Radio Saves Lives

“Radio Saves Lives” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Amanda Köhler, 7 Hills International School in Kampala, Uganda.

Radio Saves Lives

“This is the hole of X AM the radio hit song blast in Uganda, Kampala!!” Nakimuli loved to listen to her Radio, like she did every day after school. Nakimuli was a girl who grew up in Kamocha, an area of Kampala. The area she lived in was poor but it is all she knew and so she liked it and she loved her family.

One day a terrible thing happened! Nakimuli’s father David lost his job. Her mum was selling bananas and mangoes to support her family, but it was not enough for the family to live. Nakimuli’s dad tried hard to get a new job but after few weeks they all realised that they had a huge problem. So they had no choice but to send Nakimuli away to her grandmother in Kenya. It was agreed that she should live there until Dad found a new job!

Next morning, Mum and Dad went to the taxi park to look for a transport to bring Nakimuli to Kenya. Since they were poor Nakimuli did not have much to take, but obviously she took her radio with her! The matatu (minibus) left Kampala soon after sunrise. On the way they kept stopping at the side of the road to take on more passengers. Therefore the journey took a very long time. Nakimuli thought the driver seemed tired, but she did not dare to say anything. She should have said something, because soon after the border the matatu crashed into a big tree. The girl was hurt in the accident. She had scratches all over her body and because she hit her head she sadly lost her memory. Thanks goodness it did not take long for the police to come on site. Nakimuli was rescued and the Kenyan police brought her to the police station where she was interviewed.

Nakimuli could really not remember anything. At first the police thought she was pretending and they even shouted a lot at her, but after a few days they realised she could really not remember anything, not even her name or where she came from. The girl stayed several weeks with the police. The Policemen were very nice and kind to her now.

One day a police woman was trying to syntonize the radio with her favourite radio station. As she was turning the knobs Nakimuli heard: “This is Sanyo FM. Fat Boy is on air!” All of a sudden Nakimuli jump up and said “I know this” the police men and women who were there all looked at her and without saying anything looked for another Ugandan Radio station. They found one and the presenter said: “These are fresh hits from Kampala”. Nakimuli said “this is Capital FM”. The Policemen clapped with joy. Now they knew she came from: Kampala. They quickly arranged to put Nakimuli on TV. A good friend of Dad, David, recognised Nakimuli. He called the TV station and said: “I know that girl, she is called Nakimuli and her father is called David and lives in Kamotcha”.

The Police man who was in TV with Nakimuli then called her dad. The dad at first did not believe what he heard, since he had feared the worst for the past four weeks.

Soon Nakimuli came home to her mother who almost fainted of joy to see her child again. In the meantime the dad had also found a job as a baker in a new supermarket so they had money again. The mum said” Now we can all live together and we will not send you Kenya alone ever again, I promise!”

That was Nakimuli’s story. Just remember that radio slogans can save lives.