Magumba Nathan

I've never been to Uganda. My one adventure oversees happened over thirty years ago. Old folks like me will understand that the memories of that don't seem so distant. That trip was to the British Isles. So I have to imagine Uganda. It helps to see pictures, and now that I have higher speed Internet access videos too. By way of The Kiva Chronicles I've been alerted to a couple of other blogs: Carl's Big Adventure and intocontext and both of them have provided visual images to feed my imagination.

I'm not sure for how long I've been corresponding with Nathan Magumba; it's over four years now. Nathan is nice to have sent me pictures over that time. This is a cropped version of a recent one. I've seen a couple of high school pictures and some snapshots over the years we've known each other. My old computer crashed and I lost some pictures. There's one I wish that I still had of Nathan plowing with an ox-drawn plow. I think of that one often not so much because of the image itself, but the story he told me. It's not a simple matter to lead an ox to plow. There was something very telling to me in his story of the necessity for compassion for the ox, at least to see things from the point of view of an ox. Nathan is able to plow fields with oxen.

The story told about awaking very early in the mornings well before dawn and working in the fields then rushing back for a quick bath then going to school. All this without resentment, to the contrary a sense of privilege. He expressed such gratitude to the family whose farm he worked while going to high school; remembering being cared for when he was sick and trousers bought for him. How he engaged in his lessons at school and remembering his teacher exhorting him and the other students to be all they could become. Nathan has reminded me that he shares the humanist values of the Enlightenment, that history isn't an easy stereotype.

It's been a little complicated that right at the time of starting this blog there are moves on the ground which may affect the future of the BSLA, but now is not the time to share them in public. Nathan's been quite busy suffice it to say, and it's best for me to let him decide what to say when.

He sent me his resume which he wrote to share with those abroad taking an interest in the BSLA. Resumes are such pain to write! There are too many models to chose from. Also from what I can see Curriculum Vitae are more commonly used in Uganda. The important thing in the USA is to get everything on a single page and that doesn't seem the norm there.

The document seems rather stiff to me. It also doesn't convey all the genuine skills he possesses. Since 2002 Nathan has been the Telecentre Assistant, Instructor and Cashier at Iganga Senior Secondary School. The telecentre there was started in conjunction with SchoolNet Uganda. SchoolNet has been an important bridge across the digital divide in Uganda and in other developing countries.

Through his association with the Iganga Secondary School Nathan has received certification in Introduction to Computers and in Microsoft Applications. He also attended a week long workshop in Computer Maintenance and Repair. He earned a diploma in Computers and Business Management through correspondence with Cambridge International College.

Something I hadn't known before was that right out of his A-Level diploma he taught primary students for a year. For a young man, Nathan has experience in teaching. My degree is in education, and from my little experience I know it's not so easy. I smile thinking about his story of what it means to lead an ox to plow. The key to teaching is empathy; a second key is necessary too and that's knowledge of the subject matter. Nathan knows his way around popular computer software, much less common skills there than they are here. And Nathan has done much to make those skills more widespread where he is. He's taught many people in the community how to access the Internet and to use email.

As I look at his CV I see his experience, and know that it's only a beginning. At times Nathan reminds me: "Rome wasn't built in a day." That's true, of course, but in his workman like composition of his life, it's easy to see he's creating something good.

Mobilize the Community

That's a picture of people in Pittsburgh participating in The Global Night Commute. The picture was taken by Peter Okema Otika (I reduced the file size).

On Saturday night people in many cities across the globe walked into their towns to spend the night in order to draw attention to the children who commute into Gulu and other towns to seek protection from abductions. On Sunday there was a large rally in Washington DC to urge International attention and action in Darfur.

I'm a bit ashamed to say I didn't attend either event. But I'm quite heartened by them both because it signals that many Americans are beginning to pay attention to African issues. There is of course a difference between the attention of national governments and the attentions of ordinary people. It's the second kind I'm most encouraged by, but the first that might seem to matter the most.

The USA is a place where there are many people of different heritages. Some American families are here because of awful wars and persecution. That doesn't mean there are no tensions between people of different ethnic backgrounds, indeed there are. Still, most Americans have some sense that we are a country of many peoples and traditons. One of the classic pieces of writing from 1930's America is Seventy Thousand Assyrians by William Saroyan. There is a line in it I always remember:

I think now that I have affection for all people, even for the enemies of Armenia, whom I have so tactfully not named. Everyone knows who they are. I have nothing against any of them because I think of them as one man living one life at a time, and I know, I am positive, that one man at a time is incapable of the monstrosities performed by mobs. My objection is to mobs only.

Paul Rusesabagina insists:

[H]uman beings were designed to live sanely, and sanity always returns.

There's something of that in Saroyan's contention of what an ordinary man is incapable of. People throughout time have committed the most heinous acts, and yet we are, our ordinary state as human beings is not to behave so badly.

The important thing is to find ways for people to do good. These recent rallies are a way for people to register their intention to pay attention. Certainly a part of that is to influence politics, but another part is simply to say to one another, and to people in Northern Uganda and Darfur that we are paying attention.

I'm not sure many people are interested in hearing what I have to say here in this blog. Mostly I hope to read what members of the BSLA have to say. The point is for this blog to become a way for ordinary people to communicate across the distances.

I was moved to read a statement on one of the pages of the Japanese drumming group Kodo. It seems appropirate to the work of the BSLA:

In ancient Japan the taiko was a symbol of the rural community and it is said that the limits of the village were defined not by geography but by the furthest distance at which the taiko could be heard. It is Kodo's hope with the One Earth Tour to bring the sound of the taiko to people around the globe, so that we may all be reminded of our membership in that much larger community: the world.

With Kodo the sound of the drum is literal, in a figurative sense the boundaries of our villages are stretched by the sounds of a world of drumming. It becomes a matter of finding artful ways to harmonize the sounds of our drums and to create a drumming heart beat for our joined-together world.

One of the greatest tasks for the BSLA is to create fellowship within the local communities where you operate. From that fellowship the objectives to increase education, to promote health, to nurture livelihood and to foster stewardship of the environment will follow. Promoting fellowship with concerend people everywhere will help us all.