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!’.
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!’.
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