Speaker 1: 1:13

The episode you're about to listen to is a special collaboration between Ugandan Art Speaks Out and the Hear my True Story podcast. In this series, young poets from Uganda, east Africa, share their personal stories, dreams and what inspired them to become poets. At Hear my True Story, we team up with like-minded podcasts to bring these untold stories to the world. We hope you enjoy this wonderful episode brought to you by Hear my True Story and Ugandan Art Speaks Out my true stories.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Welcome to Ugandan Art Speaks Out, the podcast that celebrates the diversity and creativity of Ugandan art and culture. Produced by Omochi Creative, a non-government organization that uses art to create social change and promote empowerment in Uganda, this podcast takes you on a weekly journey of discovery through the vibrant and diverse world of Ugandan art. Through the vibrant and diverse world of Ugandan art, each episode features insightful conversations with talented artists and creators who share their stories, inspirations and passions. Whether you are an art lover, a curious listener or someone looking to expand your understanding of Ugandan art and culture, ugandan Art Speaks Out invites you now to join us on an unforgettable journey through Uganda's creative diversity. And now let's start the show. Bedlinda, you and I have something in common. You know? Yes, I know a lot of things in common. Well, my name is Linda, so they took away the bill. It would have been all Belindas here. How?

Speaker 3: 3:28

are you doing? I'm good, I'm really good. I'm very excited to be here today and I'm glad that you have me here today.

Speaker 2: 3:36

I don't know how I am. I have no idea. I think it's just God's mercy. How do you feel? How do I feel? I'm tired? I don't know.

Speaker 3: 3:47

Just a small nap will do.

Speaker 2: 3:50

No, you take a small nap. You wake up the next two days, for the next two days. How are you doing? My pleasure having you here.

Speaker 3: 3:57

Thank you so much who is belinda?

Speaker 2: 3:59

I mean, as I was telling you, all belinders either have the third name or the fourth names. You're called caroline, so who is belinda? Caroline? When you start poetry, tell me, you're a poet, a good one at that, when you start this okay, my name, my full name today.

Speaker 3: 4:15

Let me decide to tell them my full name Today. Let me decide to tell them my full name, so you belong to them. I'm called Belle, my full name is Nabumba Belina Caroline, and today I chose to wear the coat of being a poet. Yes, I am, because I do write. I do write poetry.

Speaker 2: 4:32

You can take away the coat, so are you considering taking it away?

Speaker 3: 4:37

I can wear any other coat any other other day, but today I've decided that I am a poet and I'm here to declare myself as well poetry. We started as I started poetry back in senior to back in high school. This was because I was inspired by a number of girls that used to do poetry at my school. Well, we'd get into the staff room and there would just be a sort of energy In the staff room. Oh, not the staff room, oh, actually the art room.

Speaker 2: 5:11

Oh yeah, I get you.

Speaker 3: 5:12

The art room Back then. That was the time. That's where they used to practice from read poetry. You'd find a number of girls writing so many poetry that is in form two.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Yes, that's in form two. I was torn between being a neurosurgeon and a cardiologist in form two.

Speaker 3: 5:30

Man, I don't know Well actually, it was actually in form one when I used to find these girls there, but then just to be more like, the Form 6 and the Form 5.

Speaker 2: 5:41

So you can't really get to them in Form 1.

Speaker 3: 5:44

So you're new, but you're taking up all this. You want to admire. What kind of ambience does this school have? You want to discover what kind of clubs are there? This is Nabisusa Girls' School. So I get in there and I look at girls expressing themselves. I'm wondering what are they doing? What are they reciting? Where are they getting this word from? Where are they getting the words from Exactly? And you're looking at people expressing themselves. By that time I couldn't actually tell what they were trying to do, but I would hear many of them, voices high, loud and bold, you know. So I'm trying to see what is this, and some of them are actually very interesting to listen to. And the rhyme, the rhythm with it, all that came, all that energy that came with it. I think I also want to get onto this. I want to jump onto this. So, as you know, back then Peter Kage used to be a teacher A teacher there.

