My Education

I spent the better part of my Primary school years in Buganda Road Primary School. One day, I think it was in Primary five, I came home from school beaming. The term had ended and I was carrying my report card. It was designed in such a way that all the pupils' names were printed in tabular format from the first to the last along with the corresponding scores in the different subjects. Each student received a copy with his or her name underlined in red and the teachers' remarks could be found on the last page along with those of the headmaster. I was beaming because I had come second in the class, beaten only by one girl, Ingabire Rita.
"Why does this girl always beat you?" my mother would ask and I would always give some feeble excuse. Frankly I never really cared much about it; I was always in the top five or thereabouts with little effort on my part. I was always averse to homework as I saw it as an inconvenience and something that simply ate into my fun time. I was the kind of child who would be caught reading a novel or comic during lessons and I received my fair share of canes as a result. Anyway, on this particular day I found my uncle Warren at home and I could not help but show off my academic achievements. He congratulated me, patted me on the back and told me something I have never forgotten since.
"Raymond, you're an above average child and you should never forget that" he said. I would remember his words many years later in SMACK (St Mary's College Kisubi) when I was languishing in the unfamiliar territory of a three digit position report card and spur myself back to where I belonged.

"Buggie Road" as it is known to our generation was an excellent school albeit a bit too crowded. I never had a problem with the number of pupils; in fact having developed a love for anonymity I liked it a lot. I could always get lost in the crowd. I made many friends back in Primary school some of whom I'm still cordial with to this day. I learned how to read and write there and I will always be grateful to my teachers for that. I remember starting with "My Big Book of Bible Stories", Asterix and Obelix, Tintin, Dennis the Menace, Archie and graduating to Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven before moving on to the more thrilling Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. By the time I finished Primary school I was reading Robert Ludlum's "The Matarese Circle."

I learned the language of mathematics and was captivated by it, this language started off with the simple premise that if we had the right equation, and made the right assumptions about the unknowns, we could solve any problem presented to us. I think it is a mindset that I have carried with me since first acquiring it and I must confess that it has helped me a lot in life. The science and social studies I imbibed as well, fascination always spurring me on. However, the most important lessons I learned in Primary school were not taught in the classroom.

I have no military training but I think one of the things you learn in the military is that you should never engage an enemy who is better armed and has the higher ground. One evening in Primary Six after the bell had gone; I was struggling to rush out of the classroom. We had no sense of order when that bell went, it was mayhem and we could hardly be asked to explain why we didn't leave the class in an orderly manner. I had my hand on a desk as I waited for the crowd to thin and then this girl who had decided to run along the desks stepped on it! Ha! This called for war so I quickly turned to the girl and asked her why she had stepped on me. She quickly apologised but being a boy I was under the impression that girls did not step on you and get away with it, how would I live it down if I just walked away? I looked up at her and decided that since she was standing on the desk, my only course of action was to give her a slight push and tell her not to do it again. I proceeded to implement my plan ignoring the fact that this was Marjorie, who took no prisoners when it came to such nonsense and that she had a pair of Bata shoes in her hands. She decided to use my head for percussion practice and when I came to I was in the sick bay! To this day, it is still the harshest beating I have ever received.

My mother passed away at the beginning of my Primary seven and my world stopped. I felt that everything needed to come to a standstill and acknowledge this fact. I couldn't have been more wrong. I remember one day during break period, I was lost in thought and a friend was constantly trying to provoke me so that I could chase him around. With all the anger I could muster I screamed at him "leave me alone! Don't you know I lost my mother?" He was oblivious to the fact but either way it made no difference to him perhaps because he couldn't understand what I was saying. I looked around and then it dawned on me that the world was moving on no matter what. It was the first time I realized that life goes on no matter what and I have never forgotten it. I left Primary school at the end of that year having learnt a few things, among which was that girls were kind of cute.

