Kampala: Every 4AM Scola Namusoga, 23, wakes and treks from Kibuli to the city center for work.
By 6 am she is already at her station, a makeshift quick-fix downtown restaurant at Arua Park, ready to deliver breakfast to shopkeepers and downtown hustlers.
Food vending has been Namusoga’s job for the three years.
“By estimate, I think I move average of 20 kilometers a day as a deliver food and soft drinks customers,
“I hardly sit down for more than 5 minutes. From morning when I report to 5 in the evening, I am on the move working on customers,” she said adding that she earns between shs500 and shs1000 per plate delivered.
She is says in a day she can deliver food to between 50-80 clients, many of them are in her record book.
“The more clients you get the more money you make. Some have given me their telephone numbers so I just call to know whether they would want to be served,” Ms Namusoga says.
The work is tiresome, she says amidst sighs, resting on a wooden battered bench.
“It is made worse by some clients who don’t want to pay cash on delivery meaning I have to do two trips delivering and collecting money,” she said.
Her boss, who employees 15 of the girls also has given them a task of looking for new clients. “You have to move all time, either delivering food or looking for new clients. Sometimes we have to “invade’ buses in search of clients,” she says as she interacts with the writer of this story.
Like Ms Namusoga, there are many girls, majority of them in their early 20s who do food vending business in Kampala’s central business district (CBD).The girls almost face the same challenges as they deliver breakfast, lunch and evening tea to clients.
They deliver food to city malls, offices, taxi parks, garages, salons and car washing bays among others, serving a range of clients from taxi drivers, touts, airtime vendors to lawyers, journalists, politicians and preachers.
Many of the girls are single mothers while others are school dropouts whose families could not afford schools fees and instead sent them to relatives in the city to get them jobs.
“My former boyfriend, a taxi tout impregnated me and escaped. I don’t know where he is but I am struggling to raise his baby girl,” says Madinah Nakate when asked why she chose food vending.
Ms Nakate says the child, now four, is yet to join Nursery School, something she says makes her work hard.
Next year I want her to begin ‘Baby Class’,” she says, regretting that her kid was supposed to begin school this year.
“You know I have to pay rent, meet transport costs, the baby has to feed, clothe but I also pay my housemaid who keeps the child,” she says, adding that she already has started saving for her kid’s fees next year.
For some, they have a responsibility to care for their young siblings. And this is why Catherine Atukunda has to endure the morning cold daily to her workplace located in Old Taxi Park.
“Our father who was our provider died in 2014 and there was none in the village to care of us. So I had to move to Kampala with a friend to look for work so that I could help my mother and my young twin brothers who are now in senior two,” she says as tears dropped from her eyes.
The insults
The girls on almost a daily basis, it is a tale of insults, sexual harassment, bad weather, rude clients as well as disrespect.
Most girls say their bosses hurl insults when clients fail to pay or when they delay at client’s place.
“Our boss is so rude that she even wants to move in rain. She told us to buy umbrellas, saying that she gives us too much money,” Aidah Namuju who operates around Nakasero Market.
“Ours is so bad that when you arrive late in the morning, she deducts Shs1000 from your commission” adds Veronica Kayitesi. “This mostly happens when it rains in the morning.”
Stella Kalyesubila’s agony is that of having to endure unreliable boss for two years.
“Our boss is not trustworthy. When you earn commission of say Shs50, 000 in a day, she can’t give all to you. She will bring excuses of rent, give you Shs30, 000 with the promise to settle the balance the following day. But this she never fulfils,” she says.
But the bosses have issues with the girls as well.
“How do you spend 20 minutes serving four plates? Some of the girls are lazy. When I cook food I expect that it will be delivered to clients so that I am able to pay these girls, but some don’t understand this. So when I shout at them they say I am bad,” says Amina Lutaaya who has food joint in the Old Taxi Park.
“These girls can sometimes be dishonest. You give her food to take to client but fails give you the money. They claim the client will pay tomorrow when in the actual sense the client has paid. There is one who did this and I had to send her away,” says Scovia Musinga who runs a food kiosk at Arua Park.
The touchy customers
“There is a taxi tout who operates at ‘Naalya Stage’. Whenever I take him food he wants to touch my breasts,” says a 23-year old girl who prefers to be called Fatuma.
“There is this one who told me to sleep with him before he could accept buying food. I told him we could do it the next day but I never went back,” says Faith Nakyeyune who does her work at Quicell Bus Park. “I hate men who want to take advantage of me. Some don’t know whether you are sick or not. For them they just ask for sex,” she adds.
Some men have gone ahead to label some girls prostitutes.
“Some men say we are prostitutes who disguise as food vendors. Men should respect us as we serve them,” says Bridget Namara who says five men have so far tagged a prostitute.
Asked whether they have reported any cases to the police, the girls’ response was in the negative.
“You know our police. They will ask you for proof and no one will be there for you,” says Ms Nakyeyune.
Others think that reporting cases of sexual harassment requires money.
“I don’t have money. How can I go to the police? You know our police, they want money to help you,” said Harriet Asio who delivers her food to clients Mukwano Shopping Centre.
Police officers talked to at the Old Taxi Park police post said the only cases they receive are those of child neglect.
“Some taxi conducts and touts have fathered kids with some of these girls but they never provide help. We have talked to them to provide child support and in fact some are doing it,” said a police officer under the cloak of anonymity.
We just be joking when we touch them
“Sometimes we just joke with them. For me sexual harassment is when a man rapes a woman. I have not done that. Some times when you tell these girls that they are beautiful they think you are abusing them,” says one taxi tout Kassim Ssemambo.
However some men say they get attracted to the girls because they see them every day.
“My wife is a former food vendor. She used to supply us and I asked her for marriage. I have opened for her a glossary shop at Kitintale and I think she is doing better,” says Moses Musisi, a taxi conductor who operates Port Bell Kampala route.
Despite the challenges girls who vend food in Kampala say they are self-reliant and have realized other benefits such as paying rent, taking their kids to school, supporting their families. Despite the challenges, they say food vending has helped them stay focused.
“Some people call us prostitutes, but I think the work is good and I am saving to buy a plot and build my small house,” says Ms Namusoga.
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