Speaker 3: 6:41

Yes, literature teacher Very good one, at nabisa girls school. So I find him, uh, with these girls interacting, uh, almost an hour, two hours in, like it was more of a co-curricular activity by then. So I'm inspired. I'm inspired by these girls, by the way they express themselves, how they're doing it, how they write poetry. By then I didn't actually know what it was. So I tell him, I think I also want to do this. I sit in, I just make sure to just watch and see how they do it, to take up what they are doing.

Speaker 3: 7:20

So back then I didn't know how to write poetry. I didn't know what a poem meant or how to start one. So I used to perform most of the poems I was given. By that time. If, um, let's say, there was a short concert or something and they'll tell us to pull off a small performance, I'll get. There used to be a file, a storage file, for most of the poetry the girls have written. So from then they would select a poem and they're like okay, you're going to do this one. Do you think you can pull it off? Yes, you take it up and you try your best to see how best can I perform with this poem.

Speaker 3: 7:57

So it was in form two when kagai told me you know, I've seen something with you. I guess you should start writing your own poetry. And I looked at him in disbelief because I'm not those girls, I can't. I can't do it like them, as good as them. So form two comes. My first poem that I performed was called footpath. That was from a book. Growing up with poetry, I later on realized that that's where it was from. So Form 2 comes and we're doing literature, we're doing poetry. Like, how do I start a poem? Well, I've got inspiration, why can't I start? So I start writing, I start expressing myself, you know, writing about situations around me, situations that I see in the school, or situations from others.

Speaker 2: 8:50

So you get to write your first piece. When was that? In Form 2. Form 2. Yes, form 2, you perform, you write your first piece. You're doing everything there. Oh my God, could have been hard on you. No, oh good, quite a lot. So you write your first piece. What is your first piece about?

Speaker 3: 9:07

I don't quite remember During that time.

Speaker 3: 9:11

It was a lot by that time actually. I don't quite remember what I actually wrote about, but what I do remember in form to actually the next year is when Kage actually gave some of us that used to do poetry by then an opportunity to go to the national theater and showcase what we had and showcase the talent that we had, and that was like a big opportunity and for me I was like wow, you can actually go to the theater and do this. I had never gone into the national theater. So the next year, in form three, um, he set up a show for some of the young girls who had talent of poetry like I've picked out these ones that I've seen can do poetry, and I think we did a really great job on that one. So that was the first time I ever performed. I I don't remember what I performed, but there were two poems and I liked it. I enjoyed my time and from then I've been writing poetry about what I see, what I experience and situations from which others have been.

Speaker 2: 10:18

I mean, where are you? Are you in your room? What inspires you to write? I mean because to get words and you're disorganized is really I don't think it's possible.

Speaker 3: 10:30

So when do you do that? This might come off as funny, but most of the ideas for poems that I've written before came from the bathroom, like I was having a shower, like I was having a shower and I'm really minding my business, but suddenly Something clicks Exactly. And for poetry it's such. I don't know how to call it, but it's. Sebo Lule once called it a spirit. He got a spirit when he entered the National Theatre, and I also guess it's a spirit that comes to you. It may not be directly, it may not be like take some time to come to you, but it's a spirit that gets in you and like, oh, let me write something, let me write something about this, I have something to tell about this. And you just get yourself one after one, one after one, and you put in some rame, you know, and you cook it up like that to make a porridge.

Speaker 4: 11:27

My mind is spinning tirelessly. I'm losing direction. I'm asking for clarification. Release me from the times my mind is taking me through endless episodes of anxiety of what will it be? How will I make it? Are you social distancing? Who is next? Or even, will I go back to school? Last time I hit a birthday, yeah, now. Release me, covid. Release me from the nightmare I never thought I'd ever wake up into. Release me from the disgraceful thought of it all being something, something, a beginning of the end, a fatal end. Covid, please, I beg you, release me from this lockdown. I beg of you. I'm losing my mind. I guess that's why I don't even respect passion anymore. Why am I what I am? But please, believe me.

