Tag: Educative

At the Crossroads: courtesy of pixy.org

MAKING DECISIONS IN LIFE

Life’s journey is created by a collection of decisions made every day. Each one of us makes countless decisions which when added together possess incredible power over our lives.

“We ‘re our decisions.’’– Prof Salem Al Shereida

“The quality of life is  built on the quality of your decisions.’’ – Wesam Fauzi

”Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious than to be able to decide.’’- Napoleon Bonaparte

“Decision making is easy when your values are clear.’’– Roy Disney

“Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right.’’– Phil McGraw

“The best decisions are not made with your mind, but with your instinct.’’- Lionel Mess

A decision can be defined as a conclusion or resolution reached after thinking through of the benefits and costs and considering short term and long term consequences.

Choice is the purest expression of free will but it can be difficult because it also represents sacrifice.

The choices we make determine and shape our decision making process and therefore are key to whom we are to ourselves and to others. Every choice made impacts our lives positively or negatively. These choices are key in determining our level of success, happiness and fulfilment.

There are some significant, life-changing decisions – the ones that seem to hold the keys to our future.

These tough decisions include:

1.Choosing a career

2.Pursuing an education

3. Choosing a life partner.

4.Managing the finances

5.Taking calculated risks

Decisions on these major five aspects of our lives have a huge impact on our overall success and happiness in life.

The decisions made are never written in indelible ink but can be changed especially when faced with the need to change- to open up to new opportunities and be willing to adjust your goals and plans. In pursuit of our personal and professional growth, we have to be ready for challenges at each stage of our lives. Resilience and determination help us to overcome obstacles and succeed.

Surprisigly, it is the smallest decisions that we make every day that hold significance.

Some of them like changing where you live could have a multiplier effect to almost all aspects of the life you are creating.

Data from cognitive research on human beings and chimpazees shows that

human beings have evolved over millions of years to develop a bigger and advanced brain especially the front lobe and cortex to enable them to think and remember. Our brains are approximately 3-4 times that of our closest relatives: the chimpanzees, while they share about 99 percent of the human genetic material (DNA) . Our brain is about 2 percent of our body weight and consumes 20 percent of the total body energy and oxygen. It is highly connected and active thus enhancing our cognitive ability. It also allows us to have specialised functions as language, tool making and reasoning.

The human cognitive function is fully functional between 25 and late 40s.

It this highly developed and intricately connected brain that allows us to learn and understand what we have to learn and to create analogue memories to recall and connect to the new memory.

During this structured process, we form opinions, choose actions through our mental processes as informed by the brain, reason, emotions and memories.

This enables us to weigh the benefits and costs of our choices and whether we can cope with the consequences.

 “Decision making is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight ; indecision , a dull one that hacks and tears  and leaves ragged edges behind it. ‘’ – Gordon Graham

“You can’t make progress without making decisions.’’– Jim Rohn

The psychologists believe that effective decision-making involves striking a balance between what the mind has evaluated as logical and what our emotions consider as our desires and preferences.

After identifying and defining the exact issue at hand, the psychologists advise you to consider these basic principles to reach a decision:

1. Clarify your values and principles- what matters most to you. Understanding your values enables you to evaluate your choices and align them to your core values.
2. List the options available to you at that moment in time
3. Write down the pros and cons of each option
4. Step outside your comfort zone and think about the long term implications.
5. Trust your instincts -rational analysis and logic are crucial but consider too the power of your intuition- gut feeling. Do this for each option to reach a choice that resonates with you at a deeper level. Sometimes the subconscious can pick on a detail that our conscious mind misses.
6. Embrace the uncertainty-  rarely does one get to make the ‘’perfect choice’’, each decision is tagged with trade-offs. Sometimes you just make the right decision other times the best you can do is to gather the information, trust your instincts and move forward. Even if you make the wrong choice, later you can analyse it and learn from the experience.
7. Practice Decision –making. It is a skill so like any other skill, you have to keep practicing to become better at it. Start with small decisions and move to bigger ones; that way you build your confidence and inspiration.

     “ There’s no wrong time to make the right decision.’’- Dalton Mc Guinty

Looking back at my own life, I strived to make the right decisions but also made wrong decisions and some of them have stayed with me.

One major one, was deciding to become a doctor to help people, when I was about eight years old. Being an all-round student, it saved me from being pushed into the A-level Arts class by my teacher of English and literature.

To have decided to leave for greener pastures in Botswana mainly to get better opportunities for our personal and professional growth while at the same time opening up better opportunities for our three children.

My decision to give up private practice in Botswana and instead return to start afresh in Uganda while taking good care of my octogenarian mother has paid huge dividends to the two of us.

