I enjoy writing and when I do I feel so fulfilled. I started taking time to do serious creative writing when I volunteered to teach English to a school of 200 students in a rural district in Africa. I had to write stories about rural lifestyles with examples that my students would be familiar with. This got them excited. They felt they knew what was going on and the stories were from their own vicinity. We could not afford many text books. I had the only copy used to teach the English syllabus. I taught for four years and my school as well as the students were ranked among the the first five schools in that district. Creative writing enables me to make my senses work for me. In these series we shall answer such questions like: what city? Contrasts of regions within the city, the events that I see, or get to hear, you will walk with me and get to hear the sounds that get to my ear. Or you will be a bystander taking in certain urban related events as they happen. I live 3 mile...
Thomas Rogers Muyunga Mukasa (pen name: Tom Mukasa), currently lives in San Francisco, CA. There he is attached to the UCSF HIV division's Community Advisory Board as a volunteer reviewer. He has worked for over 15 years with the marginalized and people living with HIV/Aids/TB in Africa. He also spent most of his time training and following up 152 groups he helped organize into what he termed the 'anti-poverty' class. The 'anti-poverty' class is that class a step or two shy of middle-class. Three greatest moments he recalls were a child headed family able to successfully pay for the land and house their late parents had left behind. They were to be evicted but it did not happen. The children went on to complete high school. The second moment was of a mother living with HIV establishing a chicken poultry farm 8 miles outside of Kampala, Uganda. She saw all her four children complete university. The third was of a woman in her late 20's who havin...
There is an African saying: "If you are to grip a lepers hands you do not grit your teeth." No doubt Africa will have to come up with its tailored solutions. But it will have to copy others' lessons. I have tried to list the overarching themes Africa will have to adopt: 1. Africa should position itself to work in partnerships with the various countries in the world. 2. Africa should be ready to organize its communities through: education, health assurance, food security; technical skills; and skills to enable people access jobs or markets. 3. Leadership and governance should provide opportunities of trust and confidence by investors and the beneficiaries. Suspicions and repeat of what transpired in the early colonial subjugating history should not be repeated. Africa the mother land can emulate China the dragon's 6 good points By Tom Mukasa Africa the motherland learns from China This is the third and final part of the mini-series on ...
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