Speaker 2: 12:28

So let's talk about the pieces that you can remember. In my mind, I have Relieve.

Speaker 3: 12:33

Me. Well, ideally those ones. Let's talk about those.

Speaker 2: 12:39

It was basically about COVID-19. At that time it hit everybody. 2021, 2022. Covid the great tragedy, because they are basically about covet man.

Speaker 3: 12:45

that time it hit everybody 2021 2022, to aspire the great tragedy yeah, so you like, let me write about well, uh, I think I first wrote um for montuwa one c I want to say I think was in my form four, what? Yes, and actually I recycled omotowa one c and I kept a paper, a piece of it. I didn't actually remember that I had written this poem, but there was a time I was going through some of my things in a wallet, there was a paper and unfolding the paper I saw a poem Omontuwa Wansi. And funny that this was the only L, only Uganda poem that I had ever composed.

Speaker 3: 13:25

I had never written Uganda before, I had never challenged myself to write Uganda before, but I had started Omontuwa Wansi on a full scale. So I'm like, wow, I wrote this and I actually didn't remember I had written it. So I recycled Omontuwa Wansi, especially during the COVID period, because everyone was talking about how the times were hard. Yes, the times were hard. Some people might not have felt how hard they were because we all live different lives. Might have been hard on some people. Some people are making money?

Speaker 3: 13:59

yeah, it's true so in my, I'm like this poem can do a great job. There's nobody speaking out for those who are not as particularly privileged, those who are not having the opportunity of getting a basic meal in these times. So I recycled Omontua Wansi according to what I had already written. Because, omontua Wansi, most times you see taxi conductors, you see, like the people that sweep our roads and everything, the people who are in the grassroots that are not talked about enough. So I wanted to have a representation for them. Why aren't you talking about this? They also have a will to express themselves, so that's how you're wearing their coats.

Speaker 3: 14:45

By then I wore the coat for the people in the grassroots, yeah because really no one talks about them.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Where their families they're really making little money. How are they able to live on with their lives? Provide for the family school fees? Everything is there. It's crazy. Yeah, so you write omotu awansi you perform it?

Speaker 3: 15:07

yes, I performed on Tuwa Wansi ever since I had written it. I wrote it in my Form 4 and performed it in my Form 6 vacation. I recycled it.

Speaker 2: 15:27

It's 2021, 22?, 2023. So I knew you started campus. Huh, not yet, but soon. So you do that and release me uh, release me.

Speaker 3: 15:42

Release me was 2021, when the covid situation had gotten worse, the time they had locked down the schools again. Remember, we locked down schools for two years. Two years, so we didn't study me as a student by that time. I'm like you know what? I think it's, it's time, it's time I get a new journey so that's right.

Speaker 3: 16:03

There was a time I was in the darkest, darkest, largest of pits, so during that time, I think that was the time I expressed myself the most. So I'm like release me from all this guilt, from all the loneliness, from so much that I was burdened with inside me that I was not able to express as a poet. The platform of poetry is one that we gladly respect and enables us to express ourselves. So without that platform, especially during this covid period, it was, it was he. So you had to bundle up with all this inside you. So I had to write Release Me.

Speaker 2: 16:45

So what course are you hoping to do? Oh, I hope to do Something related to that, or totally different, totally different.

Speaker 3: 16:52

I hope to do a human resource. Yes.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yeah, but you can still do your skills there. I think I can. You can do that, because it's with the people dealing with people, human resource and stuff like that. Yeah, I hope you get it if that's what you really want. Thank you, because Muhammad told me that you do what you want, do you?

Speaker 3: 17:12

In fact, rima has a point In this life you have to do, do it all. I think to me it's do it all. Do it. When you think you fail, do it. When you think you're successful, do just do it. When you think of doing it, just do it, and it doesn't matter the time. You can start, restart, start, restart. There is really no script to this life.

Speaker 2: 17:35

You know, what you do today affects you in three weeks Very much. So if you just do something today and you just do it, this is our career lesson, our career lesson.