I vividly recall one small decision that ruined our day in the 90s. My late husband and I drove my young sister to catch an early flight the United Kingdom. Close to Entebbe airport, a traffic policeman waved us down . I convinced my husband not to stop but to deal with the policeman on our return. My sister got on the plane in good time but my husband, a surgeon, never touched a patient on his theatre list for the day. He never left the Entebbe magistrate’s court until 4pm, after paying a hefty fine!

“Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message, we are what we choose to be.’’- Graham Brown

As a senior citizen, I truly know whom I am : truly authentic, having been liberated  of conformity and masks. I choose courage over fear and self-awareness over societal expectations. My choices are more genuine than when I was :

30-45 thrived on work and status

45-65-the age of mastery- finding your voice to assert yourself, focusing on being independent. Clear about who you are. Doing what you feel is right and what is your own to do.

65-85+  – The age of integrity, of new pursuits while fully emancipated. Repossessing your intellectuality and originality.

Authenticity-fully embracing one’s true self: unique qualities and imperfections, comes to us late in life usually after 50 years of age. After learning to trust your inner voice or intuition, you tap into its inner wisdom daily.  It helps you find clarity amidst the myriad of distractions in a fast-paced world. The consequence is that you live the life you love, a life lived with purpose and meaning. A life in alignment with your innate nature.

As we grow older we become clear on what matters most to us in life and understand the unseen forces that drive the majority of our daily decisions. It translates into living the life you love one day at a time- turning your dreams into reality on a daily basis.

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.’’ – Brene Brown

QUESTION:

Do you realise that being unapologetically yourself is one of the key unseen forces that drive the majority of your daily decisions which themselves result in your living a fulfilled life?

During the unprecedented two years COVID -19 pandemic lockdown, I never had the luxury to visit my ancestral home and burial grounds in Namungo near Mityana. On the 4^th February 2023, I had some good reason to visit it- the big family of the late Saul and Samallie Balirete Munaku Kavuma had to find closure by holding the last funeral rites of more than six close relatives many of whom had died of natural causes during the pandemic and a few others who had died before that. Looking around , the  village landscape had changed by several new corrugated iron-roofed houses and grocery stores. However, my attention was drawn to two new structures, a solar –powered health centre 3 and a new Secondary Seed school a stone’s throw away. Having been away for more than twenty five years, I was overcome with joy and was filled  with fresh hope for the young generation of this sub-county of Mityana.

The two structures also fired me to raid the archives and read about the history of the growth and development of education in Uganda which is itself inseparable from the history of religion in Buganda and Uganda as a whole. Sadly, it had sparked a bloodbath.

 Being a voracious reader and a believer that learning is for life, I was happy to be educated about  SEED schools in Uganda.

“ We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”- Aristotle

Starting from the beginning, I was reminded of the history of Christianity in Uganda.

By the 1840s, Buganda was a social and cultural cohesive kingdom being ruled by Kabaka Muteesa 1( 1838-1884 ), Swahili and Arab traders  from Zanzibar, had reached Buganda. They traded in cotton cloth, guns , ivory and slaves. They were exerting Islam and cultural influence in Bugada, the oldest kingdom around the shores of lake Nalubaale, later named lake Victoria by the explorers from Great Britain. Muteesa 1 learned Arabic and prayed in a mosque built in his court but never converted to Islam. Some chiefs and the court pages converted to Islam. They could read and write Arabic and Swahili. The kingdom still remained anchored on the pillars of kabakaship and the clans.

The British explorer Henry Morton Stanley visited Kabaka Muteesa1 at his court in 1875. Muteesa 1 wanting to diminish the influence of Islam in his kingdom, in April 1875, wrote that famous letter to Queen Victoria of Great Britain requesting her to send missionaries to bring civilisation to his subjects.

The letter was published in the Daily Telegraph of Britain in November 1875. Britain responded to this letter by sending the first batch of Church Missionary Society missionaries to Muteesa 1. They arrived  at Muteesa’s Court through Zanzibar in June 1877. A group of French Catholic White fathers  from France, followed in Feb 1879.

All young men in their twenties, they started the evangelisation of the lake region. But they brought with them their rivalry  and hostilities as they defended their version of the faith. They competed for the control of the Kabaka’s court which by then had a number of Muslim converts. Muteesa 1 allowed them to stay but never identified with any of them to safe guard his authority and power. He remained in control of his kingdom. He died in October 1884 and was succeeded by his 18- year- old son , Mwanga 11.

By 1885, some of Mwanga 11 chiefs and court pages had converted to either Protestantism or Catholicism. Christianity was slowly becoming the third pillar in the kingdom.

 Mwanga11 was convinced that the Christian groups in his court had become so powerful. He had to remain the centre of power and authority by asserting his authority over all elements and factions within his kingdom.

