Amos Wekesa Profile picture
@SafarisUganda , @Ugandalodgesltd, MV kazinga, and Pela Commodities Ltd. #personal opinions #Proudly Ugandan, rwenzori marathon team leader.
Apr 15 17 tweets 4 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

MARRIAGE

A while ago I wrote a piece on this forum about Kylan and his travels from Nairobi by public and how my wife wasn't rightly amused for like 3 days. For 3 days, no peace at home until guy arrived Home.

A guy on this wall made an interesting comment… Image he said even you who has married an American still faces the same problems like me who married from deep in Kabale? I realised I needed to write something about marriage.

When you get married,it's very rear if at all that you look at your wife or husband in terms of his or her
Dec 7, 2023 6 tweets 1 min read
NAM conference 2024

People are saying above conference is going to spur tourism growth and am here shaking my big head.

By now private sector players would have been mobilized to provide transport services, packages would have been booked.

Would have presented spending areas I had someone say China is going to provide cars, China will be marketing their cars by doing that, we shall be spending on those for many years to come through by buying spares.

They will be marketing china as a country through that.
Aug 15, 2022 10 tweets 2 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

BUSINESS AND LIFE

When we started @SafarisUganda, my personal pursuit was majorly focussed on basics needs. I was tired of struggling accessing clothing, shelter and food.

I had tested poverty or lived in it and like i have said before, its a bad thing and... it's very wrong praising poverty. Poverty is very demeaning and kills self esteem but i knew fighting it would take real commitment and I had to forego sleep. Today many people around me think i work hard and its because they never saw me 16yrs ago. I worked 18hrs and a day.
Jul 4, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

Life will always present you with opportunities of giving up and during my preparations for the Rwenzori challenge times, I saw those opportunities coming my way. Read on!

About the rwenzori ranges, no amounts of words good enough to express the real experience, words can't describe the beauty and the challenges involved. It's like business, I can only give you some hits but I can't explain enough details, you have to experience it yourself.

My family learnt about my desire to scale the Rwenzori ranges again before I turn 50...
Jun 13, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

TOURISM BUSINESS TIPS.

Uganda's tourism hasnt taken off yet and i can see signs of it taking off and this is why i think it hasnt taken off.

Inside all our 10 national parks and 12 games reserves combined have less than 1500 beds which is nearly less than 30%.. of what Masaai mara alone has. Forget the so many other protected areas Kenya has. Remember we were bigger than them until 1971.

Just across in Kenya companies like Somak, A &K, and many others easily turnover 50m dollars a year.

A company like @SafarisUganda has simply...
May 26, 2022 13 tweets 3 min read
THURSDAY MOTIVATION

This is directed to young entrepreneurs who follow me on twitter.

It must be difficult time for many of you who are dreaming and aspiring for better and bigger things in life especially in the area of business. A young man shared his fears with me week! He said i have realized that business growth in uganda attracts a lot of haters and I don't want to aspire for anything serious anymore. I was heart broken for him especially from his facial expression. I told him Uganda needs him to work hard, needs needs him creating jobs
May 24, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
Thread Alert!

At a function last week, a friend says Amos, I have never seen you take alcohol. I tell him, I never intentionally take alcohol and asks, why? Lots of stuff I do today are partly formed my background. As a kid, I saw my parents drink a lot and fought alot due to it Every little money my parents made was used for alcohol. We slept in a grass thatched house( one in bad shape)which was the norm then. They couldn't use a bit of it for either fees or cloths, even repair the thatch. The misery in the home was clear with physical fights always.
May 23, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

A CASE FOR TOURISM AND EXPORT BASED AGRICULTURE .

Our 2022/2023 Uganda National budget that will be read in June is ushs 47 Trillions but will maybe go upto 49 trillions by the time of budget reading it will be 49 Trillion shillings. Out of 47 Trillion shillings, Revenue authority is expected to collect ushs 25 Trillion but I predict they will collect somewhere close to 20 Trillion shillings.

Out of 47 trillion shillings, 60% will be going towards recurrent expenditure( paying salaries etc) and 18% will be..
May 20, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
There is a section of us Ugandans who will question a MP or Minister who builds a hotel or any other serious property. I recently read a whole article in one of the dailies about a person who had been a minister for very many years. The writer was praising the former Minister. He said the Minister wasn't corrupt because he died without investing in a mall or a hotel and he probably didn't have a decent home as well and that was a sign of being corrupt free according to the writer. I was very shocked and I questioned myself
May 18, 2022 12 tweets 2 min read
WEDNESDAY THREAD:

A MESSAGE FROM A WELL WISHER.

Wolfgang Hilberer

Amos, you know I love Uganda from the bottom of my heart. But here is the attempt to compare two countries which you can not compare,and how many Ugandans have ever been in Spain that they can compare? The majority can not even compare Uganda with Rwanda,
Kenya or Tanzania or even South Africa because they have never been there as "tourists".
Uganda on the one side with its nature gifts, with its beautiful landscape and very friendly people but a very low infrastructure
May 16, 2022 7 tweets 1 min read
Case For Tourism! Thread!

