The queens of sport: Earning their place at the table of men

The boxing champion sisters

One look at Hellen Baleke in her murky purple T-shirt and pale green track suit and another at Diana Turyanabo in her dresstop and leggings only tells one thing. Like everyone else in Katanga slum where they live in a makeshift mudhouse, the national female boxing champions are just trying to make ends meet.

In place of the muscled, no nonsense tough sisters I expected to find was a wide cheerful smile from Baleke who ushered me into their home.

Undaunted by the messy dark room that serves both as a bedroom and a sitting room, Baleke, a Nnalongo and mother to her surviving three year old twin Wasswa, offered me a seat on a bench next to her coach who was watching TV. Beaming, she introduced me to her eight young relatives engrossed in a local play on Bukedde TV who she introduces as “my brothers and sisters”. Leaving the noisy room, Baleke carried a bench outside and placed it right in front of a neighbour’s doorway. As we sat down, Turyanabo appeared with their mother.

24-year-old Baleke first conceived the idea to join boxing in 2005 when she first got seriously beaten up by a man in Katanga. She discovered Rhino Boxing Club in Katanga and promptly begun her training, motivated by a need to acquire skills to be able to defend and protect herself. In 2007, she influenced her then “weak” younger sister, Turyanabo, to train with her.

Reminiscing the old days, the sisters closeness stands out as they smile at each other, complete each other’s sentences and occasionally cheekily playing with each other’s hands. Yet, there are times they have to fight each other. “People even bet on which one of us will beat the other offering some money to the winner,” Turyanabo says. Baleke explains that in such cases, they agree to put on a great show for their supporters but do not in any way gravely hurt one another. She adds, “Honestly, I detest these matches especially because my younger sister gets more support even though I always beat her.”

Laughing at Baleke’s confession, Turyanabo recalled a match they had at YMCA where they fought one another with so much anger severely hurting one another to the extent that they were both crying at the end of the match. “That day when we came home, mama caned us. Today we must have self-control when fighting one another,” Baleke says. And their sister, Maureen Bisirikiwa attests to their self-control saying they only fight in the ring.

“I don’t want people to be afraid of me like they were when I used to beat up anyone that tampered with me before I started boxing professionally,” explains Baleke. She however leaves all of us in stitches when she reveals that she waits to get even in the ring when her younger sister annoys her.

Love and the boxers
Baleke says she met her son’s father at a match she had gone to fight at but it never amounted to a serious relationship. Like her sister, they say boxing is their only love at the moment and any meeting or socialisation is about boxing.

The question that remains unanswered is why Uganda’s female boxing champions are living in a slum with only pictures and stories to show for their success. According to Baleke and Turyanabo, the Uganda National Council for Sports does very little to support them, both in monetary and equipment terms. “There was a time that a council official even denied knowing us as female boxers,” Baleke painfully recounts.

An official on the technical team of boxing in Uganda, Patrick Arihanda, confirms that the sisters have had little support from the council but explains that this is because Uganda only has a handful of female boxers. He is however optimistic about female boxers fortunes with the upcoming elections of executives in the Uganda Boxing Federation.
“If someone wanted to sponsor these ladies, though, all they would need is one letter from the Uganda Boxing Federation and another from the Uganda National Council for Sports introducing them as Ugandans and part of the federation,” Arihanda adds.

At the moment, all these two sisters want is for someone to recognise their abilities and give them a chance like the male boxers have been given.

Lady of the cue

reigning champion. When Kanzira picks up the cue and heads to the pool table, the women along with the men, respectfully give way, writes Clive Kyazze.

When Carol Kanzira walked up to the podium to pick her Uganda Sports Press Association (Uspa) Female Pool player of the year, all eyes were on her. She is beautiful and, I guess, everyone could not wait to see who had unsat the known pool lady champion, Jacinta Kajubi.

“Oh! I love the Uspa award, I couldn’t believe it, a plaque with my name and title inscribed on it? it was the first of its kind for me, I will live to treasure it,” Kanzira prides, adding, “We are friends with Jacinta, but I must confess I really enjoyed myself dismantling her last year. I guess you can’t blame a sister for bragging a little.”

At 26, Kanzira has been playing pool for five years, an interest she picked from an ex-boyfriend. “People perceive it as a game for idlers and don’t really treat us with much regard, but that has never put me down. I love the sport,” Kanzira explains.

Playing pool has won Kanzira respect from women, especially men, in and outside the pool fraternity. “It’s funny that there are times men can’t stand being on the table with me, they are scared of getting embarrassed, but they also treat me with much respect off the pool table,” explains the 2011 national women’s top scorer.

Away from the pool table
Kanzira is a mother of one, six-year-old Cedric Ashaba, whose father she is not willing to reveal. “Probably we weren’t meant to be but we have a son. I’m seeing someone but it’s not yet...,” she laughs it off, mid-sentence. A unisex salon in Lungujja, is her main source of income, from which she ensures to take time off to train at her private pool table just outside the salon. She is also entertaining the thought of starting up an academy for the girls who look up to her.

“Many girls look up to me especially in Lungujja, and around Makindye where I reside so I use the opportunity to talk to them about stuff such as early pregnancies and dropping out of school, which gives me pride. I don’t know whether I’d be able to sustain the academy for them though,” she says, reflectively.

2013 targets
Kanzira is aware of the need to maintain her position at the top so she plans on retaining that Uspa award and she knows how much it will take. “One slight mistake and you are gone.

It demands a lot of concentration and hard work.” Concentration, hard work, focus, and determination Kanzira must have or she may not have gotten where she is in this world of men.

Some of the reigning women in different sports

Volleyball: Alice Gitta Oketcho. Currently playing for KACV Veterans, also one of the sport’s longest serving players, since her high school days.

Golf: Flavia Namakula. The 2010 and 2011 Uganda Ladies’ Open champion is the face of women golf in country today. A UPDF soldier, Namamkula has represented Uganda at the World Military Championships.

Basketball: Flavia Oketcho. The reigning Most Valuable Player of the women’s national league, has been doing this since her Kitante High School days. With five leagues in the cupboard, Oketcho is always the woman to watch on court.
Rally: Susan Muwonge, who has been racing since 2005, makes you forget her sex when she steps on the accelerator to take the men for a ride. Leila Mayanja is another one in this sport.

Badminton: Shamim Bangi. This Ndejje University student has virtually won every title on the local scene, and held the Uganda Sports Press Association Badminton Female player of the year a record four times.

Football: Jennifer SSeninde, the first female professional footballer in Europe. Commonly known as Jean Foot the central defender plays for phoenix ladies football club in the English second Division.

Athletics: Annet Negesa, dominant over the middle distances. Negesa won Gold medals at the 2011 Africa Junior Athletics Championship in Botswana and bronze at the World Championships that year.

Rugby: Brenda Kayiyi. The Black Panthers star is the toast of the women’s game and is surely going places.