He ordered these new converts or rebels to choose either to denounce their new religion and fall in line or die for their faith. Many of these young pages chose to die for their faith. Between 31^st January 1885 and 27^th January 1887, 22 Catholic converts and 23 Protestant converts had been executed under the orders of Kabaka Mwanga11. A few were beheaded but the majority were burned alive at Nakiyanja , Namugongo, the traditional site of execution.

77 years later, in October 1964, the Roman Catholic Pontiff, Pope Paul V1 proclaimed the 22 young men as Saints. He consecrated the Basilica dedicated to the Ugandan martyrs at this same place in August 1969.

In 1888, the Muslim converts joined forces with the Protestant converts and overthrew King Mwanga11. They installed his half-brother Kalema as Kabaka. During Kalema’s reign the Muslim converts and their power in Mengo increased. They turned against the Christians; killing many of them while others fled west to the kingdom of Ankole. These Christians later regrouped and with the support of the Catholics,  they re-installed Mwanga 11 as Kabaka .

The bitter rivalry between the three groups continued. By the time Captain Frederick Lugard, a representative of the  Imperial British East Africa Company, arrived in Buganda in 1890, he found the battle to control Mengo very intense.

Lugard was later appointed by the British government to prepare the way to take over a fragmented Uganda as a British Protectorate. He was sucked into the religious hostilities. Being British,  naturally he supported the Protestants against the Baganda Muslims  and their ally, Omukama Kabalega of Bunyoro.

Lugard supplied the Protestants with guns enabling them to crush and drive the Muslims out of Mengo. The 1892 battle of Mengo  was quick and decisive and established the influence of the Protestants in the political affairs of Mengo and later in the politics of the whole of Uganda.

Locally, in my grandparents’ village, the war of Muslims against  the Christians during the reign of Kalema divided their family. A Muslim brother and his family had to run for safety in Mubende and his descendants still live there today . They have a separate plot for burial at our ancestral home in Namungo.

However, my grandparents became staunch Protestants. By early 1900, missions had added  a formal system of schooling to their work and the Protectorate Administration left education to them. Each village had to have a church and an elementary school next to it. The school was built by the village , teachers taught in the indigenous language. The students learned reading, writing and arithmetic and received instructions in religion. My grandparents thought ahead of their time by donating ten acres of their land to the Native Anglican church and later the heir to the grandfather gave it an extra four acres.

My father  in his thoughtfulness used his position to separate these fourteen acres from the main Balirete Munaku Kavuma title deed. The title deed has remained in safekeeping with the Mityana Diocese  for over eighty years!

Flash Forward.

 Since 1997, the government of Uganda has made great efforts towards taking education and health services nearer to the people.  Its goals is to build a health centre 3 and a  secondary school in each subcounty – a catchment area of 10,000 people,  across Uganda. The money for building the senior one to senior four secondary schools is from a World Bank loan under the Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfer( Ug IFT). These are what are called SEED schools; mainly built where there was no school, to cater for the low income  population who cannot afford private or boarding schools.

259 such schools are to be constructed in three phases. Each school has classrooms and administration blocks ,teachers houses, a library, computer laboratory, a multipurpose hall and a playground.

Information available shows that of the 117 to be constructed in the 1^st phase , 68 are complete.

Namungo Seed school is one of these. Our village won the offer fair and square because they had a primary school at the site, more free land with  a title deed and the land was squatter free!    

 

Other districts had some challenges in acquiring free land, finding sources of clean water, electricity. The school fees or lunch fees though nominal are a burden to some of the parents.

Namungo Seed school has electricity and solar, has a new borehole to provide safe water and harvests rain water in tanks. However, some students travel from far to get to the school, making the necessity of a dormitory block urgent.

Generally, government funding for education has been declining for two decades. According to data worldbank.org, in 2021 the education spending was 8.21 % of the Gross Domestic Product. This has resulted in understaffing of schools and lack of basic requirements like water and electricity.

I am yet to visit this school, opened in 2019, currently with a total of 400 male and female students, to know exactly what is going on. Having a ravenous mind developed through consistent reading of books and an insatiable curiosity about the world, I can see myself taking a keen interest in the library and helping the students develop a reading culture.

  The Administration block.

Not forgetting that I am a medical doctor, I shall visit that Health centre 3 as well.

My grandparents and my father must be smiling over the children in that school!

They valued education and were able to send my father to the then established church school in Namukozi, Mityana. He excelled to enter the prestigious Kings College Buddo. He would walk barefooted for three days to get there. He went on to become an outstanding public servant and a Katikkiro/prime minister of the Buganda Kingdom ( 1950-1955). He was immensely proud of his village.

 I can safely say that the future of the young generation is bright – huge opportunities and wide choices in a global village. Many will be assisted to develop their full potential.

Who knows 25 years from now, the Prime Minister of Uganda could have his origin from this Seed School.

One Luganda Proverb spells it out clearly: Nezikokolima gali maggi. Loosely translated says: Even the roosters crowing now were at one time mere eggs.

