We woke up one morning this week to find some internet clown from Canada was trying to troll Masaka (and Uganda…and Africa) by posting a range of videos “from the village,” dancing in front of mud-brick houses and only using mud paths to get around.

I didn’t have a real problem with him making money by playing on the narrative of Africa being dirt-poor and full of funny characters spending their days dancing, smiling widely around white people, and generally seeming needy.

That’s the usual narrative, and it has been so since the mid-1800s. I know this because I have recently been engrossed in books written by white visitors to our land back then.

What I really have a problem with is that 47 million Ugandans, including those with university degrees in marketing, communication(s), tourism, and hospitality management, cannot seem to change this narrative or counter this chap and others of his ilk.

The few responses to this one on Twitter and Tik Tok included those that pointed out how he was standing under electricity cables while talking about lack of electricity at his ‘hotel’, and those that self-hatingly declared his denigration of their country to be true and that we are doomed.

There was bigger news out there in the same pipeline.

The change in United States foreign policy cancelling or suspending foreign aid and switching off USAID programmes and WHO funding caused piles of anxiety and conversation.

I can understand the deep concerns of everybody who earns a salary by way of those organisations because I earn a salary myself. It is going to be tight for many people and their families, and their local grocery shops, and even for some national economies.

That’s sad on a micro level, but a good thing up at macro heights.

See, we need to understand that we need to change things ourselves one day rather than rely on other people out there to feed us, give us medicine, build our roads, and bathe our children.

It is sadly true that even now, in 2025, we have people in other countries coming to places like Uganda to teach our relatives how to wash hands, how to use toilets, and other such basics.

The same Uganda where many of us are driving around in SUVs (some also donated, so neither laugh nor frown) to drink whisky and sparkling wine in sharply lit clubs and eating hearty meals some Americans can only dream of.

The lack of national self-esteem in some quarters is only made worse by the disorientation hanging over us as a continent.

The same people who perpetuate this disorientation are the ones who coined phrases like, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” a proverb that goes back to 6 BC in Europe yet is obvious in structure and nature.

A few years ago, we saw this firsthand at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the West closed ranks because they realised they did not have enough toilet paper, face masks, surgical gloves, and eventually even medicines, to share out with the rest of us.

Even as they were declaring that Africa was doomed and we would be decimated, they were not in the mood to offer the usual “aid” and “assistance.”

What did we do? Remember how we had groups of ordinary women making face masks using fourth-hand clothing and needle-and-thread technology from the discomfort of their homes and selling them to people by the roadside?

Eventually, whole factories sprung up manufacturing PPEs and even drugs, right here on the continent and in Uganda as well. One of my favourites is East African Medical Vitals – https://www.eamedicalvitals.com/ – which sprung up in Namanve and is now making world-class medical PPEs that even get exported to other countries!

We did this because we needed to, we were afraid of dying out, and we could make some money in the process.

We also did this because…nobody else was doing so. ‘They’ had shut their doors on us. (It wasn’t COVID that had done so—we were importing alcoholic drinks and tobacco products but could not import face masks at some point!)

Instead of agreeing that we were doomed, we stayed alive and “emerged stronger” with COVIDEX and other good developments; but, sadly, we remained a little bit stupid and are now declaring gloom once again.

Did those ordinary women making face masks back then turn into seamstresses making larger, more profitable items of clothing?

No.

Somehow, when the pandemic was lifted, we resumed importing second-hand clothing—some of it categorised as “aid” and “assistance.”

During this week of discussing that changed US policy and its effects, I have found time to read up on a few of the items that this funding pays for besides salaries and medicines.

This is the time to scrutinise those lists and re-organise our spending priorities as a country and as a people.

Are you going to sit by watching Netflix in the comfort of your home or drinking good coffee at a cafe with pals while your relative or neighbour is dying of HIV/AIDS because American taxpayers are not allowed to buy them drugs?

Stop importing SUVs and buy those medicines instead, then see what happens.

In fact, our Kiira EV should be made to fix all existing government SUVs, and all young people with the relevant degrees should be put to paid work building nationwide garages to keep our existing cars on the road.

Think, people. Change the way you do things. Be productive. Be Serious.

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Simon Kaheru

www.skaheru.com
@skaheru