You are a slave. And you don't know it.

“We keep you on this boat to row,” said the Roman soldier. “Row and you will live.” He did not have to tell them the repercussions for not rowing. They saw the results in fellow slaves being beaten and thrown overboard to drown in the turbulent seas.

That happened over a century ago. In our modern society we would rise up and riot in anger if we ever heard of anyone being treated as a slave. What we fail to understand is that slavery still lives on, and modern-day slavery is worse than ancient slavery because it is self-inflicted.

But before we go any further, let’s first look at how slavery looked like long ago. A powerful man would get people to work for him just because he was more powerful than them. Most times it was because he had conquered them in battle. Sometimes it would be because they owed him money they couldn’t repay. Other times it was because they were unlucky to be born of slave parents.

To be a slave meant that your master owned you. And because you were his property, you were not entitled to a wage. However, your master was responsible for your livelihood. He provided you with accommodation, food, clothing, medical care and entertainment. You were his asset, so he had to take care of you in order to get the highest level of productivity from you.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century. Obama speaks of freedom for all. But the majority of us are still slaves at heart. Our employers are our slave masters. The only difference is that now instead of providing for us, they give us a wage so we could provide for our needs to be able to survive long enough to get to work the next day, and the next day, until the next pay cheque.

We may not want to admit it, but we are slaves by virtue of the fact that our incomes get spent on accommodation, food, clothing, medical care and entertainment. In fact, there is no boss who would like to pay you more than enough for those five necessities.

While being interviewed for my former job, my employer asked me where I stayed when we were negotiating for a salary. You see, she wasn’t looking at my worth, and how much I was going to produce for the company. She was looking at the least amount of money she had to spend on my transport to keep me coming to work every day. She even argued that she would provide me with lunch at work!

This slavery does not know class. It does not know academic qualifications. Whether you earn millions per month or a few hundred thousand shillings, you are, and will always be a slave if all you spend your salary on are accommodation, food, clothing, medical care and entertainment.

Your employer is not interested in making you rich. He wants you comfortable enough to keep coming to work every day. In fact, the day you stop being productive is the day you will be thrown overboard.

So how do you get out of this slavery? It’s very simple.

Stop spending all that you earn!

Not all the money that you earn is yours, my friend. It is only the money that you save that is yours. However much you earn, if all gets spent, then none of that money was yours. To steal some wisdom from ancient Babylon, from the book, The Richest Man in Babylon, “A tenth of all that you earn is yours to keep.”

When you spend money on rent, that money is not yours. It’s your landlord’s. Money you take to the market to buy food is not yours. It’s for the market vendor.

I happen to work in an industry with some of the least paid workers in Uganda. No, it’s not the academia. It is the hotel industry. According to a Kenyan chef who trained me during my internship, Uganda’s hotel workers are paid the least, compared to other hotel workers in all of East Africa. He is an old man who has worked in many hotels in the whole of East Africa, but cannot retire because he is a slave. The day he stops producing food is the day he will be thrown overboard.

I met this old chef at a very beautiful hotel. He is the one who opened my eyes to the fact that there are still slaves even in this twenty-first century. I decided to listen to this guy and learn from him as much as I could because, firstly, he is a seasoned chef, and secondly, I’ve always dreamt of being a chef. But the more I listened to him, the more I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to be like him.

One day I told him so. He was surprised that I wouldn’t want to be like him. He knew how much I loved cooking. He had seen a lot of potential in me, and had spoken to management about the possibility of retaining me in his kitchen after my internship. But he could not understand why I wouldn’t want to join slavery, like him, till I was old.

He was so blinded by his passion for cooking that he didn’t realise that he was a slave.

I didn’t want to be like him, so I turned down the job offer at that place.

I went back to that hotel last weekend to relax and have some beer. I met the old chef. He had hired a friend of mine to work with him. My friend told me of how he was working his back off but hadn’t gotten a salary in over three months.

“Why don’t you quit?” I asked him.

“But then what will I do? I need this job. And if I quit now, I won’t be paid the money they owe me.”

He was getting used to being a slave.

As I sipped my beer, I promised myself never to settle for being a slave. Although my mind is wired with a slave mentality, I purposed to fight it.

I am reminded of the 2012 movie, Django Unchained. Django was a slave who refused to remain a slave. In a society that treated all black people as slaves, where even the black people were comfortable being nothing more than slaves, Django refused to settle.

Be like Django. Be like me. Don’t be a slave.

How Wordy Cakes Helps Create Unforgettable Memories

At Wordy Cakes, we believe that an event should be memorable long after the music has stopped and the speeches forgotten. That is why each pair of our cupcakes comes with a sticker with a memorable message that the people at your event will go away with and stick on their desks, cars computers or mirrors. In that way, they will always remember.

When Sylvester Mugabi came to us and told us about the memorial service he was planning in memory of his parents this weekend, we knew that this was an opportunity for us to help him make the occasion memorable indeed. So we went to work and designed stickers with his parents' names and photo that we packed with our special cupcakes. Unfortunately, we couldn't make it for the memorial, but our cakes represented us. And they were not just cakes that you eat and forget, but they carried an unforgettable message of love and nostalgia.

