Of Turf Football, Pork and Catching up with the boys

Days in school can bring with them so much stress. There are times when you don't want to leave your bed but resilience demands that you turn up even on your worst of days. It is for that reason that we always have to try and create our happy moments where you drown away the tiredness and hope that you stay in that state forever. But these unfortunately are the lesser of days.

The nature of the course that we do has its tough days, just like any other course you will come across. The beauty about ours though is that it doesn't spread the bad days all through the semester but rather finds a way of "huddling them in one corner" and that is what many refer to as the famous or infamous (depending on where you stand) coursework week. We have a trail of other such days but this leads that pack. After those days where we had committed to burning midnight candles for our coursework, I sold an idea to a group of friends, many with whom I share a history, to go playing football and catch up.

It has been four years now at University, we had joined together in year one and given that we had shared our high school, it was such a brilliant idea to go somewhere and look back on how far we have come. We had in recent times converged but many of these were purely academic visits and for those that were not, it was always one reason or another that didn't give the fun its full and natural flow. Many years had gone by since we had come together to pass time as we relived the good moments, where we laughed so hard, shouted obscenities, told famous tales and thrown barbs at each other. We badly needed this time!

The general consensus was to go out playing football; after all it was the only sport I was convinced we all could comfortably play. I was wrong on this! The revelation we were to later get was beyond our anticipation. When it was time to play, the most minutes many could play were five and moreover in the small 5 aside pitch. Too much weight was holding down some, others were having the after effects of numerous nights out and some were genuinely unfit after burying themselves in books for the years gone by. All these hindered our playing time and people who thought that our earlier pre-booked two hours was short, were soon were asking for incessant cooling breaks.

Everyone could claim to be tired on the pitch but certainly not off when it came to eating. When that big tray of pork was laid out in front of us, we forgot that we were once tired. We all seemed alive once more and it felt like no activity had been going on before. The eating took a very short time, the stories that were flowing minutes ago suddenly came to a grinding halt. Of course they were to be resumed later after the job at hand had been fully accomplished.

A friend of mine likes to tell me that the reason why adults should have fun and enjoy themselves is to simply give kids the reason to want to grow up. As we sauntered away from the place that had given us so  much fun in just a day I couldn’t help but think about what lay ahead of us, shall we ever get back together again for an event like this? That time if it should come again should be very soon otherwise in the future, most will require the permission of their spouses but most worryingly many may not be able to kick a ball at all, but I refuse to be bound by any of the above.

Privacy and why you should have no business with someone’s phone

Throughout my academic life and journey, there was that particular statement that at one time each one pulled out like a magic wand; they used it time and again depending on how convenient it was. I remember as a little boy whenever you would try to show someone the right thing to do (or what you thought was right) they would tell you off, emphasizing that it is only right that you do mind your business, with all the lordliness written over their face. That was a life lesson that I learnt at a beardless stage, that wherever you have no stake then it was only prudent that you don't indulge. I learnt many life lessons as an infantile but perhaps this one stands head and shoulders above the rest, and probably one that surfaces each day we are under the sun. 

Privacy is now understood as a right and the denial of this right is a violation through and through. That is for the state but today I come to discuss individuals and how w come face to face with this right. A few days ago a dear friend of mine paid me a courtesy visit and like all such visits, we shared the pleasantries and talked and laughed. The conversation was diverse, from academics to life in general, to career to the changing patterns of the world. Midway our discussion, I excused myself and stepped out to straighten up something, my phone remained behind. On my return, I picked up it up and like the nature of all smart phones you are able to see what someone last checked for. I noticed that my visitor had picked up my phone and conveniently without my permission scrolled through my chats and checked for whatever she wanted. Her motive to this day is still shrouded in mystery but that is not the point for discussion today. The point really is why people can still have such improper, inappropriate and imprudent behavior.

