Tinka the village girl💥

Managing cities and urban growth across the globe is one of the principal challenges of the 21st Century that has seen cities develop into centers of urban poverty, conflict and dissatisfaction to the elites and the underprivileged yet no underlying factor has been given to explain the status quo.

However, various localities are critically ill with lack of proper information flow to aid in the formation of a coherent urban fabric as explained in the famous story of Tinka, a poor girl who went abroad to work while sending her savings to a friend who bought her a plot of land engraved in a wetland.

Tinkasimire left Kwabo village in 2002 after a long political turmoil that had severely affected Uganda for close to 10years. The decision to come to Kampala was dictated by the death of her guardian at the end of the NRA war. She had lived as an underprivileged child with no access to education and other basic necessities though yearned for a better living all her youthful age.

Upon accumulating some funds from the sale of her seasoned harvest, Tinka requested aid from the truck driver to whom she had sold her fruits to transport her to the capital. The poor girl climbed and sat on top of the Avocado truck regardless of her gender.

She reached Kampala with utmost excitement, a place with no relative and new to her eyes. Every aspect of life seemed new to her. She could not help fantasizing the gymnastic allegories she imagined on glancing at the Kampala sky scrapers. Tinka had village counterparts staying in Katwe ghetto neighborhood which gave her a foundation mark; she stayed and worked with the fellows she had met in Katwe. With the small capital she had accumulated, the young girl hastened to join the team in search for her fortune.

Tinka worked with a lot of hard work and after a period of 1 and a half years, she had accumulated 2million Uganda shillings which she used to go abroad to work as a house maid in Saudi Arabia where she signed a contract for 2years. Throughout the entire work period, she could send all her saving to a friend called Morgana who she later asked to buy her a plot of land so as to construct small rental houses. 

Upon the lapse of the contract, Tinka came back home with extreme enthusiasm ready to see the kind of plot her friend her bought on her behalf only to be ironically cheered up by a (20X40)ft plot in Ndeeba village. At first the plot looked astonishing; its closeness to the city center was so appealing to Tinka, who had spent most of her life in the Village setting. She was to spend one month in Kampala and then go back for a second contract in a bid to raise money to begin the construction process. 

Tinka monitored her plot during a time when it had taken 2weeks minus raining; the entire neighborhood looked dry, ready and ripe for development. She spent the following week visiting her relatives in Kwabo village for she had taken long without glancing at them. 

Later Tinka went back for a second contract which went on successfully more or less similar to the first. She was slowly getting used to the urban living and cultures. She saved her money on her DFCU bank account with hope that she would construct when she comes back to Kampala after a period of 3years. 

As years passed, the contract came to an end. Tinka had accumulated a certain amount of money and was ready to come back purposely to begin construction. She asked Morgana to escort her back to the plot, something Morgana did without hesitation. As they walked through the road downwards, the dryness of the land ceased, it was sloping into a wetland, the ground beneath their feet started to become muddy and soggy. 

To their dismay, the further they traversed, the wetter it became. Small bumps or hillocks of drier land stick up above the mud, while dips in the ground level filled up with water and formed small pools of water. All of a sudden, they enter the lush profusion of plants which heralded the beginning of the magical world that is a wetland.

The plot was indeed filled up with water lingering from the famous Ndeeba drainage channel. Little did Morgana know that the plot was a few meters from the major drain. Tinka too hastened to realize that the plot was located in a wetland, Morgana had taken a decision mistakenly without making research, and she must have not been informed about the status of the place perhaps she bought the land in a season of dryness. 

Tinka was on the verge of tears, as they welled up in her eyes, a tingle of sorrow swept over her chubby face rendering her to feel blue and was afraid to utter any word to Morgana. At that moment, Tinka was paralyzed as she became speechless with bosom curiosity.

Construction in such a place would be inevitable since many structures had cropped out from different developers. Tinka too could not afford to lose her 2years savings, but where could this leave the natural environment. Such places must be devoid of permanent structures regardless of their economic gain since climate change is driving the entire world into disasters. 

NOTE

A large group of people fall culprits of different life aspects because they lack information and therefore the National Physical Planning Board should ensure that information regarding the development of various urban centers in the country propagates downwards to all citizens equally to reduce the number of people buying plots in wetlands, road reserves, and buffers without proper guidance.

Commemorating the World Environment Day (5th June) 

Regards 

Physical planner Lubadde Rahim (The Writer)

lubadder@gmail.com