We are very grateful to Sylvester and his family for letting us be part of this memorable event. As always, it wasn't just about cake. It was about helping people express themselves in the best way possible with Wordy Cakes.

You too can contact us to help you create memories on your events. Call us today on +256771675754 or email paul.kisakye@gmail.com. We won't just provide you with cake. We'll provide you with unforgettable memories.

On Deserving What I Get in Life

I was late for a meeting this afternoon. This is so unlike me. I'm not good at driving. I'm not even good at lying. But I'm good at keeping time. So being 15 minutes late was not excusable.

Then while coming back home, I read a post by my friend, Ian, from his blog. He was talking about whether we deserve getting all the good stuff in life that we desire. For example, do I deserve to be rich? Do my habits show that I deserve to be a good writer?

Now that got me thinking, especially when he talked about how he's good at keeping time. The person that he used in his story about keeping time is the same person I was meeting this afternoon. And this person made it abundantly clear that, though I was forgiven for not keeping time today since it was the first time we were meeting, he wouldn't forgive me another time. If I could, I'd have written out my oath in blood.

So this evening I wondered, do I deserve all the good things that life has given me? Do I deserve all the opportunities that have come my way, the ones I've accepted and the ones I've turned down?

I realise that the answer is no.

Even when I try to think of myself as a smart guy, I wasn't the smartest in my class. The retakes I got are my testimony. The numerous failures I've encountered in life and in business have been jarring reminders that I don't possess any superhuman abilities.

But the amazing opportunities keep showing up, and I keep taking them up.

Like the other day when a client proposed a change in my payment. I'd suggested that I should get paid half of the money before the start of the project so I could use it to fund the work, and then receive the other half after I finished the work.

He said, "This money you've quoted is all yours. I don't want you to use any of it for the project. Contact my office whenever you need money to run the project and we'll provide it."

Now what's that called? Favour?

Well, whatever it is, I'm learning that I don't deserve what I get. And if I ever become a millionaire or a very successful writer, I'd like to remember that I never deserved any of this. There has been too much grace in my life for me to be blind to it.

Please Don't Read This

The Writivism Festival, which just ended recently, got me thinking a lot. Thinking about writing. While I didn't attend most sessions because I was either too busy or worn out from being too busy, I got quite challenged. You see, I haven't been writing as consistently as I'd like to. So this is me writing.

During the festival, I hosted a friend from Kenya, who almost didn't want to go attend the festival sessions because he wanted to stay at home and write. He's writing something that I hope to enjoy when he finishes it. And I hope I feature in the acknowledgments. This is because he was very impressed by the peace and quiet I enjoy at home. He said, "Paul, with such an environment, you need to be writing more."

So, I've finally decided to listen to him and start writing more. I still haven't figured out what exactly I want to write about. I have a lot of interests. But from today onwards, I'm going to start writing a little everyday. At first, I'll just be sitting at my desk, and writing everything that comes to my mind.

I really hope that one day something will click in my head and I'll start writing as much as my Kenyan friend writes everyday. Then maybe I'll write another book.

But for now, I just want to rediscover the joy of writing. And please don't feel obligated to read any of my rumblings and musings. Because, if you've read this post, you've most probably flushed a few minutes of your precious time down the drain.

It's not that I really care. But now I have to stop. Till next time when i get something more important to write.

Wordy Cakes: The Story So Far

Late last year, I started Wordy Cakes. These are cakes with words. I started Wordy Cakes because I had experienced the power of words, and wanted to share my experience with the world. It has been a great journey so far. I have experienced some incredible moments, like when a love-struck boy sent Wordy Cakes to his girlfriend with a poem he'd written. Like when my aunt said, "These are the words I needed for the situation I'm going through right now."

But you see, Wordy Cakes is a business. In the beginning, when I gave out a lot of free Wordy Cakes, there was a lot of excitement. It felt good to be able to share something that's so much a part of me: Words and Cake. It was only when it got to the tiny little details that run a business that Wordy Cakes failed miserably. For example, there was the dilemma of pricing. The people who appreciated the words that came with the cake thought that they were priced too low, given the value of the words. But the people who only wanted cake for cake's sake, and these were the majority, thought I was cheating them.

Then there was the issue of partnerships. I never knew partnerships were that hard. It looks like passion is a very expensive commodity. Early on, I realised that however good I was at coming up with some great ideas for product development and marketing, I was terrible at selling. So I needed someone to help me sell. Then I realised that I was so bad at selling that I even failed to sell the vision of Wordy Cakes to the two partners I'd gotten. I learnt that partnerships can be like a romantic relationship. If you want to get serious, get the paperwork done and don't date for too long. Otherwise you'll be dumped like a rotten egg because all along, your partner wanted you fresh, and now he can't eat a rotten egg.

I've learnt that people know how to smile and shake your hand and say all the nice cow dung when they are facing you, but when push comes to shove, only your family and close friends will be there. They are the only ones that know that cow dung can be used as manure for new dreams. In the end, you realise that you needed the hardships to show you who your real friends are.

