Sleeping with a Whistle. The State and Me.
As you may have noticed
This has been going on for a while now. Let me break it down for anyone not in Uganda.
My country is reasonably peaceful except during campaign periods when we have some action or when our great Makerere University goes on strike-but then it is just the students and their neighbors that are unsettled. So when we hear that people are disappearing like we are all in a big magic show, it is massively worrying. Especially only 14 month after the Assistant Inspector General of Police was in the early hours of the morning of 17th March 2017 gunned down. Literally. Only 100 meters from his gate.
Btw, this case has not been solved-yet.
The horror of this incident got us all alert. Every citizen. And by every citizen i mean everyone from the President to the homeless on the streets. Our Police went all FBI, sketches for the suspects were on every media platform and all over Kampala, security was beefed up, we apparently had to have cameras installed in the city(something i am yet to see happen) We were on our toes....And no one noticed the hype and hysteria fade.
Not until a beautiful 28yr old Susan went missing on the 7th of February 2018.
She was found dead 21 days later.
We were up in arms again, the media, our leaders, Police, the ladies that talk endlessly in saloons...Everyone. Few days followed and as usual, we started to relax.
And then again now.....Just like the serial killers that give Alex Cross sleepless nights in those James Patterson novels, these cases just keep coming up. Several people have gone missing and some have been found dead. Every local television has been reporting about kidnaps for the most part of the week.
Back to my whistle.
Most of the people getting kidnapped are either children or female.Bearing in mind that i stay alone, my paranoia is getting the best of me.
You cant help but assume everyone around you is a suspect. Watching 13 seasons of Criminal minds hasn't helped. I do not have pepper spray, neither do i have a black belt in Karate. I am only good with my interpersonal skills. Which are obviously hopeless during a kidnap.
So i resorted to holding onto a tinny silver whistle i got from my dad. I sleep better knowing if I hear as much as a tiny creak at the gate,I blow that thing as loud as i can. Like my life depends on it. Because it probably does.
NOTE:
1. I probably will never have correct grammar and punctuation on here. Ever. Just go with the flow.
2. Please remember that this is Uganda.It is safe to say house alarms and the like in my country are as common as seeing Her Majesty the Queen with no gloves.
3. I hold the whistle when I sleep. With that round thingie that looks like its for a key holder on my pinky. When I get up every morning, I cannot find it. It somehow moves from my little finger to like down my toes. Which only means that i will probably never reach it in time when i really need it.
But if i do and manage to blow it which I really doubt my neighbors will peacefully be sleeping and only think that they are having a dream. Bottom line, I get robbed, or Kidnapped or something.
No one wants to live in a place/country where you have to look over your shoulder, or wonder why some random guy is staring at you for too long or even walking behind you.
Right now, it is kidnap for me.
But it is a lot of other things for the rest of us.
How do I keep Sane and Safe???
PS. Please up your game Uganda Police Force
The press conferences are not doing the trick. You cannot have a grown woman start sleeping with a whistle.
It's such a hard situation. There's nothing as scaring as awaking to a beautiful day, but yet for every step you take, it feels like you are being followed by kidnappers. It's too much paranoia, I hate the feeling too. Something should be done before we become extinct in our own country, a place we call home.
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