QUESTION :

Have you taken off time to move around your community to know what is going on and decide on how you can be a part of it?

The COVID-19 Respiratory Infection has been with us for 2 years and four months and shows no signs of going away. We have no choice but to learn to live alongside it. Life has to go on for the living. Many of us have been affected, infected with the disease.

Currently in my country, Uganda, the new infections are low and there is no lockdown but we cannot afford to become complacent. The Ministry of Health statistics indicate that for the week between 26^th June and July 2^nd, the confirmed new cases of COVID- 19 were 468 and NO deaths. This is a result of increased vaccine coverage and acquired herd immunity from previous infections. The variant driving the epidemic now is less transmissible and records show that about 51% of the population above 18 are fully vaccinated.

 During this period of relaxed restrictions, the tragic legacy of COVID-19 infection is unravelling. The bodies of those who died of COVID-19 infection in the diaspora are being brought back home for burial in their ancestral homes.

It would at least help the bereaved to achieve closure- resolve their feelings and then move on with their lives.

For the bereaved, the period of mourning has been unnecessarily long and painful. Nothing can put this in a better perspective for an indigenous African as the burial of the only known remains- a gold tooth, of the first democratically elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Patrice Lumumba was brutally murdered in November 1960 and most of his body dissolved in acid.  One of his killers, a Belgium police officer, kept Lumumba’s golden tooth which was recently officially handed over to the DRC authorities in the presence of the Lumumba’s family. It was buried in a Mausoleum in Kinshasha on the 30^th June 2022!

“ We are ending the mourning we started 61 years ago,’’ declared President Felix Tshikedi of the DRC.

In psychology, closure is defined as: a feeling that an emotional or traumatic experience has been resolved. It is a process and involves having many questions like why, how and what, answered to your satisfaction to help you understand what happened during a painful experience in life like the death of a loved one, break up of a relationship or loss of a job. Not all questions have answers and the process of closure takes long depending on the significance of the loss or the event that happened to you. Some individuals seek closure while others avoid it. Even with people with a similar need to closure like the death of a loved one from COVID-19 Respiratory Disease, one answer does not fit all. Every person’s need for closure is different depending on the circumstances- significance of what was lost. Our personality and values play a big role in how each one approaches closure. The need for closure is also related to one’s faith or religion.

 Mentally understanding what happened helps you to accept the loss and move on with your life. Not everyone achieves closure more so after the death of a loved one. Failing to get closure can cause anxiety and depression.

The psychologists have laid out some important factors to consider while seeking for closure.

• Many of us take long to get closure.
• Others never get closure and tend to suffer from anxiety or depression as a result.
• You are in charge of getting your own closure not anyone else.
• Often you have to admit that you will never get the perfect answer.
• Closure is necessary for your own mental health.
• You have to give yourself time, space to mourn, to try to figure what happened, learn a few lessons from the loss which you can use to inform you in future when encountered with a similar loss.
• Do not blame yourself, focus on the positives to achieve closure.
• Closure is a complicated cognitive process. Accept that sometimes things go wrong though it may feel not fair.
• Life goes on. If you wait for so long, you may run out of time.

“Sometimes you don’t get closure, you just move on.’’ – Unknown

I was driven to read about closure as the bodies of relatives and friends who died of COVID- 19 infection during the lockdown, started being brought back for burial. Among them was my niece Maria Gorrette who had worked as a nurse in Arizona , USA, for over twenty years. She died in the line of duty in June 2020. She was 54 years old and a mother of three boys. To them, she was the strongest and most loving person they had ever known.

I for one was both happy and sad at the same time. I was happy that the ordeal was over- a sense of closure to allow them to go on with their lives. I was sad for having lost someone younger than me and so far away.

Her husband and three sons accompanied the body to lay it at rest in the family home.

Going through the funeral rituals was like opening and old wound.

I shudder to imagine what this family has been going through during these two years of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

As Khalil Gibran said, “The mother is everything- she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.’’

I still have the nagging reminder that my best friend’s ashes are yet to be brought home for the final rest. The family will only do it when ready to go through the ordeal one final time. Her death still tears me apart. I just pray that time will gradually make it easier for me to live comfortably with it. Life is for living.

Another set of relatives who were able to bring back their father for burial in March last year, came back to perform the cultural and traditional last funeral rites three weeks ago.

In my culture, the period of mourning starts immediately after the death of the person and only ends after the Last Funeral Rites have been held. No celebration event like a wedding can be held in that family until the period of mourning has officially ended. Traditionally, it used to take about nine months for the family to organise this function . As times have changed; many people are in employment and many young ones now live and work outside Uganda, this period has become flexible.

