From all these street evictions, do you know where your mama Shamim is?

 By Badru Walusansa

Today I woke up with deeper thoughts – thinking about mama Shamim. The street vendor who normally sold me “bogoya” on my way home. She had big dreams like many of us. A single mother raising six children from a rented one-room house.

During one of our light moments, I asked mama Shamim based on her meagre earnings, how she survives in this harsh city of ours. This was after she revealed to me that her capital was less than shs 300,000 (Three Hundred Thousand shillings). She took a deep breath, smiled and retorted, “my son, it’s people like you who determine whether my children will have a meal or not; whether my children will see a blackboard or not.”

It cuts deep that mama Shamim’s only means of survival never survived the ongoing eviction of street vendors. Her life and that of her children depended on that evicted makeshift. While her makeshift might have looked indecent in the eyes of the evictors, to her it was a place of work where she fended for her family. It was more than a makeshift but a place where all her fortunes rested. Mama Shamim still has a hard task of explaining all this sudden shift to her children. Imagine, whom she will frame as the evictor.

Mama Shamim’s eviction is a case of dashed hopes and dreams. The continuation of her children’s education currently lies in limbo. Just like other children, her children also had dreams of becoming doctors, engineers and lawyers. Who knows the eviction could have shattered all these dreams. See how the country is robbed of its future doctors, engineers and lawyers. More so, not one, not two, but hundreds and thousands of them.

Mama Shamim represents a fraction of women street vendors whose precarious businesses have been evicted. Such women live hand to mouth. They are just a single directive away from abject poverty. Yet the recent operations to clear the streets never listened to their untold life stories. It’s true organized streets are everyone’s desire. But how do we reconcile street evictions with the harsh realities experienced by mama Shamim and others? How do we comfortably go to bed as many Mama Shamims out there struggle with life after eviction?

It’s a complex situation littered with many questions but fewer answers. I know mama Shamim wouldn’t be against development. I also know she would love to witness organized streets like most of us do. But the fault lies squarely in evicting mama Shamim without an alternative. This is the missing logic in almost all government initiatives intended to restore order especially in the city centres.

Most plans hatched from boardrooms tend to have devastating impact on the “wananchi.” Their lives end up being distorted through top-down decisions. This is the same situation mama Shamim is experiencing currently. Despite her troubling situation, she’s still expected without any excuse to provide food, medical support and pay school fees for her children.

As we walk comfortably on those decongested streets, it’s important to remember people like mama Shamim whose livelihoods have been dismantled for our luxury. While many can quickly move on and replace their mama Shamim, sadly mama Shamim can hardly figure out her next move. That’s why we should all be bothered by her plight.

As we ask where the government is in all this, you may need to first find out where your mama Shamim is, reach out and support her where possible. Try to uplift her as she finds a new hustle. Where it permits, give her a random call of courage. Sometimes, that is all we can do in such times of distress. Above all, behind the smiles worn by your children whenever you returned home with bogoya, was an invisible hand of mama Shamim.

Badru Walusansa is a socio-political analyst