi!
You want a girl of a Bijodolo to love you because of a charm, because you washed your face with herbs and chicken blood, not because you can feed her! My son, even Bijodolo's daughter eats! She eats posho! She eats rice! She eats chicken! She wants a man who showers, who works, who can buy her a dress without stealing, who can stand in society and say, "This is my wife; I work for her!" Love without money is just a poem that ends in hunger and a police case!
So listen to the Kifuuta Oracle one more time, because Mzee has walked from Namasagali, Mbulamuti, Nankandulo, Kisoga, from Kifuuta to Kampala, from youth to old age, and Mzee has seen that WORK never kills a man, but LAZINESS buries him while still alive:
Wake up at 5 am while dogs are going to sleep, while River Nile is still calm.
Kunaba! Wash your body, wash your soul, wash your mouth. Let your mother smell you and smile; let your wife hug you without holding her nose!
Pray! Kneel down! Thank God for sending Kifuuta, god of Katooke, the God of Kyotera Buddu. Thank Him for breath, for legs that can still walk to Main Hall!
Go work! Any clean work! Boda, chapati, Rolex, digging, carrying cement at a site, selling airtime at the stage, washing cars at Total, plaiting hair, fetching water for elders, sweeping streets! Any work! No work is shameful! Shame is sleeping hungry when your hands are healthy!
Eat your small money with pride! Sit down and eat that 5k like a king on his throne! Add salt, add dignity!
Sleep at 10 pm with peace, not with a phone in your hand, chatting with ghosts you never met. Sleep like a baby who worked, snoring into next year like a hyena!
That is freedom! That is peace! That is when you will measure and take whatever you want according to your means, and no landlord will abuse you, no girl will laugh at your smell, no friend will call you a beggar, and the gods of Naludugavu and Lusakalwamese will say, "This one is our son!"
The world is sweet, abange, very sweet, like a ripe mango from Kifuuta with honey inside, but only when your hands have worked for the sugar! Only when your sweat has salted the mango! Only when you showered before eating!
Mukole! Mukole! Mukole, abaana bange!
The phone will not feed you; it will eat you!
The gym chest will not pay rent; it will tear your shirt!
The iPhone will not buy supper; it will buy you debt!
The shrine will not build a house; it will bring you nightmares!
WORK WILL! WORK WILL! WORK WILL! WORK IS THE ORANGE ROSE IN THE MORNING! WORK IS THE ONLY PROTECTOR THAT NEVER BURSTS!
As said by the Oracle of Kifuuta, Kyotera Buddu.