 The essence of the Last Funeral Rites is for the members of the same lineage and the heads of the clan to gather and officially mark the end of the mourning period for a deceased family member and be free to move on with life. Usually it starts on a Friday. Grass-thatched huts are built in the home of the deceased, plenty of meat and food is prepared overnight. One special hut is built at the entrance where anyone who is still overburdened by pain and grief could go in and cry one more final time. Friday night is a time for singing, drinking and dancing. In the wee hours of Saturday, following the guidance of one particular member of the family, everyone is compelled to move out of the house to the outside. Traditionally, this is the gist of the function- to clear death out of the house.

Later around 9 am, the chosen heir and his assistant or the heiress are officially installed in the presence of all members gathered. The head of the lineage dresses the heir/heiress in a piece of bark cloth, hands her/him the official symbols of authority, responsibility and duty . The heir is handed a spear, a rod and small gourd of local brew while the heiress is handed a basket and knife. The chief passes on words of wisdom and some money as a token. Other family members and clan heads can also participate in this function.

To move with the times, this cultural ceremony is followed by a church service or Islamic prayers to bless the heir/heiress and the family. Thereafter, celebration and merry making- food and alcohol are served and dancing follow for the rest of the day. By the time the members leave, they are hopeful about the future.

Our ancestors knew that death was universal and that mourning was for a season otherwise we would get stuck in it.

Even the elephants in the wild rumble loudly in distress after losing one of their own, mourn for some days and move on.

“Finding closure opens the door for us to see the new path we will take on our journey of life and living.’’ – Debbie Ziemann

QUESTION:

Have you had to go through an experience of COVID-19 infection –related closure during the pandemic?

How did you manage to gather the power within you to rise above it?

World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID- 19 Respiratory Disease a global pandemic on the 11 th March 2020.  It is now exactly seventeen months into the pandemic.  The virus is continuing to rage havoc in all countries; each one of us has either been affected or infected by it or both.

 As of the 18 th August 2021, data from the Johns Hopkins Corona Virus Resource centre shows:

Global confirmed cases –   208,653,614

Global Deaths –                        4,383,333

Uganda:

Confirmed case –                    97,186 (No access to mass testing)

Deaths                                          2, 905

Vaccine Tracking:

1, 167,733 doses administered in Uganda

4, 129  fully vaccinated ( 2 doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine) making up 0.01% of the population.

To reach Herd Immunity in any community, 60-70% of its population have to be fully vaccinated.

As the pandemic rages on, many of us have been driven into some degree of anxiety or depression because of the uncertainty and not knowing when it will end.

One thing is for sure: Life goes on. Time and tide wait for no man so says an old adage. Definitely, we have to become more innovative and creative in finding ways to continue with our lives amidst the pandemic. No more excuses for remaining inactive.

The best place to start is where we are: in our homes.

I have been reading widely about strategies for coping in a situation that you have no control over.

One American psychologist, Jessica Gold, Assistant Professor of psychology at Washington University of Medicine, gives us three main coping strategies. We should practice them daily so as to get better.

They include:

• Being in the present moment, or the here and now. Intentionally being fully engaged in what is happening at that very moment; not distracted by ruminations of the past or worries of the future.
• Open up to feelings and uncertainty. What you do not talk about can kill you. Accept what you cannot change and change what you are able to change. This is where the SERENITY prayer attributed to a German-American theologian named Reinhola Neibuhr(1892-1971) comes in handy.

God give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,

 courage to change the things that should be changed,

 and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

• Focus on who is most important and what is most important in your life. Devote your time , efforts and energy on these.

Having these strategies in mind, I have been taking one day at a time. Having a lot of time to myself, I have focused on honing my writing skills by reading many books and writing several short stories.

I want to share with you, a few of the books that I have been reading lately.

THE CANE PRIZE FOR AFRICAN WRITING 2010 and 2012

These are collections of short-listed short stories from Africa and some other ones written by emerging African writers at workshops sponsored mainly by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.

Each book has seventeen such stories of different genres from different African countries . The stories transport you to the authors’ countries of origin; whetting your appetite for more reads. Countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania are yet to make themselves visible at the Caine Prize For African Writing.

I would recommend these great reads to you since they offer short forms of fiction that give you a lot of expectations and excitement. You visit several African countries in the writers’ eyes. Finishing one story excites you to read the next one. Quick reads which offer a fast way of completing a story. You will feel that you have accomplished something.

For the writers like me, reading such books offers you many genres which give you ideas for your writing. They introduce you to emerging writers to look out for on the continent. I have read enough of them to try writing one for 2022.

Life Beyond Measure/ LETTERS TO MY GREAT- GRAND DAUGHTER

Most of us who are 50+ know Sidney Poitier the icon film star who later became a film director but is now retired. He was the first black man to win an Academy Award in 1964. You must have seen him in any of these unforgettable films: Lilies of the Field (1963), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir, With Love, and in the 1997 movie Mandela and De Klerk where he played the icon Mandela.

