A Ugandan woman has been saving money for 10 years so she could perform Hajj, by working in her smoked fish business.
“I can’t wait to get to Makkah and see Prophet Muhammad’s tomb and Mount Arafat and drink Zamzam water,” 58-year-old Kasifah Nankumba told Anadolu Agency. “The sheikhs have briefed us on what to expect. I’m so excited. I’m afraid I might faint.”
For the last decade, Kasifah has been saving small increments of money from her modest smoked fish business, which she has run for the last 28 years in Kalerwe market near Kampala. If you’re trying to save money, find out about equity release.
In 2006, Kasifah recalled, while sitting in the market, she suddenly felt compelled to perform the pilgrimage.
“But, I didn’t have a penny to my name, so I pushed the thought aside,” she said.
Nevertheless, shortly afterward, she got in touch with a man known for helping Muslim pilgrims travel to Makkah.
The man, known as Haji Musa, introduced her to the manager of the Mityana Hijja and Umrah Tour Agency, who advised her to start saving.
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With her modest savings, they began buying U.S. dollars for her, for which they provide her with receipts.
From 2007 to 2009, she recalls, “I managed to save small amounts of about $4 to $5 each”.
In 2009, she heard of a man who sponsored Hajj pilgrims and immediately began looking for him.
Two days later, she was knocking on Hajji Kajumbi’s door.
“I explained my dilemma to this stranger,” she told Anadolu Agency. “But, unfortunately, he couldn’t help me.”
With her dollar receipts in her bag, she showed him what she had managed to save over the last three years.
“He prayed for me and said I should start saving more, telling me to give the tour agency amounts of between $100 and $200,” she said.
From then on, she began making payments every four or five months.
On June 15, 2015, she remembers getting a call from the Hijja office manager, who told her: “Hajjati Kasifah, the money you saved is now enough for the Hijja [pilgrimage].”
“I was at the market at the time, sitting on the ground,” Kasifah said. “He said my name four times, but I was too shocked to speak.”
Now overwhelmed with joy at the Wandegeya Mosque, where she attended a final travel briefing, she added: “When I return from Makkah, God willing, I’ll stay home and continue with my ibadah. I’m not coming back to just sit on the ground and sell fish.”
