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East, West, Home is Best: Ayikoru back on her feet after hitting rock bottom
Ms Fiona Afeti Ayikoru during the interview in her saloon in Makindye, Kampala in June 2023. She started the saloon business after an unsuccessful three-year job search in Qatar. PHOTO/JOSEPH KIGGUNDU.
What you need to know:
- In the first instalment of a six-part series titled East, West, Home is Best, Isaac Mufumba speaks to Fiona Afeti Ayikoru.
- The series tells the stories of vulnerable persons who discovered that the grass is greener where it is watered. For Ayikoru, a thriving salon business has underlined this fact.
On a dull morning in 2018, the shrill noise of the ringtone broke the silence, capturing the imagination of Ms Fiona Afeti Ayikoru. The person on the other end would at once use the “wano bifuna kiralu” phrase to dangle a carrot.
Familiar to the downtown tribe, the phrase is used to signal a lucrative business or employment opportunity. Ms Ayikoru, employed as an attendant in a shop in downtown Katwe, Kampala at the time, needed little introduction to the phrase. She was barely scraping by, with the owner of the shop that dealt in secondhand electronics not guaranteeing her a definite salary.
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Ms Ayikoru’s friend on the phone that morning made clear that the juicy carrot that was being dangled would guarantee her up to Shs3 million per month. For your ordinary shop attendant in Katwe, this was astronomical.
“I was a commission agent in that shop. If a customer did not come, I would get nothing. Earning that way was very unreliable,” Ms Ayikoru recalls, adding, “I compared the conditions in which I had been living and what I had been earning so I said to myself, ‘let me go and try.’”
The lucky break that she had been waiting for now appeared to be within eyeshot.
“My friend who was already in Qatar, told me to find some money so that they could make a passport for me. I gave them Shs2 million,” she told Saturday Monitor, adding that Shs150,000 went to the passport and $462 to cover the cost of an air ticket from Entebbe to Doha.
With the exchange rate at Shs3,628, the air ticket in effect cost Shs1,676,136. The rest covered the visa fees. Ms Ayikoru was convinced that she was sowing a seed that would yield dividends in the near future.
Tough times
In December of 2010, world football governing body Fifa had already awarded Qatar the right to host the 2022 World Cup. The oil-rich gulf state had by 2018 become a hive of activity. It had embarked on an unprecedented building programme aimed at delivering a new airport, roads, hotels and seven stadia to host the football showpiece.
The building projects required importation of a vast amount of immigrant labour from mostly Asia and Africa. Ugandans were among the legion of migrant workers who flocked to the Gulf.
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Whereas some had found their way there through labour export agencies, there were those—like Ms Ayikoru—who found their way there by other means. Those who went through labour agencies often found it easier to land jobs, depending on the fees paid to the agencies. The more the job paid, the more one doled out in agency fees. Those who avoided agencies and the attendant costs often have to gamble their way into jobs.
“I did not have a fixed job. I was in and out of jobs, but had to pay my friend some money every time I would get any small job. Whereas accommodation was available, I found it very expensive and we had to share rooms,” she recalls, adding, “Feeding would sometimes be a problem. Many times I would ask the people back here to send me some money. Things were not as rosy as I had been made to believe.”
Prodigal child
After spending three years in Qatar living from hand-to-mouth, it became apparent to Ms Ayikoru that the promise of a Shs3 million monthly pay was a pipe dream. She was determined to return home, but knew that doing so penniless would turn her into a laughing stock.
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She said this is the sole reason Ugandans abroad decide to stay put in dire circumstances. For Ms Ayikoru, though, she had already cemented her status as a candidate to be a prodigal child.
“The situation got so bad that my parents started asking me what it was that I was doing there if money for my subsistence was always coming from Uganda. I decided to return,” she said.
When she failed to raise money for an air ticket, her family—not for the first time—intervened. When the plane taxied at Entebbe airport in August of 2020, Ms Ayikoru was happy to take in what her native country threw at her.
It helped a great deal that her family continued to put an arm around her shoulders. Indeed, her family members placed the basic building blocks for her current business—an ill-equipped Marcel’s Beauty Parlour.
Marcel’s birth coincided with the time the Micro Finance Support Centre (MSC) identified returnees—mostly young women—who had returned to Uganda after unsuccessful spells outside Uganda.
The MSC was determined to help vulnerable persons access the Emyooga programme with ease.
Picking up the pieces
Ms Ayikoru had no idea what MSC was doing at the time. In fact, she only got to know about it late in 2021.
This was purely by coincidence and happened following an encounter with Ms Jennifer Namutebi Nakangubi, alias Full Figure.
Full Figure, a long-time acquaintance, had been appointed a presidential assistant and charged with assisting the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) identify issues affecting the people in Kampala ghettos in parts of the central region.
“Full Figure called me and advised me to join a group of other returnees who had been lined up to receive funding from MFC,” Ms Ayikoru reveals, adding that seven other women were helped to form and register what is known as Women of All Savings Association (WASA).
It was through WASA that MSC channelled funding. For Ms Ayikoru, life has changed over the last one-and-a-half years.
The salon has not only grown in terms of equipment like driers, but also has accessories like combs, hair bands, hair clips, artificial hair for weaving, braiding or making cornrows and corresponding oils and creams for sale to customers.
“I employ four girls,” she beams, adding, “We also train people in make-up and hair dressing.”Most importantly, however, is the fact that Ms Ayikoru earns enough to live a decent life.
“I am able to pay rent, buy some basic necessities, pay rent and save some money. Life has changed so much. I know that it is possible to work and live a comfortable life in Uganda,” Ms Ayikoru says.
