Saving a penny a day to have a nice Christmas

It is Christmas day and every family man wants to provide the best for his family.

Since January, Robert Mponye a resident of Kigoma village in Wakiso district , has been saving for the Christmas day in December.

He wanted to see his family happy on this day. Mponye spent 150,000 shillings on buying the clothes for his wife and children, as well as foodstuffs to prepare.

By sunrise, Mponye’s family was already up and running.

Sylvia Nalyose , Mponye’s wife, prepared the rare meal of the day as her husband supervised one of his sons plucking the feathers off the cock.

Being Christmas, many of the locals in Kigoma village are preparing for the day, however Mponye's closest neighbour is not taken up by the events of the day as he loudly plays traditional music.

As sylvia completed the house chores, her children Allan Mwebe and Vicky Katasi rushed to take a bath.

Sylvia and three of her children storm out of the house all clad in their best outfits.

With the zeal and excitement , they trek a distance of about five kilometers to St Mary's Kigoma Catholic Church.

On the way to church, Sylvia revealed how prepared she was for the day.

“I left when I had prepared food. When I return from church, we will just eat and I go out later on," she said.

The hymns of the choir could be heard from a distance. The mass presided over by father Patrick Kayemba.

Back home, Mponye is feeding his broilers. While interacting with him, he says his failure to make it to church is due to an appointment he had with a client.

“I had my other programmes that’s why only my wife and children went to church, " Mponye said.

Mponye who is a builder also juggles life by acting as a middle man in selling and buying land .

“When a week is good , I make 20,000 from building. I use it to feed my family and save some of it.”

Mponye intends to wed his wife come 2018.

“I want to go to her home officially and be introduced , later in the same year I wed her in church," he said.

Besides his plans for 2018, Mponye reflected on the predicaments has met in 2017.

“It has been a rough year . Money was scarce. Sometimes I failed to feed my family because I was unable to," he said.