The sun beats down on the Namuwongo ghetto like molten lead.
The afternoon air is filled with dust and choking smoke from burning plastics.
The dirty children wear tattered rags and run in the rain puddles.
Older children line up near the disused rail yard,
Begging for a few shillings on the filthy, narrow streets.
The fearful drivers quickly roll their windows,
To avoid their country's scam!

The mothers roast the millet brew on large, flat, and cut drums on slow fire.
They toil from dawn until dusk.
Their tired and hungry faces hide their pain.
Their hands are rough and calloused.
Their once beautiful bodies have become thin, frail, and worn.
For generations, these women have lived in this ghetto.
This is the only place where you find different tribes.
Working together for survival.

The husbands are idle, listless, and destitute.
These men drink and gamble all day long.
The metallic shanks are rusty and falling apart,
Their lives are hopeless and empty.
Their future is filled with bleakness and mishaps.
This ghetto like others in Uganda is a prison cell,
It's a place where misery and sin reside.
Few have escaped its tenuous clutches

Young girls and women peddle their flesh,
The pimps loiter nearby, waiting like sharks,
To pounce on their victims' wallets.
It is survival of the fittest.
This is breeding ground for crime and hate.
Cheap and toxic alcohol floods the area.
The ghetto is a challenging place to find hope and sanity.

The ghetto people now have a new and vibrant voice.
There is a new sheriff in the country,
His public speeches and songs,
Have inflamed millions of people.
Making them dream of better days to come.
The ghetto youth and old people cling to faith, and patriotism.
For years, a senile regime of purported liberators.
Have plundered their wealth and dashed their hopes.

© Mwebe Morgan