Life Beyond Measure/ LETTERS TO MY GREAT- GRAND DAUGHTER is not an ordinary Memoir but it is 23 letters written to his first great- granddaughter, AYELE, born on 21 December 2005. These twenty-three letters are life’s lessons as experienced by Sydney Poitier. His goal was to help Ayele and others that were to follow her to experience Poitier’s life and connect to their lineage. He starts with his childhood on Cat Island, Nassau, Bahamas and goes on to capture memories and moments as he savours his life.

Sidney was born prematurely in Miami, Florida, where his peasant parents had gone to sell their harvest of tomatoes. When he was 15 years of age, his father noticed that Sidney had an impulsive risk trait that was likely to lead him into committing crimes so he sent him to Miami, Florida, to live with his eldest brother. He was trying to save him from himself in a place with limited opportunities and choices.

At that age, he was most fascinated by seeing his face in a wall mirror in a shop in Miami!

Circumstances forced him to move to New York and fend for himself. He became a dishwasher. Thankfully, he met a Jew dishwasher to whom he confessed that he could not read well! The friend offered to teach him how to read in between their chores. This friend unknowingly turned Sidney into an actor. Later he tried to audition with a member of the American Negro Theatre and was sent away as he had neither talent nor skills. This motivated him to become an actor. Applying logic and reason, he succeeded in becoming an actor in this hostile environment. As they say the rest is history. In 2001 he was awarded an Honorary Award as the most respected actor of his time. He is now 93 years old and remains strongly attached to his environment at home in Bahamas.

This is a unique memoir which will inspire many people to aspire for greatness while documenting their struggles and successes along the way. Each one of us is unique and each story told, has so much power to impact others. It is one of the most exciting and revealing memoirs that I have read and would recommend it to you too.

ARIEL SHARON: An autobiography of the Warrior.

Ariel Sharon (1928- 2014) was Israel’s most famous soldier who rose to become Israel’s 11 th Prime Minister (2001-2006)

Born to Russian Immigrant farmers in Israel in 1928, from the age of 15 participated in all major wars in Israel. Close to 60 years, he was at the forefront of events in Israel. He was admired and hated but not in equal measure. His military achievements and political policies were often considered controversial.

As a soldier, he served in the Israel army from its inception in 1948 until he retired in the late 90s. After retirement he went back to farming but remained as a reserve commander. He was the most daring and successful Commander in Israel; uncompromising, ruthless but commanded respect and love of his troops. He considered the security of Israel’s borders paramount to living a normal life in Israel.

As a politician he was considered a hardliner and always walked in a minefield of intrigue and backstabbing.

This most decorated warrior had a soft side too:  a husband and a father.

He shares their struggle to have children but later they had two sons with his second wife, Lily.

His first wife, Margalit died in in a car accident then he married her sister in 1963.

 In 1967, they lost their first son, Gur, aged 11 years in a freak accident at home. He was playing with a friend with an old short gun given to him by one of the family friends. Sharon never overcame this loss and always mourned for the potential that was buried with Gur. The loss affected the family more than anything else in their lives.

He always struggled to make time for his family.

As Prime Minister, he was considered as one of the most pragmatic. He remained in this position until he was incapacitated by a massive stroke in January 2006. He died aged eighty- five years in January 2014.

Reading this big book where Sharon candidly tells it all, was like reading the history of the Jewish nation of Israel from 1936 and the selfless men and women who shaped it.

I would greatly recommend it as a remarkable story more so to those who may aspire to become politicians in future.

Whenever I finish reading such remarkable stories, I pause to thank God for my late father and my school teachers for opening up a world of magic and wonder for me. It is inexhaustible and offers rewarding challenges.

Let us keep reading to sharpen our minds and to increase our ability to empathise with other people.

As Lailah Gifty Akita ably put it: ‘’IF YOU WISH TO RENEW YOUR MIND, READ.’’

QUESTION: What books have you been reading lately and why?

Man is by nature a social animal, thriving best in a small group. It goes back to the ancient times when men hunted wild animals and gathered plants, seeds, berries and roots for food. Even today, the family remains as the basic unit of a nation. A family can be defined as a group of two or more persons related by birth, marriage , adoption who live together.

The Covid-19 pandemic restrictions are designed to reduce the spread of the disease in a family, community, nation and the world in general.

Physical distancing reduces human contacts- no hugs, no handshakes, no gathering together to share grief or joy. Shared common experiences help us to address our fears, worries and every day problems. This emotional support is vital for our physical and mental health.

It is almost a year since the necessary COVID-19 restrictions became the new Normal but they have left many of us in social isolation and loneliness. We are all craving for social interaction the same way hungry people crave for food.

90 years-old Margaret Keenan, could not have expressed it better the day she became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioN Tech vaccine in UK on the 8^th of December 2020. She received the second dose 21 days later.

