SAMUEL A VENDOR FROM OWINO

Samuel is just one year older than his mother’s business. His mother, Nalubale Rose, started selling second-hand women’s blouses at Owino Market 25 years ago, one year after her son, Sam, was born. It was the primary means to get him and his 5 siblings educated. A few stalls away from his mother’s, Samuel has now set up his own. ‘Why I’m working? I want to save and buy land. That’s a process. You buy land then you start building. I want to buy land somewhere far. Twenty miles from Kampala, near my mum’s village.’ A quarter century later, same market, new goal: a home. It is exactly the work that Sam’s mother did not want him to enter. But in Owino, Sam turns the miracle of forced ingenuity into routine. In many ways Samuels’ story is not new or unique. ‘I studied, but now I work in the market’ is not an uncommon phrase to hear at Owino market, Uganda’s primary source of second-hand clothing. The majority of vendors in Owino are young, many of whom have had some secondary school education. Now they carry, sell, bargain, upcycle and repair clothes. Many starting with a single bale, or a few choice purchases, from which the profits are reinvested until a business is born. Often, the goal was not to work in the market. But often, this is where many educated people can find some space to carve out a career. ‘I started 3 years ago, like in 2019,’ says Sam. That same year Sam had graduated. Sam began his business by saving the daily pay he got from assisting at his mother’s stall. He bought a few clothes for his own stock, and reinvested the profits over time to buy a bale. Starting his own stall with 1,000,000 UGX ($300) he eventually set up two stalls away from his mother.

‘Those are the uncertainties in life… every parent wishes the best for their children, generations have changed, you understand? When we were young everyone would say I want to be a doctor, I want to be an engineer. Well then you grow up and you find challenges, you end up saying to yourself, I can do this better, I can build my own thing here. When I’m older and if I’m to have kids, I wouldn’t want them to do what I’ve done, I’d want something better for them, to advance.’

Sam and his mother’s stalls sit in a long row elevated 2 feet above the ground, resting on the lockers which keep their inventory safe. The roughly cut wooden beams demarcating Sam’s 3x3m space literally cannot be seen for the layers of hundreds of jeans covering them from the ceiling to the platform he sits on. Women’s jeans are his specialty. Like most good vendors, Sam is both charming and observant. With these and other skills, he has grown a small cluster of clients who he Whatsapps pictures of his latest and best finds (young women with never-ending places to go and look cute). He also sells to boutique owners who operate in the plazas nearby, servicing clients who pay the markup to avoid the hustle of Owino market.

BOBBY: Are you the only one of your siblings who works at Owino?

SAM: When my younger siblings are on holiday they come here to help our mum or myself at the stall. They save up a bit of money which they use during the school term. Like you see that guy helping my mum, that’s a relative.

BOBBY: It’s a family business?

SAM: Not necessarily. You can’t employ someone from outside when you have a relative who is jobless. It wouldn’t look good. So you give them a start. If they find their own momentum, then maybe they’ll start out on their own.

The myth of meritocracy tells us that education is what will change the course our lives, an education that Sam’s mom invested heavily in, 6 times over. All of her children are educated; one has a ‘formal’ job, 2 work as mechanics and the two youngest continue their education.

However, Uganda is notorious for its unemployment. With 400,000 graduates each year vying for 9000 available formal jobs, it’s a given that one is more likely to create work, rather than find it.

‘I thought I could instead learn the trade from my mother, because she was able to care for us, to bring us up, I saw there was an opportunity, it would be easy for me to start (sitandika mu space) … a good opportunity for me to start out on my own’.

For Sam, this was a choice. He studied to be an electrician at YMCA. When he graduated, he did receive a job offer, one of the lucky few. There was a company in Salaama that had offered me a job. They were strict they had strict working hours, I didn’t feel free, I didn’t feel like I had the time to work on other things that are… “developmental”, that would build me.“

Like many other offers, the work environments are limiting – too little pay for too much time, few workers’ rights but high taxes, and limited mobility and use of skills in the company structure. Simply put, many are overworked, and underpaid and lack protection.

With all the choice that his mother afforded him through education, Sam returns to the market. ‘I’m free’.

BK: So you saw an opportunity at Owino and thought you could start selling yourself?

SAM: Yes, why should I go work somewhere else where I don’t have the freedom I want? I pay myself, I arrive whenever I like, I’m my own boss, I work on my own schedule.

His job begins at 7am, ends at 6.30pm, Monday to Saturday. Sundays he makes space for his other hustles, including dog breeding for money, and kickboxing for leisure. Every few months, he reinvests in his business, watching it grow. Beyond the messy politics of the global south as a dumping ground for used clothes, is the reality of battles against breaking generational poverty.

He is has inherited the same life his mom is living. He has observed a lifetime of his mom’s labour yield returns 6 times over.
Is this a cycle of ‘stuckness’ or a return to the hand that has ‘fed you’? Is it a curse or a blessing to hope pragmatically, rather than expansively? Is there an opportunity to transform the quality of one’s environment rather than to simply exchange it for a new one?