I lived in a shack for a year to build my house

Mugombyesa built his home in Namugongo, step by step Photos by Ismail Kezaala 

By Joash Yose
 

 

In Summary

Mugombyesa faced mamy challenges; a low income, a dubious con man and retrenchment but he still constructed his home.

My name is Moses Steven Mugombesya, a resident of Namugongo. I am a father of five children and I am from the district of Budaka. With my kind of occupation, it would be hard for you to believe the kind of house I live in. I am a security officer (Askari) at Namugongo Secondary and Vocational school Jjanda. My story is a long, one with many hurdles that I overcame. To start with, I dropped out of school in Senior Four around 1978 because my father had been discontinued from his job.

Coming to Kampala
But the thought of coming to the city was not really solid in my mind, since I didn’t have any idea of how life would be, In the village I did menial jobs like digging to get some money to bring me to Kampala. Soon, I was in Kampala were I hooked up with my cousin who worked as a mechanic at Shell Petrol Station around 1979. He was a bachelor by then and was understandably not happy with my presence at his home because I interrupted his privacy.

A week later he got me a job at a restaurant for the Shell staff. 1980 I started making friends at the restaurant again at a price I used to help them with coupons for food when they were broke. One surely paid back by finding me a job at National Housing as an office messenger, At the national housing I climbed up the ladder slowly till I was a supervisor of estates this is were I got the dream of settling in Kampala.

I first rented at Kibuli were my cousin lived. Unfortunately, he died but I continued staying there. There was managerial change at National Housing which came in with good ideas like allowances for its workers. I asked for accommodation and I was given a house at Bugolobi Estate.

But I soon decided to forego the free accommodation and take the housing allowance instead, which if I calculated I could use to do something for myself. I then asked to live at a store at by then where NSSf building stands where I stayed for a year despite the unfavorable conditions.
I went back to rent in Kibuli here I met my wife. With my wife besides me, I proved the saying “Every successful man has a woman behind him.”

My wife suggested the idea to build a house so that we could settle permanently. I asked for an advance of all my allowances for six months. When I got the money, I started to look for a plot of land.

The con man
Fortunately I got one at Kibuli near now shell petrol station at Shs1.6m but little did I know this land seller was a con man. Together with a friend of mine, we bought plots but this man had given his land title to his son to get a loan from the bank. We built up our houses; my friend had even entered his building mine was a shell.


By the time I wanted to call the electrician to wire the house, that’s when I read in the newspaper property on auction for failure to pay up their loans. Going through the list, I spotted the name of the man who had sold us the land, I almost fainted.

I confronted the man, all he could say is he never knew what to do, at the end of it all he went against us. Together with my friend we went to Police but they were all reluctant on this issue because they had labeled him a big criminal. The man even followed me to my office and threatened.

So we rushed to registrar of lands and signed a caveat. The land was sold to one lawyer who was a friend to one of my colleagues so we negotiated some terms and he considered paying us Shs1.5m each which he said we would save or sue the landlord.

On learning about our pursuit to take him to court he sold off all other pieces of land he had around. We thought he wanted to pay us off but he was just running away. So I gave up on him and decided on saving that money and later with a loan from the bank I bought I piece of land in National housing estate in Namungona at Shs3.8m I was not satisfied so a year later sold the plot at Shs5m.

Construction, moving in
With the help of one of the brokers at my work place he got me this piece of land in Namugongo at Shs4.7m. We started off the house as soon as possible with savings from my salary together with my wife. By 2005 we had put the roofing frame at that time there was retrenchment at National Housing, where I was a victim.


With my termination pay, I bought iron sheets and got someone to roof since I needed to enter the house due to the heavy burden of rent yet I was jobless.

Life after that was hard, soon I got my NSSF benefits and I worked on the outside and plastered the inside walls. Two years after depending on farming and working on other peoples farms, I got this job with which I used to develop the house gradually, adding electricity, water and many other things. My compound came next. I got grass from the Bugolobi Estate which I planted thus this beautiful compound. I still have plans like building a fence, and setting up for units for rent.