She said: “Being the first in the world was the best early birthday present I could wish for. It means I can spend time with my family and friends in the New Year after being on my own for most of the year.”

Social communication is a core psychological need essential to our health and well being. Though we feel lonely and isolated from loved ones , we have to look for ways to adapt and become more resilient during the pandemic. By the look of things, the end of the pandemic is as elusive as the flower of the local Ugandan yam plant and yet life has to go on.

I for one have found the following activities helpful as I tried to increase social contact and engagement during the pandemic.

• Enhancing social engagement with loved ones and the community. Thanks to Digital technology that has shrunk the world to a global village. I can instantly talk to family members on the phone, send text or audio messages, arrange virtual gatherings on Zoom or WhatsApp. There are many virtual meetings or webinars that I can join to share ideas with like-mined people locally and outside Uganda. Looking through old photo albums awakens the cherished memories I have so far created with family and friends. It helps to reduce my anxiety and stress.
• Regular physical exercise- I take long walks in the evening and do light weight lifting to tone and keep my muscles strong. It reduces the stress and uplifts my mood while keeping me healthy and strong.
• Prayer-for any genuine religious person nothing can be as comforting as having an intimate relationship with your Father whom you can talk to about anything and everything. Just like that simple chorus we used to sing in Sunday school donkey’s years ago: Take it to the Lord in prayer.
• Reading or listening to audio books and music. Books engage our minds and imagination, enrich us , inspire us and increase our empathy and ability to understand others. For some years, I have been a member of Online Book Clubs like the Africa Book Club, Two Drops of Ink and Yours 2-Read. I have also been an

an active member of writing cartels like The Write Practice. It  is very beneficial for an emerging writer to bond with like-minded people.

• Spending time in Nature- the environment you live in can either increase stress on you or lower it. Pleasing environments like water, trees, plants and animals improve our moods and stimulate our immune functions to work efficiently. Walking outdoors regularly for a minimum of 30 minutes significantly lowers stress, lowers our Blood pressure and increases our heart rates. Studies have shown that exercising outdoors is the best antidote for stress. The beauty of the surroundings, the scents and smells, the sounds like birdsongs, the different people you see, the animals, insects and birds awaken all our six senses of vision, hearing, taste smell, touch and proprioception and we become fully engaged with nature. Gardening offers the greatest benefits in that you are exercising as well as being immersed in nature.

You are never alone with your thoughts. For those who cannot go outdoors , you can bring the outdoors inside by caring for potted plants or pets and if the worst came to the worst then just look through books on gardening and nature.

Nature has been scientifically- proven to delight and heal.

Here are some photographs of nature from my collection.

The mixture of old trees and shrubs and young ones in a garden, remind me of the mixed generations in our communities and nation.

Just as the earth has the power to renew itself more so after a drought or a bush fire, we too have the ability to rediscover our inner selves after the unprecedented disaster of COVID-19 pandemic and go on with our lives.

QUESTION:

In this unprecedented and prolonged COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, how have you managed to re-invent yourself and bond with like-minded people?

 This is a continuation of my last post. Worldwide, people are living longer and more are living into their nineties and beyond than at any other time before.

In my small family, my father died a few months close to his 90^th birthday, his young sister died at 104, their niece celebrated 100 years last October and my mother is close to her 90^th birthday. Since she retired as a senior midwife in 1994, she had taken up mixed farming. In the last two years, the chronic degenerative arthritis has increasingly slowed her down.

 My father and his sister had agile minds and were relatively mobile. I usually find their centurion niece planting sweet potato vines or digging in her banana garden and no one can stop her for this is what she enjoys doing. Her joy is her strength. The common traits among them is that they chose to focus on what was going right in their lives and engaged fully with what was going on around them. They could be generous to a fault too.

Warren Edward Buffett, the most successful investor in the world, the billionaire who has been giving away the majority of his wealth to charity annually since 2006, celebrated 90 years on 30^th August 2020. He shows no signs of slowing down.

Now that we are living longer, it demands that we enlarge the boundaries of vital living.

This has already caught on in the advertisement field and in the slogans we see these days like:

Life begins at 60

and  90 is the new 60. They are aimed at pushing us to think about life beyond midlife, 45-65 and plan for our Second Adulthood if we are to get the most out of it.

Numerous studies and surveys about longevity have been done and continue up to today. Results from such studies  have divided Adulthood into two stages: 1^St Adulthood and Second Adulthood. The second Adulthood itself has two phases.

. The 1 st Adulthood- this is the time from 30 to 45 years of age.

Generally the body is at its best. We feel young, energetic and consider the world to be at our feet. We have learned to be strong enough to take on life’s challenges and responsibilities so as to make a difference in the world. It is our time to compete, assert ourselves and collect achievements. We immerse ourselves in proving our ability and capacity to ourselves and others.

