Buyiga Island: Where boats are pushed like cars on a muddy road

Their major source of income was originally fishing but the operations to fight illegal fishing declared by President Museveni which has seen many landing sites closed, crippled this activity and the locals are now slowly switching to cultivation and rearing animals.
The island falls under Musa parish in Kamengo Sub-county and has two villages – Buyiga A and Buyiga B. The local leaders want and have suggested the creation of four new villages namely Kabudindiri, Bagdad, Bibbo, and Kitawuluzi in order to raise the number to six and thereby make Buyiga island an independent parish from Musa.

Access to the island
To access the island, one travels from Kamengo town along the Kampala-Masaka road, and branches off to Buvumbo landing site. From there, one boards a motorboat to sail via a channel with a thick swamp on either side which joins Lake Victoria. The distance is about 8km and lasts about an hour before one gets to Buyiga A Kyuma landing site.

It is a difficult journey for those not accustomed to it. When one the boat gets stuck in the middle of the waters in the swampy area, which happens often, it has to be pushed by people travelling on it. In fact, about three men get into the boat to travel with the passengers purposely to push it through the swamp when it gets stuck.
“They know where to step while pushing the boat and in any case, when they step in wrong positions and fall into the water, they can quickly hold onto the plants in the swamp and swim back to the boat,” Rajab Maganda a boat rider says.

A water problem
As the boats dock, you will find some people washing their motor cycles and clothes while others are deeper inside the swampy area, bathing. Unfortunately this is the same spot where they collect water for consumption.
“Since we don’t have the capacity to construct boreholes as locals, we accept and use this dirty water although it is contaminated,” Silvan Mazimaka a resident of Buyiga A. Kyuma landing site says.
Buyiga A village chairperson Yosam Nabbomu, says the island has got only two boreholes but none of them is functional.

“Currently we need money to rehabilitate this borehole which cannot be raised from the villagers,” Nabbomu said adding that the population has increased as people from different areas settle there.
Mpigi District water engineer Mr Sekalegga Joseph explained that all the district can do is to construct shallow wells for the area which they did and the water got used up. They now cannot dig more shallow wells because National Environment Management Authority abolished them.
“As the district, we don’t have the ability to carry heavy machines to dig deeper boreholes because the island is not accessible by such machines,” he said.

The tricky health situation
With the poor living conditions of the locals, coupled with the bad water sources and poor sanitation, the residents end becoming vulnerable to epidemics and deadly diseases.
Buyiga health center II is the only government facility which serves the entire population on the island. Because of the limited supply of medicines they receive from the government through the National Medical Stores, it does not last long.

“That is why we sometimes have to refer our patients to other facilities on the mainland for minor necessities like gloves,” the in-charge Geoffrey Seruyima said adding that in many instances he receives manageable cases but he ends up referring them for such reasons.
As malaria prevalence in Mpigi is registered to be at 64 per cent, the current epidemic in Buyiga Island has shot to as high as 90 per cent according to Seruyima.
He says that when such epidemics come which are really common, they cause quick stock out of not only drugs but also testing kits which sometimes they cannot access from other health facilities.
According to the district health and education secretary Ms Juliet Jemba, Mpigi district council approved it to be elevated to be a health centre III. But for over two years now, the ministry of health has not recognised this.

“Our people are suffering. Their lives are at a great risk. You can imagine an expectant woman who goes to that facility being referred to the mainland,” Jemba says.
The district LC5 chairperson Peter Claver Mutuluza says that his administration will continue to push to see to it that the district council’s resolution to elevate Buyiga health facility is implemented despite the fact that Kamengo Sub-county where it falls has already got a health center III. By practice, each sub county is entitled to one health center III but the district council regarded Buyiga as a special case.

One primary and secondary school
The island’s woes don’t stop with the health situation. When it comes to education, it has only one Universal Primary School which boasts of 523 pupils.
St. Martin Buyiga Primary School, the only feeder school for the existing secondary school has the numbers with over 520 pupils.
Mr. Lawrence Katumba the deputy head teacher says that the school has 344 boys and 179 girls.
“The community is thankful for the school but our classrooms have run out of shape and they urgently require a facelift,” Katumba said.

The only available pit latrine at the school is shared among the boys, girls and the teachers. It is the same one used by the staff members.
“This situation is very challenging especially for the grown up girl children who end up missing classes when they start puberty, and the female teachers too,” Christine Nakato, a teacher says.
Mpigi district education officer Mr Sekyole Deogratious defends the school and says that St. Martin Buyiga PS is in a much better condition than many government primary schools within the district.
“That school used to have a two stance pit latrine and we constructed a five pit latrine stance at a cost of Shs30m,” Sekyole said.

He however admits there are challenges they face.
“A challenge is the dilapidated classroom block which requires renovation but because of the scarcity in financial resources at the district, we appealed to well-wishers, and Rotary Club of Kampala West accepted to come and help so as a department we are grateful,” Sekyole says.
He called upon other people of good will especially NGOs and companies which can commit resources under their corporate responsibility to help them further improve the facilities.
The secondary school, Buyiga Seed Secondary School, is not only the government secondary school on the island but is also the only secondary school on the island.
However, with all the 19 teachers fully paid by government, the school has a population of only 47 students from S1 to S4.

“We would have had much more than that number but government has not constructed buildings to accommodate all the classes,” the head teacher, Jude Kato says.
Lessons are conducted in phases where a teacher has to wait for a colleague to finish a lesson and get out with the students in order to use the same room for a different set of students and lesson.
“The classrooms are not enough, we don’t have laboratories and a library. The head teacher’s office is partitioned from the S1 class. Generally the school lacks facilities,” he said, adding that even latrines are shared among the boys, girls and the teachers despite their poor condition.
For the last four years, the school has had only two female candidates sit for their Uganda Certificate Examinations (UCE) and currently there is only one female candidate sitting this year.
“We are praying hard that she persists through all challenges and sits for all her final examinations,” Kato said, “With all the 30 female students who enrolled for S1 at the beginning of this year, we only have nine and we are not sure whether they will all complete the year while still in school,” he added.

He states that the problem is men who seduce the young girls into sexual activities and they end up conceiving at as early as 14.
The school teaches students only up to O’ Level and in the recent years, Jemba says, the performance has not been that good, although, given the setting and environment of the area, they are not that bad either.
“They normally register few candidates and the school’s best performance has always been second grade,” Ms Jemba says, adding that even the only UPE School which acts as a feeder to the seed school has not registered amazing results in PLE.

Cry for help
During her recent visit to Buyiga Island, the area Member of Parliament and Minister for Trade and Industry, Amelia Kyambadde, told the locals that she was focusing on procuring a ferry to link the island to the mainland to ease the transport problem and that she along with other district officials had on several occasions discussed this with the president.
She assured them that in 2021, the ministry of water and environment would provide an alternative for the dirty and unsafe water which they are now consuming.
Besides the transport problem however, there are other constraints the people of Buyiga Island face and which need to be tackled as well.