Many thoughts of course came to mind but the most pronounced and the thread of this writing is why people have difficulty in respecting private spaces. But much more than that I also asked myself the obvious, why did she do what she did, was she successful in what she sought for and much more than that. I may have been wrong, probably she was bored when I moved out and decided to be passing through my personal messages, or probably she didn't even notice what she was doing. Be the above as it may, there are fundamentals that we can't afford to violate and personal space for me tops that list. I always like to say that there is a reason why a mobile phone is personal, unlike a land-line. That whatever is there is for the individual, and can only be used with their express permission. I personally was not angry or hurt or betrayed but because there was an option of asking for it from me, I felt what she did was rather uncouth. True to the fact, there was nothing to hide, the absence of a password being the first indicator.

David Sedaris once said that when you read someone else’s diary, you get what you deserve. The trend for many of us millennials unfortunately has been to “live in other people’s lives.” The desire to know who is dating who, where so and so has taken their girlfriend or boyfriend and much more of such trivialities. It can be one’s desire to check on their friends and know what they are up to in their lives but that too has a line that you dare not cross. We must try and balance the two otherwise we may find ourselves spending much more time in chasing what is in other people’s lives and forget that we have our own to live.

Debate & the Diminishing Voices of Our Youth Today

For the past three weeks, I have had the privilege of moving across all regions of this country courtesy of the leading debating society in Uganda (the Uganda Debate Society). While in the various regions that we went to, we held debate tournaments that attracted the higher institutions of learning within the area. I know for a fact that for every region, all universities there were covered and some of the other tertiary institutions. The assumption for purposes of this article is that those institutions brought their best or close to their best students and the other assumption is that given the nature and caliber of the tournament, those institutions put in a given level of effort that would warrant any serious tournament. I must say with all honesty that the level of engagement exhibited by the students was far below standard. The measure or yardstick that I employ in this judgment is basic command of the English language, basic argumentation, knowledge of basic information by any student of higher learning and ability to make a consistent argument for averagely five minutes. This is a fair bar of assessment in my opinion and one expected especially for students in institutions of higher learning.

Two causes of the problem in my opinion, either our institutions are not doing enough or probably as students we are also not doing enough to make ourselves better. I will not call into question the accreditation of some of our institutions but allow me examine the second limb of the problem cause and that is with the students. As a little boy in my primary five, I remember vividly the very first debate I engaged in, it was such a disaster. I couldn’t put together two sentences during the debate and yet I had no history of stammering, I was a relatively fine English speaker considering my age then. However, I noticed that perhaps out of fright or even being the first time, I needed to better myself. And for that reason alone, I went to work, I wanted to be a fine speaker, one who the result of the debate would depend on, but I knew for that to happen I needed to find a way of improving. I was better in my next engagement and I kept working, I am certainly much better now than I was 12 years ago.

With time, I noticed that for one to be able to speak, the most fundamental thing is that they must have read because it is very difficult to sustain an argument for more than a minute if you have no knowledge of the subject and you only get this knowledge through reading. I know that many arguments are made without reading and they are sustained with little knowledge but for an argument to be properly constructed, given good grounding and perfectly premised you must have read and have knowledge on the same. The greater part of me thinks (and I stand to be corrected) that the reason why the level of engagement/debate in our community is not improving is because we don’t give it time. I am a great admirer of fine speakers and for that reason alone I pay so much attention to the US Senators. Aside from articulation and language, they have so much knowledge on the subject which often guides their discussion. Perhaps we could say that many of our members of Parliament are not giving us an example but as a matter of fact, there are those who take time off to acquaint themselves with certain subjects and whenever they rise to speak, everyone settles to listen.

Debate just like any sport is supposed to be rewarding and like any sport it should be practiced and perfected overtime. I can tell without any fear of contradiction that when you stop training, like any sport you decline. I see athletes go the gym every day; they are trying to perfect their art and just like them, debate should be a daily practice. The only difference is that debating, if done well, will shape your personality, your intellect and your beliefs. Perhaps I can cut the students I saw some slack because many confessed to have only made their debut appearances during those tournaments. However, this can’t be an excuse for failing on every basic there is.

Our greatest misgiving as a generation is the failure to learn from our mistakes and the failure to desire to learn. We are without a doubt the majority but we stand a risk of not being heard if we can’t express ourselves even in the most basic of ways.