First, there were five. Then 10.  And on a spring day and under a white tent shelter below darkening skies, there were 50. On the Ides of March 2022, half of the 100 blue plastic chairs in the pavilion were filled by Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) School of Medicine (SoM) doctor hopefuls.

It isn’t a secret that the prices of commodities in Uganda have hiked over the past months. For instance, a bar of soap now costs seven thousand Ugandan shillings; a kilogram of sugar at four thousand Uganda shillings; and the common breakfast accompaniment, a loaf of big bread, goes for five thousand Uganda shillings. This has left many Ugandans complaining to the government for a solution to this high cost of living.

I am sitting next to Yibanda Shafiq, 11, under a large mango tree with its huge trunks, sheltering us from the scorching sunlight. He is fixed firmly in his wheelchair, staring at one of the balloons that were hoisted up on the tree. Suddenly, a choking stench clouds my nostrils. I notice that something is wrong. Shafiq looks uncomfortable. When I ask him what was wrong, he admits that he had unconsciously passed out stool. 

According to the Uganda Police report of 2021, it revealed that out of every 100,000 people, 502 were victims of crime. Theft, a primary crime among university students, had 41,950 cases by the year 2020.

The Uganda Christian University (UCU) department of Computing and Technology, which is under the Faculty of Engineering, Design and Technology, has organized the digital innovation praxis challenge. The digital challenge was held on Friday, May 20, 2022 in Nkoyoyo Hall at the UCU Main Campus. 

On Saturday, I walked to Kiko Market (Mukono Central Market) as usual to stock my weekly groceries. I was shocked by the cost of essential goods. The cost of goods like soap, cooking oil, and salt has been tripled.