The sex roles as predetermined by our culture, demand that the women get married and become mothers while the men marry and become fathers. This is a very demanding time for the women in particular who have to juggle a career and a young family. They are so busy bringing up children, meeting financial responsibilities of a family and trying to make ends meet while at the same time building a career.

Dennis P. Kimbro said : “ Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.

. The 2nd Adulthood.

45-65- sometimes called the middle years and the first phase of the 2^nd Adulthood.

45 represents the old age of youth while 50 ushers in the youth of the 2^nd childhood.

This is usually the stage of greatest well-being in the lives of most healthy people. The competing, struggling and achieving is pushed aside to make space for finding your authentic sense of self- your core values, what you hold sacred and what puts spirit into your life.

You redefine personal success, take inventory of personal strengths and skills and use them to reinvent yourself. You want to remain relevant, useful to yourself and others and you want to be more and do more. Once you get this awakening , you begin to find ways of expressing your authentic self. You begin by letting go of the belief system that has informed you as you built your first identity. Other changes have to be made too in your career, lifestyle, habits and religious commitment. This is usually called the mid-life crisis. The main purpose is to make the next two or three decades your own.

By the age of 65, we have given our gifts to the world. We have served, we have accepted leadership in our families, communities and work places. We have launched our children , have a lot of time to ourselves which we can invest into expressing our authentic self.

In Uganda , the retirement age in the formal sector is 55 years of age and if one is to live to be ninety, then you have another thirty five years to go.  You cannot therefore just go on leading your life as you always have. It has gone stale or feels confining or empty. Yes, the environment we live in controls us but the yearning for something beyond family, your job or your friends forces you to trust yourself and open up and grow.

 You leave the familiar to experience the unfamiliar. Most times it is a risk worth taking. My childhood best friend, a lawyer by profession and among the first graduates of Makerere University Business School, is now a well established dairy farmer and another friend previously a teacher is an Events Organiser. I am also getting daily awakenings through my creative writing. Doing what we love and enjoying it keeps us young at heart and we just keep growing.

65-85 or beyond- this is the 2^nd phase of the 2^nd Adulthood. Also known as late Adulthood or the age of Integrity. All that you have lived through and learned adds up to gift you with grace and generosity that ushers you into the age of Integrity.

You recognise your accumulated skills and inner strength and feel that you should use them to teach, mentor or sponsor the young generation. If you made good use of the mid-life transformation, it will be extremely easy for you to create a new life for yourself. Failing to do this or just leaving yourself to rest on the laurels will turn you into the walking dead- a cause of accelerated aging. You need to stay alive, active, productive and creative to be healthy.

Some studies have shown that repeated creative daily routines like emotional writing, pottery, gardening and painting boost the body’s immune response. Getting absorbed into something creative increases the number of cells that fight off infections and cancer cells in our bodies and stimulates the release of Dopamine – one of the feel- good chemicals from the brain. The excitement of getting a result at the end of the task releases the Dopamine.

You can start all over again by simply embracing your mortality and rediscovering the enthusiasm, creativity and adventurous spirit  of your youth. Therein lies your power because the possibilities and rewards are usually beyond what you have experienced before.

As you go along this new path, you drop what no longer serves you and you pick what serves your new growth. Mistakes will be made but who cares, just keep moving forward into the unknown.

After all they say: “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”

With the numerous technology innovations available to us, Mars is now the limit.

Just open yourself to new and more meaningful ways to be alive and do not forget to reach out and connect with others.

My octogenarian mother tells me that one of her biggest challenge at her age is losing loved ones and peers but she has tried to fight this by accepting her own mortality. At the same time she says that such deaths put her under the pressure of longevity and push her to do what she has to do for each day faster. She has also developed a sense of radical thankfulness that drives her to celebrate life every day.

Those who live beyond 90 have the following characteristics in common:

1. Adaptability- at 90, they have all of them suffered big losses and setbacks but they mourn the losses and move on.
2. Optimism- they look at life as an adventure and are willing to explore. They also have a marked sense of humour.
3. They have a keen interest in current events.
4. They have a good memory and would do what it takes to retain it.
5. They take good care of their health- enjoying exercises and regular sleep of 6-7 hours during the night.
6. They are religious- many have found their right place in a universe put together by a Creator.They all know too well that time is running out but they choose to focus on the present; savouring each moment. Time has gifted them with clarity about what they can control and what they cannot.  They live fully for one day at a time. This reduces the stress in their lives

But all these are things we should try to pick up as early as our 40^th birthday.

All in all, we are in it for the long haul and if we are to harvest the rewards, we have to start planning for it in our youth.

Jim Rohn said: “You must take personal  responsibility; you cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, the wind, but you can change yourself.”

QUESTION:

How have you planned to get the most out of the next phase of your life?