I managed to get into SMACK for my Ordinary Level education in 1995 and begun four years that were very instrumental in defining me as a person. School was an escape for me because I loved being there more than home. In fact I never really felt welcome at home. Holidays were full of fights with my uncle and I always looked forward to the school term. In SMACK I set about parenting myself; I was free to make any decision regarding my life as long as it did not break school regulations and when it did I had to hope that I did not get caught. I met some of the best and worst people I know in that school and I made friendships that endure to this day.

My education begun with an exploration of academic freedom, I chose to pay as little attention to the books as I had done in my Primary school years. In retrospect, I should have learned a foreign language such as French; it can only be a good thing for communication to speak another person's tongue. SMACK was full of the brightest in the country and this should have been obvious to me when I found my name in double digits on the admissions list. By the end of Senior One I was in "Umofia" and I had to pay more attention to the academic side of things. However I experimented widely as regards my associations and I hung out with all sorts of people some of whom nearly led me down the wrong road. I joined all sorts of clubs to find answers to my questions including Legion of Mary, the Charismatic club which was anything but that, the school choir because I loved the hymns and many others. I had my only brush with power as the senior one dormitory prefect and found it not to my liking. I started playing rugby, enjoyed it immensely and acquired a nickname for life.

I learned the meaning of the word solidarity or "solida" as we called it back then. The idea was simply that you stuck with your classmates no matter what and boy did we get up to no good. By the time we left SMACK we had locked horns with virtually every other class in the school. We begun by beating up a Senior 4 student who had somewhat overestimated his importance and over the years worked our way through every class. They gave as good as they got and to our dismay, sometimes better. When we didn't have any quarrels with other classes, we played the most barbaric games amongst ourselves. "Equator" was a favourite which involved a tennis ball and lots of legs. We simply kicked the ball around with the aim being to get it to go through another person's legs. If the ball happened to go through your legs, you were said to have "laid" and was considered fair game for a good beating until you touched a tree at which point the game started all over again. It was immense fun.

I discovered the school library in my Senior Two and the words took me once more. I read all sorts of obscure books about all sorts of things. I found Stephen King and he gave me many sleepless nights. I remember reading "Salem's Lot" and "The Shining" in the dormitory after lights out with a torch! The terror! I contemplated religion and did away with it. I discovered women, wine and song and to this day they still lift my spirits. I found poetry and fell in love with its beauty. I met too, a certain David whom the words consumed completely that he began spending his days in the library writing novels. I acquired an appreciation for logic and those who displayed it. I started writing letters to Aunt Becky and Samantha in far off lands. I discovered rock music and made it a core part of me despite my cousin teasing me about liking it. I became the kind of person who could shift social circles quite easily. I almost took a trip to Karamoja to look for gold with a classmate of mine and also nearly joined the army with another one.

Senior Three brought with it literature, accounting and commerce. Chemistry stopped making sense to me with all that crap about balancing equations, moles, ions and what not. I did my bit in all the other disciplines I was called upon to take on but literature had an allure to it. I was simply called to read a story and say what I thought about it, it was easy and enjoyable. I remember enjoying one of the first tests I was required to take and then being horrified by my score in it. I had thought I understood this stuff but as it turned out I was required to present interpretations that were in line with what someone somewhere thought, perhaps the author? My simple belief was that the words spoke to each of us differently but this view was obviously not shared by the examiners.

Senior Four was perhaps the most interesting year of Ordinary Level. We considered ourselves elders in the school so we set about stamping our authority on everyone else. We teased, bullied, taunted and intimidated almost everyone else. We clashed with Senior Six so much that in the end some of us had to sit our exams while commuting from home or nearby accommodation. Senior Six students should have been at the top of the student hierarchy but we were not about to put up with that. We laid our claim to that seat of power and our struggles produced the most interesting outcomes. We understood that might lay in numbers so if any fight with Senior Six students was reported, we all rushed to the battlefield and vanquished the enemy. So effective was our strategy that they resorted to "Slave Trade", capturing lonely travellers who ventured near their camp. In the end we all left good friends having received the best education available in the country.

