[#UGBlogWeek – Day 1]: We Young Women & Men of Uganda…

Our theme as we take on 7 days of blogging as a Ugandan Community, is ‘Schools made us no better‘. I think it would be fitting to take us back in time and start with this song.

In all honesty, while we were children, some of us had no idea what we were singing. For I believe if we did, we would not be where we are now…

We young women and men of Uganda
Are marching along the path of education
Singing and dancing with joy together
Uniting for a better Uganda.

We are the pillar of tomorrow’s Uganda
Let us rise now embrace true knowledge
Yielding disciplined resourcefulness
To rebuild a great, great, pearl

We young women and men of Uganda
Are marching along the path of education
Singing and dancing with joy together
Uniting for a better Uganda.

We know the way into the land of enlightenment
has thorns, creepers, vales, and mountains
Come what may we shall overcome
For the glorious times to come

We young women and men of Uganda
Are marching along the path of education
Singing and dancing with joy together
Uniting for a better Uganda.

Parents and teachers and the youths of this nation
Rise with us, support our endeavours
Lead by God who is the Source of Life
To Uplift our motherland

Now that I am older, I get this. I understand this song, it takes on new meaning for me.

We can go into a debate over who is supposed to nurture a sense of patriotism: the parents, the schools, the peers, some even look to the government. One thing we all agree on, is we do not just wake up and Boom Bang – parroting Patriot Patriot everywhere (unless of course there is manila and UGX 10bn goats involved).

My personal definition of patriotism is having a deep sense of compassion and ownership towards one’s country. Why a mix of compassion and ownership, you wonder? Compassion for me caters to the aspect of innate love. That caring feeling that drives and compels you to act. Ownership is pretty much that, it is yours – when something is yours, you tend to act different.

There is a school of thought that looks to the parents and says the onus is on them. They need to instil it in their children. They need to write it on their walls at home. They need to carry the responsibility.

However, we all know that most of us (especially those whose parents enrolled them in boarding school from Kindergarten) spend majority of our young impressionable lives at school. Thus even more pressure is placed onto the already burdened teacher’s shoulders – they mustn’t just educate, they must also plant, nurture and grow certain things in us.

If you are a teacher reading this, or a child of a teacher, you are probably rolling your eyes and saying, ‘Kirabo, you have no idea what you are talking about. My parent hardly has enough to put on the table, not to mention late salaries… They have enough on their plate than to add the weight of the future of Uganda on their shoulders‘.

Truth be told, I have no answer to that. Fact is, my late father was an educator, and I saw him frustrated every once in a while, when he attempted to break a stereotype.

Would it be considered having my head stuck in utopic clouds, to believe that teachers really do have the future of this country in their hands. In 1865, it was believed to be the hand the rocked the cradle, today, I’d like to think it is different…

It is the burdened shoulder of the chalk-dusted hands that shapes our tomorrow.

What do you think?

*Image source: Google