What solo living, sologamy and Knowledge Activation have in common

Uncle Rwamiti was having tea at Horizons Café when a woman asked whether she could join him.

She was perhaps thirty-eight. Elegant without trying too hard. Confident without announcing it. She placed her handbag on the empty chair beside her and ordered black coffee.

“Mzee,” she said, “I have been told you understand people who live alone.”

Uncle Rwamiti smiled.

“I understand very few people. But I have spent many years pretending.”

She laughed.

“My name is Anita. I have lived alone for seven years.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Very much.”

“Do you get lonely?”

“Sometimes.”

“Good.”

She looked surprised.

“Good?”

“Yes. If you had told me you never became lonely, I would begin worrying about you.”

She laughed again.

“I like my own company. I travel alone. I eat alone. I have good friends. I have built a peaceful home.”

“Excellent.”

“And last year, I married myself.”

Uncle Rwamiti stopped stirring his tea.

Not because he was shocked.

Because he wanted to hear what she meant before deciding what he thought.

“What happened at the wedding?”

“Nothing dramatic. A few friends. Dinner. A ring. I wrote vows to myself.”

“What did you promise?”

“To stop abandoning myself for approval. To respect my own life. To stop waiting for somebody else to make me complete.”

Uncle Rwamiti nodded slowly.

“And have you kept the vows?”

Anita smiled.

“Mostly.”

“Mostly is how human beings keep all important vows.”

She relaxed.

Then Uncle Rwamiti asked:

“So why are you here?”

Her smile disappeared.

“I feel stuck.”

The Woman Who Had Everything Except Traction

Anita had a master’s degree. She had completed courses in marketing, project management and digital communication. She read extensively. Her shelves were full. She listened to podcasts while exercising. She subscribed to newsletters. She had notebooks full of ideas.

Yet professionally, she felt as though her life had been parked beside the road with the engine running.

“I know a lot, Mzee.”

“That can be dangerous.”

She laughed nervously.

“I thought you would be impressed.”

“I am. But knowledge has a strange habit.”

“What habit?”

“It can make you feel as though you are moving when you are actually sitting very comfortably.”

Anita looked at him.

Uncle Rwamiti pointed at her coffee.

“You know how coffee is grown?”

“A little.”

“You know about roasting?”

“Yes.”

“Grinding?”

“Yes.”

“Brewing?”

“Yes.”

“If you studied coffee for twenty years but never put water through the beans, would you have coffee?”

“No.”

“You would have expertise.”

She smiled.

“But no coffee.”

“Exactly.”

He leaned back.

“My daughter, perhaps you have learned to belong to yourself.”

He pointed gently toward her ring.

“But you have not yet learned to employ yourself.”

She stared at him.

That sentence landed harder than he intended.

Or perhaps exactly as hard as it needed to.

The Second Marriage

“What do you mean by employ myself?”

“I do not mean give yourself a job.”

“Then what?”

“Put what you know to work.”

She opened her notebook.

Uncle Rwamiti stopped her.

“No. Close it.”

She frowned.

“You have enough notes.”

He pointed across the café.

At a nearby table, two women were complaining.

One ran a small catering company.

The other managed serviced apartments.

Their problem was simple.

They were attracting enquiries through social media but converting very few into paying customers.

Anita listened.

“They need a follow-up system,” she whispered.

Uncle Rwamiti said nothing.

“They are answering everyone differently. Their messaging is weak. They probably do not track leads.”

Still nothing.

“I could fix that.”

“Could you?”

“Yes.”

“For how much?”

She hesitated.

“I don’t know.”

“What would you need?”

“Maybe two days to understand their process. Then I could build them templates, a tracking sheet and a follow-up sequence.”

“And what problem would disappear?”

“They would lose fewer customers.”

Uncle Rwamiti finally smiled.

“There is your coffee.”

Knowledge That Never Leaves Home

Anita looked uncomfortable.

“But I am not a consultant.”

“Who told you?”

“I have never called myself one.”

“Does the problem care what you call yourself?”

“No.”

“Do those women need a title?”

“No.”

“What do they need?”

“A solution.”

Uncle Rwamiti nodded.

“Then perhaps the problem with many educated people is not that they know too little.”

“It is that their knowledge has never been introduced to somebody else’s difficulty.”

Anita became quiet.

“My grandson once brought home a torch without batteries,” Uncle Rwamiti continued.

“He insisted it was a very good torch.”

“Was it?”

“Beautiful. Strong. Expensive.”

“But useless.”

“Not useless. Unactivated.”

He paused.

“Knowledge can be like that.”

What Sologamy Forgot to Tell Her

Anita touched the ring on her finger.

“So you think marrying myself was foolish?”

“No.”

She looked relieved.

“I think it may have taught you something important.”

“What?”

“That your life belongs to you.”

“And the problem?”

“You stopped there.”

He smiled.

“Belonging to yourself is not the same as becoming useful.”

Anita listened carefully.

“A person can spend years healing, discovering herself, protecting her peace, setting boundaries and learning to enjoy solitude.”

“All good things.”

“But eventually life asks another question.”

“What will you do with the person you have recovered?”

That silenced her.

Outside the café, traffic moved slowly. A boda boda squeezed between two cars. A waiter dropped a spoon. Somewhere, somebody laughed.

