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Layette Pamela is 25 years old, but looks much older.
She has to stop and count how many people were living in her tiny
house in the Acholi Quarter in Kampala before the village was
started. Her husband had a co-wife who left, leaving Pamela with
her three children, in addition to Pamela's own four. She also
cares for her sister's two children, and her husband lives with
her too. That numbers 11 in the household, and all are moving
to the new village.
Pamela (pronounced Pam-EL-a) is an entrepreneur. In addition
to paying all the children's school fees with the proceeds from
bead sales, she also sells varnish to other beaders and runs the
equivalent of a delicatessen, selling Acholi specialties out of
her house.
She says she never dared to think about owning a house: "The
dream was not there." Pamela is one of the many displaced
Acholi women in Kampala who ended up in the Acholi Quarter in
mud houses the size of most bathrooms. |
She came from the north during the insurgency in 2002, after an in-law
was murdered in her house. "Many were abducted, and I could not
stay," she explains.
Pamela wears bright-colored sarongs over her print dresses. She has
short hair and a big smile, and she is straightforward and earnest.
Pamela says in a quiet way that she is very excited about moving into
her own house. "That house will be permanently mine, no landlord
knocking on the door for the rent." She will continue to sell
varnish and other things, and will be thinking of a new business.
She chose Design C2, a 2-bedroom house with storage and a sitting
room. She envisions herself digging in the garden, planting maize,
beans, and other vegetables.
With the village, she says, there is "only happiness now in
my life."
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