Speaker 2: 17:44

So that's why I did it. Maybe you'd be far away Three weeks from now. You'd be far away, but because you did something today, it's going to affect you in three weeks. Could be negatively, negatively, could be positively, you never know, but anything can really come up here. So, um, what's, um, how do you call yourself? People have talked to that either political poet, social poets, and you just do whatever comes your way.

Speaker 3: 18:07

Ah well, just do you just do it. Yeah, I just, I just do me. Well, I don't, uh, I don't really channel myself to being a particular kind of poet or a political poet. Why do this kind of poetry? For me, it's a situation of what have I seen, what have I listened to, what have I experienced, what are others experiencing and what am I getting from what they are experiencing? So, from the kind of poems I've written, it's a variety of things. It's a variety of what kind of lifestyle are these people living? What is this person going through?

Speaker 3: 18:45

So poetry is not only a form of communication, because not everyone can express themselves as I am. So it's not only a form of communication, but it's also a form of relating with what others are facing. Not only relating with others, but through poetry.

Speaker 3: 19:03

Kagai once told us if poetry in its best form, in its true form, is when it's written on paper, and I gladly agree to that, because when I write poetry on my phone, it's a different kind of energy while writing it. So he told us if you're not writing, you are a waiter, so why wait for others to see that this is the situation you're going through? Why not talk about it? So you're representing others you're communicating to, and also it's a chance to unlock who you are through writing. I tend to write a lot, not only poetry, but just personal writing. Through writing you get to unlock who you are inside. You're talking to yourself first before you talk to other people, so it's also an opportunity, a chance to unlock who you actually are. Most people don't exactly know how to do that, but to talk to yourself and then talk to others first people you're talking to me.

Speaker 2: 20:00

I don't know how to do that. I can't.

Speaker 3: 20:01

You don't know well, you just just talk like me and me and me. We are two.

Speaker 2: 20:08

There are two people in certain we're talking, so you still have meetings with yourself, you're like, let's do this this way yeah, today we're doing this.

Speaker 3: 20:15

Today. This is yeah, I do so, let's, let's do this. Yeah, today we're doing this today, this is yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:18

So let's talk about the future. Do you consider making this as a monetization thing, let's say, a career what's a career? You know to get money out of this, or are you just doing it out of passion?

Speaker 3: 20:32

As of now, I do poetry out of passion. I hope sometime in future I can make it as a channel for money, a monetary channel, but as of now, I'm doing poetry out of passion. I'm doing poetry out of what I like to do, out of love. But when someone asks me, where do I see myself in five years, as I've told you this life, do it all, do it bravely, confident, do it with inspiration and love. Whatever you're doing, um, because today I can decide I want to be a doctor.

Speaker 3: 21:06

I've woken up and I've decided I'm going to be a doctor, but I'll reach. I'll reach along the way and I actually don't want to do this. I want to do something different. So what I see, where I see myself in the next five years or in the future, is I still want to stand for the strong beliefs that I stand for, that I truly believe in. I still want to be knowledgeable enough to talk for others, to be the unspoken voice of all the people that are there to be represented. I still want to have a firm ground onto my strong beliefs and make sure that we are living for the better good of us all.

Speaker 2: 21:46

One thing that is exciting is that as people, we are fluid. We are here today. Tomorrow we are doing a different thing. We are totally different people because we are only fluid, we are just being ourselves, because sometimes you meet a person and you are you changed, you know, no, I'm just being myself, I'm just fluid, it's just happening, life is happening. So, um, I'm not a dreamer, I'd not say I'll be here I'll be here in five years.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Life will bring itself. I'm just living one day at a time, yeah, just doing whatever you're supposed to do in that one day. Tomorrow will come and you're still going whatever the day is Today.

Speaker 3: 22:18

You phoned me and we were talking about this, we were talking about poetry and just doing so much. But tomorrow you'll find me and I'm a different person. I've taken up a different path. So I think that's the beauty it's the diversity of being oneself, of being a person, of being alive, because you experience so much, you see so much. There's so much to experience and live. So why be only one person, why choose one thing to do in this life? There's so much to do.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Yeah, something that is certain about poets is that they see things differently, because you look at this microphone and you're like oh, why is this like this? So why is the other one like that? That doesn't happen with us. I don't know.