Anita looked again at the women discussing their business problem.

Uncle Rwamiti continued.

“Perhaps self-love has two chapters.”

“The first says: I will not abandon myself.”

“And the second?”

He smiled.

“I will not waste myself either.”

Solo Living as a Laboratory

Anita leaned forward.

“I have never thought about solo living that way.”

“What way?”

“As preparation.”

“Preparation for what?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Good. Then we are finally talking.”

He asked about her life.

Living alone had taught her how to budget. How to manage uncertainty. How to create routines without supervision. How to make decisions. How to enjoy silence. How to recover from loneliness. How to maintain friendships intentionally. How to travel alone. How to negotiate landlords, repairmen, mechanics and bureaucracy. How to build community without depending on family proximity.

Uncle Rwamiti interrupted.

“You have spent seven years conducting research.”

She laughed.

“Research?”

“Participant observation.”

“On myself?”

“The longest longitudinal study in Kampala.”

Now she laughed loudly.

“But seriously,” he said, “why do you assume none of that knowledge has value?”

She became thoughtful.

“There are younger women beginning to live alone.”

“And men.”

“Yes. Men too.”

“People relocating.”

“Yes.”

“Divorced people rebuilding.”

“Yes.”

“Widows.”

“Yes.”

“Students leaving home.”

“Yes.”

“Retirees suddenly spending much more time alone.”

Anita’s eyes widened.

“What if I created something from what I have learned?”

Uncle Rwamiti shrugged.

“I was waiting for you to notice.”

The Knowledge Was Hiding Inside the Life

She started speaking quickly now.

“A guide.”

“Perhaps.”

“Workshops.”

“Perhaps.”

“A small community.”

“Perhaps.”

“Videos about practical solo living.”

“Perhaps.”

“Could even be corporate—people relocating for work.”

“Now you are becoming troublesome.”

She laughed.

“I could interview others. Men and women. People living alone by choice and circumstance.”

“Good.”

“And maybe the self-marriage experience becomes one chapter about commitment to oneself, not the whole thing.”

“Better.”

She stopped.

“Mzee, all this was sitting inside my life?”

“Yes.”

“And I kept looking for another course?”

“Educated people enjoy courses. They are safer than customers.”

She laughed again.

“A course never rejects your invoice.”

The Difference Between Self-Belonging and Self-Absorption

Anita became serious.

“But isn’t there a danger here? Turning everything into a business?”

“Very much.”

“So how do I avoid that?”

“Do not monetise your life.”

“What is the difference?”

“Serve from it.”

He explained.

Knowledge Activation was not about squeezing money from every experience. It was about recognising that lived knowledge, academic knowledge and observed problems could meet.

Sometimes that meeting produced income. Sometimes service. Sometimes a book. Sometimes a film. Sometimes a better question. Sometimes nothing more than helping another person avoid a mistake.

“Activation is not monetisation,” Uncle Rwamiti said.

“It is contribution.”

Anita wrote that down.

This time he allowed her.

The First Customer

The two women at the neighbouring table were preparing to leave.

Anita became nervous.

“Should I speak to them?”

Uncle Rwamiti took a sip of tea.

“I thought you married a confident woman.”

She glared at him.

“That was unnecessary.”

“But effective.”

She stood.

Walked over.

Introduced herself.

“I couldn’t help overhearing your problem,” she said. “I think I may be able to help you build a simple follow-up system. If you are interested, I could spend thirty minutes understanding where leads are being lost.”

The women looked at each other.

One pulled out a chair.

“Sit.”

Anita looked back at Uncle Rwamiti.

He pretended not to notice.

The Ring and the Invoice

Forty minutes later, she returned.

Her face had changed.

“What happened?”

“They want me to come to their office on Thursday.”

“For what?”

“A paid diagnostic session.”

“How much?”

She told him.

Uncle Rwamiti nodded.

“Not bad for a woman who arrived unemployed by herself.”

She laughed.

Then she looked at the ring again.

“I think I understand something.”

“What?”

“When I married myself, I promised to honour my life.”

“Yes.”

“But perhaps honouring my life also means putting what I know into circulation.”

Uncle Rwamiti smiled.

“Now you are activating.”

She packed her notebook.

“Mzee, perhaps Knowledge Activation and solo living are not unrelated after all.”

“Most things are unrelated until somebody looks long enough.”

“And sologamy?”

He thought for a moment.

“For some people, it says: I belong to myself.”

“And Knowledge Activation?”

“It asks: Now that you belong to yourself, what will you do with yourself?”

Anita stood.

“That sounds almost like a second vow.”

“What would it be?”

She considered it.

Then smiled.

“I will not abandon myself.”

A pause.

“And I will not waste myself.”

Uncle Rwamiti lifted his cup.

“That marriage may have a future.”

She laughed and walked away.

At the door, she turned.

“One last thing, Mzee.”

“Yes?”

“If this consulting business works, what percentage do you want?”

Uncle Rwamiti looked offended.

“My daughter, wisdom is free.”

She smiled.

“Good.”

He raised one finger.

“The tea, however, is not.”

Petero Wamala, DBA
Making sense of change through ethical storytelling
Because knowing alone is not enough.