A story about the bus, a beautiful woman and a white hankie. Listening to Doro-Dosa, a popular title of a song that does not live off Collin Kigenyi’s mouth.
If you are to capture a few picks away from this song, it is moderately expensive at Kigenyi’s standards; at the cost of either a chapati or a bottle of soda, you may have Kigenyi’s attention and he will give you the full lyrics of this song.
Listening to this song, a few highlights you fall in love with is a narration of how Colin meets his love on the bus and he offers his only treasure. That is a white hankie!
Colin Kigenyi is a 9-year-old boy who claims to be in Primary two at Busowa Primary School in Busowa Town Council, Bugiri District yet he has only managed to sit down in an active class a couple of times.
Like Sam Bright MUHINDO, Kigenyi also surfaced on social media singing Doro- Dosa in exchange for chapati.
The journey to Bugiri started earlier from Kampala and we needed to reach Bugiri to catch our contact a one Oluja Brian, an upcoming artist who captured Kigenyi on phone doing hi gig before we could head to Butebi, Budunduli Sub County.
Along the way, there is a lot to pick out on the resilience the people from the Eastern part of Uganda has to offer for survival. Apart from boda bodas, yards of rice, zero grazing animals and roadside glossary markets offers a grand welcome.
Besides businesses, well-structured grass thatched homesteads and subsistence farming form the greatest part of the population in many homes.
As we reached another grass thatched homestead with 5 (five) small houses, one of them was Collin Kigenyi’s home. The Bravo Shoes Community Support Team arrived and parked in the compound. It is obvious, nobody expected us home.
On reaching home, the singing bird was away, his mother Farida Nangobi was available but he had to move around looking for Kigenyi to greet his visitors from Kampala.
Kigenyi was traced a distance away from home. Yes, he is a boy! He was spotted in his black dress snacking two slices of ovacado.
“Ndemye! Ndemye!” he said that word repeatedly upon seeing his mother with a group of strangers. After taking a while, he discovered that the strangers were not alone but also had camera with a uniform attire. He posed a bit!
Kigenyi was full of life, upon seeing the Bravo Shoes car, the young man shouted! “Aye Motoka!….motoka erimu omusadha!” admiring the children on the stickers with Bravo Shoes before everyone busted into laughter.
His first request from his visitors was a slice of chapati but wait a minute……he was trying to locate a friend called Reagan, unfortunately Reagan was not home.
“This is a car, it has chapati and shoes,” that was Kigenyi’s physical observation
However, through hours of interaction, Kigenyi had a situation which is very strange! He could hardly settle in one place. Something strange about this boy!
“Mum…. where are you, me I want to go to Bugiri with the car. Where is the soap? Let me bath we go to Busowa (nearby town) after here I will go buy chapati,” indeed Kigenyi has an unusual condition and we had to do something.
After taking bath, we asked his mother on what happened to her son, she said malaria and tetanus affected his son.
Nangobi Farida who is also a councilor representative for People with the 43-year-old mother of 12 children of which 3 have since died, took us through her days with Kigenyi.
“He was diagnosed with tetanus and malaria when he was 3 months, he started developing ceases up to now. He can hardly settle in one place. He keeps disturbing people wherever he goes, he like chapati and hardly want to eat food,” he said.
Kigenyi’s unfortunate bit is that his father Watendera abandoned the family 4 years ago leaving 3 other siblings after failing to settle with Kigenyi condition, she alleges.
Nangobi has no permanent job to feed her family and Kigenyi was at school once where his teachers also find difficulty to deal with his condition.
An elder by the names Antoni Kamwenya who is also the Secretary for PWD concluded that the boy has an abnormal condition for the time he has interacted with the family.
Bravo Shoes Community Support Team Take Kigenyi to Jinja Hospital for Assessment
Upon reaching Jinja Hospital the nearby referral hospital mental health department, Bravo Shoes Community Support Team interacted with Sam Ssabagereka the head of the mental health department and a psychological officer.
Ssabagereka examined Kigenyi and came up with the following from his assessment. He asked him a couple of basic questions about his mother.
“Do you know her?….” “Ye Farida…” he replied,
“How do you call her” “Farida,”
Kigenyi mother explained his condition to the medical officer and he came to a conclusion.
“This man has a small brain. The brain is growing slowly at his age. He is having epilepsy and intellectual disability. He is physically ok and we can build on his physical ability to get something good out of him,” said Ssabagereka.
The good news according to Ssabagereka , Kigenyi can recover from epilepsy if he sticks to the prescribed treatment. He said that he can be initiated on the skilling program and learn from there.
“His rate of learning is low, we have to put him on treatment to stop seizures everyday,” he said.
Ssabagereka said that such children are exploited and end up over working which causes seizures at night.
“Noise, overworking, anger. He has to rest such that he is not over worked,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bravo Shoes Community Support Team offered to support his treatment which was scheduled for every 28th of every month.
Kigenyi is unfortunate that he can’t find a school for people with special needs like him in Bugiri unless he can afford one in Kampala.
According to his doctor, the intellectual disability condition is permanent and advised that his parents need to understand that Kigenyi can not sit in the same class like others. common causes of childhood epilepsy include brain tumors or cysts and degenerative disorders (progressive and deteriorating conditions, often associated with loss of brain cells). There is an important difference between something that causes seizures, such as a high fever in a young child, and something that causes epilepsy, such as a severe head injury.