Speaker 3: 22:58

Well, I guess we all have a certain perspective of what we do, how we want it, and I guess, uh, poetry does that also. I forgot to mention this. But not only is it a form of communication, but also people get your perspective on things. Today we are seated here, but we all have different perspectives about politics, about health. You know different ideas, so me coming out and talking about my perspective doesn't fit yours too, I know. I know you will understand me better and where I'm coming from and the way you guys think.

Speaker 2: 23:31

I don't know how you guys do it, because I was reading a piece the other day. This woman was writing about if it was adam who actually picked the apple, yeah, that it would be a day of jubilation, a day of celebration. They would mark it on the calendar. So she was writing a piece about that. But this was a woman, so it's looked about. It's looked. She's a feminist. Of course it's looked at in a different perspective. But if it was be like he's our hero, he made it. So I'm like how would someone think about it? I mean, I cannot think about it, it cannot come in my mind, it cannot even cross my mind.

Speaker 3: 24:05

Well for this poetry journey. I was inspired to get onto the poetry journey, but on my journey I was also learning. I learned so much. I learned from different poets, from different groups of people that were involved in the art industry, from people like Sebo Lule, people like Kagai. You learn to know that it's not, it doesn't only stop at poetry, it's also a form of. It doesn't stop at poetry. How do you form of? Don't stop at poetry. How do you? How, how do you conceal it? How do you deliver it? It's also an art. So you master that art of creativity. How do you get creative with it? How do you put in all that? You know, that energy for people to enjoy what you have and also to deliver it as as great as it sounds out there?

Speaker 2: 24:57

an experience. I've heard from different people that, like when my first performance, I tried to act like someone I either looked up to was that a case with you too?

Speaker 3: 25:07

or they tried to write like someone they knew would write good yeah, not exactly, but when you listen to different poetry when I started out, I listened to different poets and how they were delivering their poetry I didn't actually look for the videos just how were they sounding, how were they delivering that poetry? Because with poetry, it's connected to emotions, connected to expressing yourself. So how were they delivering it? How were those tones? Was it a low tone or was it a high tone? So you manage to learn that for a happy poem, this is how I'm going to deliver it. For a sad poem, this is how I'm going to deliver it. So with that, you also get to know how to act.

Speaker 2: 25:52

As we come to a conclusion of this, I want us to talk about the impact of digitalization on poetry. Is it for the benefit? Is it for the good?

Speaker 3: 26:07

Totally, totally. The impact of poetry is just positive, positive, positive, positive. And what I also want to see in the next future is the young people like me, the young people before me and those I also look up to, to take up poetry, to take up arts like this, to speak up onto issues that are under looked in our society or in different situations that we get in. So, for me, poetry is for the greater good and it's also defining us. It defines more of who we are. So defining who we are enables us to communicate better, to, uh, to communicate better and to deliver better to each other. So poetry, thanks, thanks. It has served many. I believe this, because in the lockdown, how are you going to express yourself in that poetry? So poetry, it's something nice, it's something amazing.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Thank you, Belinda. You have such a beautiful mind. I should borrow it one day.

Speaker 3: 27:10

Thank you so much for having me Thank you for giving us this opportunity.

Speaker 2: 27:14

It's such a pleasure, thank you. Thank you for listening to Ugandan Art Speaks Out, the podcast that celebrates the diversity and creativity of Ugandan art and culture. We hope you enjoyed this episode and learned something new about the amazing work of these artists. If you liked this episode, please subscribe, rate and review our podcast on your favorite platform. You can also visit our website at Ugandan Art Speaks Out to learn more and explore further. You can also follow us on social media and join our community of art lovers and supporters. And join our community of art lovers and supporters. We'd love to hear from you and get your feedback. You can also support our work by donating to our organization and helping us continue our mission of using art to create social change and empowerment in Uganda. Thank you for your support and until next time, keep listening and keep learning.

Speaker 1: 28:31

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