According to a report realized on 21/ 04/2022 by WTTC( world tourism and travel council), tourism will create 126m jobs globally within the next 10years!

Tourism is going to be the driving force for economic recovery worldwide and will grow at 5.8% Tourism according to WTTC which is an authority will create 1 in 3 jobs worldwide and this will benefit those who understand how to position themselves. Tourism revenue globally will reach 14.6 Trillion dollars annually within the next 10 years (2022-2023).
May 16, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

Aisha came to @SafarisUganda as a trainee, fairly raw and with a very difficult attitude and because of that, she was recommended for firing by the human resource manager too many times justifiably so but somehow, I didn't sign her firing letters. Image Being an employer is one of the most difficult things to be as a person because you are not meant to use emotions in decision making especially if people aren't doing the right stuff. I decided that Andrew, the GM and I sit this lady down for a counseling session because we are
May 11, 2022 12 tweets 3 min read
WEDNESDAY THREAD:
VALUE OF A SPOUSE

About November 7 or 8 last year, I was with my friend Isaiah Rembo in London driving me to a shopping mall because I was to return to the pearl the next day. I asked for his phone to call my wife about what I could shop for her. He was listening in and my wife said, I don't need anything maybe buy some school stuff for kids.
Isaiah kept quiet for sometime and later asked did I hear your wife saying she needs nothing? I said yes. My wife leaves a very basic life shops in Owino, looks for the best prices..
May 10, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
REY.

Rey is an amazing guy based in Fortportal owning and running Philipine woodworks and construction.

His workshop is about 4 kilometers outside Fortportal in the middle of Banana plantations and he leaves on 1.5acres of land. On 1.5acres, this man doesnt pay water bills because he collects water from his roof, doesnt pay for power because he has worked his own way and besides there is no nation grid near him.  He either rears or plants almost 80% of what he eats.
May 9, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
MONDAY THREAD:
READING

While in school I actually hated reading especially waking up so early or spending nights reading for exams.This explains why I didn't go to university though a friend,a former school mate who I met recently said Amos you were a "stupid" guy in school... how come you do things the way you do them now? My Oguti primary school OBs know a different story just only the secondary OBs think that way.He said, I was one of those guys he had written off.
I was in scouting,sports,acting and leadership mainly because I had to do something
Apr 26, 2022 10 tweets 2 min read
THREAD:

About 10yrs ago,I convinced a few friends including people like Joseph Muyeti to come along with me to buy land in a place called Sissa, Entebbe road.

My land lady and land lord (Susie house Nsambya) then had opened my eyes through discussions about how to invest in... real estate especially when young. Places like sissa less than 30kms from Kampala hardly had people and buying an acre of land was less than ushs 4 million.

They told me, when young don't hurry trying to buy land in the city because i would be frustrasted and also that prices
Apr 25, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

VISION

One is better off having a vision without resources than have resources without a vision...think about people who inherit billions and die poor!!! Think about people with lots of time and do nothing with it!! Visions are born in the mind brought about by different factors!! Lacking clarity in vision is dangerous because that can work against you. You cant say my vision is to make a lot of money because it is simply one of the factors that facilitates vision. The reason one earns money
Apr 19, 2022 18 tweets 4 min read
THREAD:

UGANDA

It's always great thinking and writing about this great nation called Uganda. A country with a population of 45m people with over 40 official languages has amazing facts and would to bring out one or a few more in this column of mine. Uganda is the source of the river Nile which is the most ancient and might river covering a distance of about 6853kms long . Along that Nile, up-to until recent, Uganda boasted of the best rafting opportunities  in the World in terms of 2 to 3 days and the main reason was that...
Apr 12, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
THREAD:

IDLE NOTE ABOUT KNOWLEDGE AND TIME.

I think time and knowledge are the 2 most valuable and most misused or less understood things in Uganda.
Those that have knowledge are not passing it to those that most need it and those that most need the knowledge are not doing... enough to acquire it. Those that need it have the capacity to apply it and yes, applied knowledge is what sets individuals and eventually countries and continents above others.

True, God's spoken word is powerful but human spoken word needs application for it to be powerful and
Apr 11, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
MONDAY THREAD:
Tourism

During the deep of covid19 challenge,I met a guy on the street who later I learnt was a lawyer in town and he says I had never thought I was connected to you and your business, asked him what he meant? He says i discovered that one of my aunties upcountry was supplying tomatoes to a person who supplies one of your @Ugandalodgesltd .

He says or adds now that you don't have business, she isn't earning as well and that means I have to financially support her instead. I never thought I was connected to tourism at personal level.
Mar 28, 2022 12 tweets 3 min read
MONDAY THREAD:

BUSINESS/TOURISM

After having spoken to lots of people, I can conclude that many people have a feeling that business people or entreprenuers are born.

Some people think people of a certain race or tribe are meant to be better business people..while in Kenya... I had conversations with drivers, waiters, professionals and lots of them thought Kikuyus are meant to be better business people generally speaking.
Here in Uganda,a lot of people assume,business is meant to be for Indians and generally foreigners and a bit of academic failures