How I Was Robbed From A Guest House And Got Stranded At Bus Park

Posted by: Eninu William in story December 27, 2019

Having been robbed in from a guest house in Kamwokya and with no more money left to live on, begging the bus driver was the only option. I walked all the way from Kamwokya to the park, my nearly empty backpack on the back and on my arrival, the bus brokers came rushing to me, asking where I was going and that the transport would be fair if I used their bus. I was quiet because fair didn’t necessarily mean free yet I was looking for the latter. I kept on looking around, studying faces of who could possibly be kind-hearted enough to hear me out. I then gathered enough courage and walked over to one driver,

“Good morning sir,” I started off.

“Yes Mr. We’re about to leave now, please just be a little bit patient.” He replied thinking I was one of the clients who were trying to complain because of the time.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay, and what could that be?”

“You see, I came to Kampala three days ago with everything I needed to start life here.”

He looked at me critically and I was sure he was about to mistake me for a conman, still I had to explain myself.

“The very evening I arrived, somebody helped me get a guest house where to sleep as I looked for a house for rent around Kamwokya but then later that night, I was robbed off my money and clothes.”
“Too bad, unfortunately I don’t have money to give you right now.”

Again he mistook me for an ordinary beggar on the streets of Kampala. Yes, I was a beggar but one who needed just some small space in his bus so I could reach Fort Portal, my home town.

“Sir, I am not asking you to give me money.”

“Okay, so what is your point then. If you’re not a passenger eh, please I have no time.” He said and adjusted his cap, he was clearly getting impatient.

“I need to go back home to Fort Portal but I don’t have money completely, please help, I can even just stand all through the journey as long as I reach home alive. Please help me.”

He looked at me silently, as if determining if what I was saying was true or not, he then said;

“Look young man, this bus is somebody’s business and we can not carry people for free, you see even just a mere envelope, somebody has to pay ten thousand shillings.”

“Please, I am desperately in need of going back home. I could die in this city sir, I have no money for food, no where to sleep, I don’t know anyone in this city. Please I beg you, help me get to Fort Portal, I swear I will find that money in one day and send it to your mobile money account or even bring it to you in town. I swear.”

“I’m the one who brought you here, listen eh, if you’re not buying a ticket, please get leave.”

All my supplications fell on deaf ears as he even got a little angry at me, I tried to hand over my national ID to him but he still said it was going to be useless to him.

Soon that bus left the park full, there was space enough for me to stand in but I guess I didn’t look like I needed help. I then went on to another bus, explained my predicament and begged as much as I could but nothing happened. Another bus driver who was nearby upon seeing me trying to go to him just walked away, he had already seen and heard me begging his colleague.

I got confused and desperate, hunger was already sending signals that I needed to do something about it. A man passed near me while biting into a snack and I could hear my stomach grumbling. I had not tasted anything since the previous afternoon. I looked around for a while and went to sit down under a tent, sadly, everyone around me was eating something. That was definitely not a good place for a hungry man like me, I had to find another place. Food wasn’t my most pressing need at that moment but it was about to become, I needed to reach Fort Portal, my whole body, mind and soul needed to get to Fort Portal.

As I stood at the park looking around for where else to go, I saw a familiar face, a local politician in the municipality back in Fort Portal. I quickly went to him, greeted in the most humble way to could, introduced myself and hipped praise on him for his endless good works in the development of his division in Fort Portal. He was enjoying it and I thought that yeah, perhaps he would help. I was wrong cause as soon as I introduced my problem to his attention, his politics came to play. He told me of how I was unlucky by just a few minutes and that he had just helped about five people who were sharing more or less the same problem as mine. He was lieing because I saw him coming into the park on a boda boda and I was the first person to meet him even before the bus brokers did.

I was left humbled, nobody could help me in the city, my reason for wanting to leave, my desperacy seemed like music to the ears of the people I tried to beg for help from. 2pm in the afternoon and the park was nearly empty, I had exhausted almost all avenues of begging, none had worked. I needed to find a way of at least if not going home, then to make my stomach full. I sat down on a concrete stone observing as people made their way in and out of the park, buses going to different areas coming in and leaving.

3:30pm and hunger-related headache started off, slowly increasing with time, my hands soon joined in and started quaking. I had never reached that extent of being hungry. With almost no strength on my feet to carry my body across the park, I walked towards the exit and decided that I would try to carry someone’s luggage from out there into the park so I could get at least a few coins to get me something to eat. A lady soon stopped with a heavy suitcase and as I made my way to her, a seemingly smart-dressed guy quickly carried her things off and she followed him. I looked on in silence as the man led the lady to a ticket booking table and even put her things in the boot of a bus, all for free. He was a bus broker, one that was not in uniform. I was left dumbfounded.

Hunger was no man’s friend though, even as I failed at my first attempt at making money to buy food, my stomach demanded that I met it’s need. I walked a bit to a distance where there were no more disguised bus brokers and stood there waiting for the next loaded traveller. Another lady soon arrived with a bale of clothes, too large that it would not cross from a narrow entry to the park where she wanted to pass. The boda boda dropped her off and I quickly went to help, lifting the huge pile of clothes onto my head. She looked at me as I tried my level best with legs quaking and my backpack on my back. She then asked how much it would be to the park and I quickly told her two thousand. She told me she usually paid one thousand for the same thing and if I insisted, she would get another person to do the same for one thousand shillings. I had no choice and instead started moving with the huge bale on my head, it was difficult but I needed to feed myself. We reached the bus and she booked, I helped her fix the thing into the boot with the guidance of a conductor and she paid me the one thousand. As much as it was small, it was what I needed to get a broke hustlers food. I made my way to a chapati stall and ordered for kikomando real quick. My stomach grumbled as the boy’s knife cut through the large chapati, slicing it into smaller pieces. When I finished eating, I needed water to drink but then never had extra money, I asked the chapati maker to pour me a cup from his jerrican. It wasn’t safe drinking water but I had no choice, I gulped two full cups, enough to last me the whole day since I didn’t even know where my next meal would come from.

It was now getting late, 6:30pm and I had no where to sleep. All through my struggle, my phone was in the pocket, it was then that I recalled there was once a girl who loved me. As much as loving her was the genesis of my problems, she was the only person who perhaps I could reach out to in the city for help. Still I never thought it would be proper to reach out to a girl for help, I was raised and taught never to depend on women for help. 11pm, I still kept on thinking and even started looking around for places where I could perhaps lay my head later when it got really cold. I came to learn that some brokers at the park too had no where to sleep and instead would sleep in buses that were travelling early the next morning. I made my way into one and stationed myself in the long back seat, soon drifting off into the subconscious world. An hour or so later, somebody tapped my legs, it was the bus conductor and when I raised my head to see who it was, he landed a nasty slap on my face, it felt like I was struck my lightning. I exited the bus as first as I could, some passengers who were already in their seats laughed and two others had apparently booked the backseat where I was lodging stood by. It was painful and it seemed like this conductor wanted to render me blind, I could not see well upon coming out of the bus and I kept on bumping into people or their luggage as I walked away.

“Nancy, please help me.”
I cried out on phone at midnight, stranded with eyes unable to see clearly.

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