I went on to spend a term of my A' level in Kitovu, on the outskirts of Nyendo in Masaka but in truth I never wanted to be there so I spent the entire term in the library discovering such masterpieces as Rudyard Kipling's "If" and Edgar Allan Poe's "A Dream within a Dream". I moved on to Makerere College School (MACOS) and discovered what being around girls felt like. I set about gaining entry to the promised land of Makerere University all the while trying to discover what these girls were all about. I fell for a lot of them if not all; I guess I will always be a sucker for a smile, good conversation and stolen kisses. I studied mathematics, economics and geography, I would have loved to study literature but alas I was informed that I could not combine it with mathematics and economics. I will never understand why. All these decisions I took on my own with wise counsel offered from those that cared.

I discovered the internet in my A' level and it was like finding the great library of Alexandria, information was just a few clicks away, I could not believe it. I was so fascinated by it and computers that I started experimenting on my aunt's computer until I messed it up. I had to write up what I had done to it so that the technicians could figure out how to fix it. On reading my write up, the techies told my aunt that I had some sort of skill and that I should come to their workshop and do some training. That's how I got into the Information Technology industry and I have worked there ever since. I trained for six months after my A' Level and was taken on as a full time employee.

My years in A' level and university were perhaps the time when I was most exposed to a diversity of people. I had a Scottish boss, an American aunt and uncle, a family with roots across the country and beyond and a collection of amazing friends. I like to imagine that these people have pushed my thought boundaries beyond those of the average person and I guess that is why I dream of peace on earth. For I have made friends all across the world, I have had words with people from Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Somalia, Australia, Thailand, China, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, England, Scotland, Canada, Singapore, Hawaii, Russia and hopefully I will have more words with many more people the world over. I have learned from these people that we all desire "peace on earth and goodwill to all men".

I feel blessed because I have come to know and experience certain things and I believe that I am a better person for that. I have seen my fair share of tragedy and I have taken my lessons from it and thus I believe that I have been educated.

I have contemplated death and what it means to life and come out with the philosophy that it is a release from this damn life, this life that tortures and yet amazes us. We weep because we have lost those that we love but forget to celebrate their lives and ours. I have found that the answer to grief is to live your life in memory of those that you have lost, to make them proud of you. Only in living your life to the fullest can you truly celebrate their lives.

I have pondered religion and why it divides us and come to the conclusion that at its heart is a divisive message, that there are those who are not with us and if so, then they are against us!

I have contemplated the meaning of life and come to the conclusion that even though it seems like material wealth is exalted above all, we should aspire to loftier heights like freedom, equality for all, the pursuit of knowledge and happiness. Most of us do not aspire to anything more than what tradition sets before us, some of us ask ourselves what else we should aspire to. I believe that the uniqueness of every individual means that we should each find that which we were born to do. There is something for each one of us in which we will find happiness, it would be a waste of life to not find it and do it. Material wealth should be an enabler, something that lets us be who we are.

I have contemplated personal values and responsibility and realised that oftentimes they clash and that perhaps understanding these things should be the first step in understanding other people. I believe the core of an individual's beliefs should come from within. I find that the reason most people get hurt or are disappointed by others is because they somehow define their lives based on external influences. We seem to forget that the definition of an individual should come from within. A person must have certain values that define who they are. The people we meet in life should complement who we are and make us better people, if they don't and somehow make us worse then we must learn what we can and move on. No one should have to compromise who they are for the sake of pleasure or survival!

I have contemplated such lofty things as the future and survival of mankind as a species and come to the conclusion that we are perhaps destined for extinction unless we change our ways. We make each other's lives unnecessarily harder when life does quite a good job on its own. We spend our short years waging wars and destroying our brothers and sisters when we would be better served by savouring our brief moments here.

I believe that I have learnt a few things about myself and the world and all I can say about education is that at the end of the day, a piece of paper does not determine who you are, only you can tell yourself who you want to be and what you want to achieve.