I've learnt that true love doesn't come to everyone. Not every guy gets lucky enough to have a girl love them for who they are, whether they are broke or not. I've experienced that love (Patience, whenever I think of you, my mind freezes and I don't know what to say). And it has given me the strength to wake up in the morning when I'd almost drowned in depression the previous night. And speaking of depression, how come no one told me how ugly it can get? How come no one said it was possible to get so low emotionally that you're immobilised?

Lately, I'm learning to count all the 24 hours in a day. I'm learning to enjoy every single second of them. Sometimes life sucks, but when you look around you, you realise that you've got a lot of good stuff going well for you: like all the job offers that come around, most of which you have to say no to.

When I started Wordy Cakes on 18th October, 2014, I never knew I'd be seated at my desk, on a new laptop that I'm still infatuated with, typing out this blog post that reads like a eulogy. But one thing I'm certain of now, is that Wordy Cakes still lives on. In my heart where it was created, Wordy Cakes doesn't really care what the world thinks or says. I'll still get those orders, and now because it's no longer about the money, or pleasing some partner who doesn't care how cakes are baked, I'll say yes to the ones that pass the Wordy Cakes test, and no to the ones that don't.

What's life after all, if we don't enjoy the little things we do to change the world?

Death Kissed Me Last Night

Death kissed me last night

She came swiftly and softly

While I was walking down the street

And swept me off my feet

Carried me on fluffy clouds

And said

Welcome home, my son

I’ve looked forward to this day, she said

But you looked so good today

I couldn’t let you go

See, I have a soft spot

For young men like you

Who’ve just discovered pleasure

But don’t know what to do with it.

Sometimes I wait till they’re ripe

Old age makes them easy prey

I creep into them slowly

Taking one inch of flesh at a time

By the time I snatch up their soul

They are mad at me

For being too slow

I don’t discriminate, my son

I also love them young

When they are pea-sized

And haven’t taken their first breath

I like to imagine them

Not taking their first step

Removing their first tooth

Or losing their virginity

I love the Acts of God
The kind they accuse God of
The plagues and floods and quakes
The sound when a neck breaks
Like dry twigs in a wild fire
Such music to my ear
When blood flows like a stream
And there's no one to dream

I take pleasure in wet cheeks 
I take pleasure in cracked hearts

When men’s hearts simmer with hate

When they go ahead, do my bidding.

On such days I get so busy

So many souls to welcome home

Yet so little time to prepare a banquet

Death kissed me last night

And through many words, taught

That I should get used to my state

I only die once, just like everyone else

Maybe I should look for some friends here

Because it will take me eternity

To learn how to undie. 

Myself

If I met myself

Walking down a dark street,

I wonder:

Would I tremble in fear,

Or run for dear life?

If I met myself

Eating at the corner cafe,

I wonder:

Would I sit in the farthest corner,

Or skip lunch that day?

If I met myself

Cowering in a dark corner,

I wonder:

Would I suck my thumb,

Or grow bumps on my skin?

Would I ever stop running

from myself, from myself?

Would I ever stop fearing

what I’ve become?

Or will I keep hiding

from myself?

I AM THROWING AWAY MY SMART PHONE

For the longest time, my friends wanted me to get a smart phone so I could join Whatsapp. Last year, around this time I got myself my first smart phone. I love being able to text with one hand, so I got a small phone, the LGE405. It has served me well until last week.

I've decided to spend less time staring at the tiny little screen. This is because I realised that I was looking at life, at least most of life, through a four-inch window.

Instead of seeing the blue of the skies, I was seeing the blue of Facebook and Twitter. And there was more green in my Whatsapp than in the trees outside my window. Human beings were starting to become smaller and smaller. Flesh and blood was turning to avatars and status updates.

My need for human connection led me to social media, but I ended up hugging my phone at night, under the covers, typing away, sending words to some disembodied human who was also most probably somewhere in their bed, under the covers.

I am tired. I am bored. And I am unplugging.

It’s only after going offline for a few days (of course I’ve had a few minutes every now and then of checking out Facebook and replying Whatsapp messages) that I’ve realised how addicted I’d become to my phone. It felt like there was an IV line running from my phone to my arm, supplying vital fluids to my body, without which I’d die.

I know I won’t die. And the world won’t stop spinning if I go offline for a few days. So while I won’t swear by the Almighty God that I’m completely going offline, I am going to try to check my phone less times. I am going to resist the urge to reply all incoming messages immediately.

And I am going to breathe slower, take the world less seriously, take up a new hobby (farming?), write a little more, and see more people.

And it won’t be through the tiny window through which I’d decided to watch the world. I’m going outdoors!

I love concerts. But it’s incredible how some people watch a full concert through the small screen of their smart phone or tab. It’s interesting how people go out to the beach and instead of taking in all the beauty, decide to capture small pieces of it on their phones. I can’t imagine how much life passes us by while we’re looking at tiny, little windows.

Maybe you would also like to put away your tiny windows through which you view the world? You’ll be amazed at the beauty around you.