This has been a challenging week so far. It has been action packed and the brains have been everything but topsy –turvy. My bosses have been here and I have had a bit of bashing from them and hardly any compliments apart from some bantering. I have been told of a possible transfer to the North, South, Central or head office; what they think will be “appropriate” for me.
I have been told that the reason for the proposed transfer is to do with what has been termed as under performance. It is said that I would probably be more productive at the desk rather than in the field. On the other hand it is said that I might have got used to the territory and the agents, sub-agents and vendors so much that I have become an old duck that can do no better than just quack. Quack, is all I can do, no tangible results. Funny, though, that I have to endure the bad roads, insults, dust and poor working conditions, just to keep the distribution channel running and company image clean.
Some other person said that I am too close to home and just spend lots of fuel travelling home instead of spending night s in Mbale or the field. I wonder how far I would be travelling from work to home if and when I return to head office. Entebbe will be definitely farther from Kampala than Tororo is from Mbale.
Well, whatever is happening the devil take it coz when there is a threat it only serves to clear the murk in my brain to give me a clear sunshine day to for creativity and better planning for myself instead of spending my whole life toiling for what does not belong to me. True, the job helps me make ends meet but when you neglect other areas of your life and find that the bottom of your world might probably drop out soon than you think; you cannot just stand by and watch. You got to do something brother or sister.
Today is Friday and it has been eventful. I came within an inch of a tragedy in the field in North Teso having set out in the morning with the Soroti agent for debt collection and appointments of new sub-agents. A lorry overloaded with passengers and livestock overturned after a tyre burst a few metres from the side of the road that I had pulled over.
I had to turn back to Soroti to take the injured to Hospital before returning to the field. Help, though, was not fast and easy coming at the Hospital. In typical Marie Antoinette style a nurse told me to tell the injured to walk out of the vehicle to the doctor’s room as though I had not explained to her that the people were in severe pain and one had a broken leg. After about thirty minutes of pacing up and down along the corridors of the hospital, a stretcher was brought out and one person was taken. The rest of the injured had their examination and medical forms written at the vehicle and I was told to drive them over to the theatre where someone I was told would put them on a stretcher. Well, I waited for at least 45minutes without anybody in sight to help; it seemed that the nurses had broken off for lunch and did not bother whether this was an emergency.
Frustrated by the waiting as if I had committed a crime by playing Good Samaritan, I asked my cousin to look for any help he could get and when he walked to nearest ward he found a stretcher that we used to help out the rest of the patients.
As I left the hospital, a lot of question rang out in my mind; wondering why people become nurses or doctors or anything else if they do not love the profession. I wondered where their job satisfaction came from other the pay check. I also put myself in the injured’s shoes and tried to envision that situation and the depression I would be faced with at such a medical unit. Well, this is Uganda. Uganda’s development statistics and other parameters usually confuse me. We are told that we are much better off in many ways compared to twenty or so years ago but I keep seeing much worse in many areas especially here up country.
I am off farther afield seeing scenes of poverty but the people smile and have a good time drinking their local millet brew –ajono as they read the vernacular newspaper I am trying to market and distribute in the rural areas. English too is as common as trash around here and satellite TV for Premier League matches viewing is not a rare sight in ramshackle buildings. There are vast stretches of grassland but the cows I used to be told abound here are quite few and I wonder how much better off a county like Usuk or a district like Amuria or katakwi would be if commercial farming e.g. in horticulture, ranching would be adapted.
The sun is quickly going down and behind me I live young boys reading a copy of Etop from the back to the front like most youth in our country do; checking out the performance of their favorite teams in the European clubs in the sports page before anything else and this week the finals of the Africa Nations Cup are on.
Along the way, we meet a number of staggering men making their way home after daytime drinking. No wonder that a vice president once complained that men from Teso spend lots time drinking ajono and left the women with the bulk of the work.
It weekend and I am worn-out and need to have a break and village is my destination this time round to spend sometime with mom and skipper. I am told though, that a colleague has been admitted to a clinic after collapsing in Soroti while on a reporting field trip of North East Uganda, thus I might be bound for Soroti sooner that I expected.
This life 