Christmas on December 14th

I am normally not the most verbose person wherever I get to address any group of people. Which, ironically, is a far cry from what happens when I sit in front of a computer and thumb its keyboard, or grab pen and paper.

My economy of the spoken word should paint the picture of what happens when a person who does not ordinarily speak much runs out of even the few words he normally uses to express himself.

That is indeed what happened to me on the night of December 14 when asked by the Presidential Adviser on Media and Public Relations, Mr. John Nagenda, the night’s chief guest, to make a seven-word speech after I was declared Golden Pen Journalism Awards’ Journalist of the Year 2007.

Winning that award was a very special feat for me in many respects (some of which I won’t explore here), and I wanted to publicly thank those who helped nurture the writer in me, as well as share a few experiences with colleagues in the business and raise some issues about the state of the industry.

But I didn’t, sorry; I couldn’t do any of that.

The best that came out of my startled mouth was: “I don’t know [what to say]. I am so happy. I just don’t know [what to say]”, before Mr Nagenda declared that I had met reached the target he had set for me – only just.

To a friend who found that little episode “interesting”, I explained that the awards had knocked the wind out of my sails in a touching way that left me speechless, my hands shaking, and my eyes welling up with tears – all because I just couldn’t contain the joy that came with the triumph.

Yet it was not even joy resulting from a first bite at the cherry. You see, it was not the first time that I am walking up to such a podium to receive an award of that nature so it one could easily wonder what all the excitement is about. So, here’s why.

On May 3 this year, I happened to have been one of the three category winners of the Uganda Investigative Journalism Awards 2007. The award came with a package that included a brand new laptop – a machine I so badly needed to ease my work, after the one I had got destroyed beyond repair.

However, eight days later, that laptop was stolen – along with several of my possessions – by a thief who broke into my house. It was a period, to say the least.

After some stern words from my boss, who asked me whether I wanted to just spend the rest of the year feeling sorry for myself or I could bounce back with a bang and work for the money that could buy me a new laptop.

The big man’s words registered and I invested all my energies (and frustrations from that incident) into my job so that, among other thing, I could purchase a new laptop to ease my work and enable me be a lot more mobile in 2008.

Now, just when all efforts to secure one seemed to have come to nought, along came the Golden Pen Awards!

Honestly, God (or is it the hand of fate? Well, depends on who or what you believe in) could not have offered this humble Ugandan a much better Christmas present.

When David Astor Journalism Awards Trust (DAJAT) Managing Director, Jim Meyer, interviewed me, on September 22, as he sought for the most suitable beneficiary for his programme, the conversation somehow veered towards the fact that I had won a laptop and then lost it even before I could benefit from it.

Jim told me that since I had lost that one, I would just have to win another one. This morning, I opened my email and found a message of congratulations from Jim; I just couldn’t help smiling to myself and saying: “I did it!’.

Watching history pass us by

A few days ago, I phoned Prince John Patrick Barigye Rutashijuka Ntare VI of the currently stifled-but-once-great Ankole kingdom requesting for an interview on a subject that fate and experience have made him very familiar with.

Prince Barigye told me that he was not feeling well and I would have to call him the next week when he would hopefully be feeling well enough to conduct the interview.

I have profiled Prince Barigye before, interviewed him about Ugandan politics and other such issues, as well as visited his palace in Rubindi, along Mbarara-Ibanda road, where the Prince and his family hosted me to what still ranks as one of the more memorable Christmas seasons of my not so long life.

The point here is not that I have dined with royalty; far from it. I am only saying that journalism often provides those who practice it with front row seat tickets to historical events, and we witness it happen – first hand.

Or, in other instances, the profession provides us with the privilege of at least hearing directly from those who were either in the thick of the action or had the tickets to the front row seats when and as history unfolded.

It is our duty then, as journalists, to document this history and share it with the rest of the world.

Many times, however, we fail to perform this duty.

I was recently reminded of our shortcomings in this area following the death of the acclaimed Ugandan playwright, John Ruganda; the man whose writings formed the bulk of what we studied in our high school literature classes.

Just for the record, the great John Ruganda wrote plays and novels like The Burdens (1972), The Floods (1980), Black Mamba (1972), Covenant With Death (1973), Music Without Tears (1982), and Echoes of Silence (1986).

So John Ruganda, who has been silently suffering with Cancer in Uganda since February 2007 when he returned to the country (from the University of North in South Africa) never really got much mention in the Ugandan media until he passed away on December 9.

While such luminaries rarely get mention in the media, you have the likes of musician Henry Tigan, comedians Amarula Family, and Big Brother Africa II contestant Maureen Namatovu receiving headlines and whole pages in the media every other day!

In fact, although Ruganda passed away in the first week of December, it was only in the last weeks – long after even the Kenyans newspapers had several dedicated pages to his memory – that The New Vision newspaper finally wrote an obituary.

Contrast this with the time Big Brother Africa I contestant Gaetano Kaggwa was admitted in a hospital in Nairobi and the radio stations were providing almost hourly updates on his condition.

Maybe this is a pointer to the kind of society that Uganda has become today and I am one of the last people to realise it; a society where intellect is not as much as recognised, and materialism has long taken its place!

Ok, now I get the drift. And my heart bleeds because one day we will wish we had shared the pearls of wisdom that the older generation possessed, and we won’t have the chance. All because we simply didn’t care while they were here.

At this point I must confess that I am no better than those that I have held culpable for lethargic coverage of historical events and figures; I never called Prince Barigye again – and, in so doing, have cheated the reader of the newspaper I write for.

But not for too long – as I, too, have been reminded of the gravity of such apathy towards otherwise important issues.