Must every Christian be baptised?

It is Biblically clear that baptism is a rite of purification that Jesus desires for all, but should it matter how and when it is done? Dennis D. Muhumuza writes 

In the early days, a cry of desperation rang through the wilderness and reverberated throughout Judea: “Turn away from your sins and be baptized!” Judeans and the inhabitants of Jerusalem attended to the cry of John the Baptist and were baptized in the Jordan River by him, confessing their sins (Mark 1:3-5).

a pastor prays for a convert before baptising her by immersion

It would be a point of no return! The converts as with the way John challenged the Pharisees and the Sadducees had to live in consonance with their repentance. He then assured them that One mightier was coming to baptize them with “the Holy Spirit and with fire!” (Mathew 3:11) 

Something extraordinary happened shortly after when Jesus Himself arrived from Galilee, and got baptized in the Jordan as well. It was the perfect endorsement of baptism as something sanctified by Heaven and pleasing to God (Mathew 3: 13, 16-17)

Over 2000 years today, baptism remains a sacred rite in the Church but the different Christian denominations have failed to agree on proper procedure. Mainstream churches baptize infants by sprinkling of water on the brow. This ritual, according to Encarta Encyclopedia, was introduced by Saint Augustine in late 4th and 5th centuries, his argument being that people are born with an affinity for sin and, as descendants of Adam and Eve, share in the guilt of original sin. Sprinkling the child’s head with water, he emphasized, would cleanse its soul and prepare it for a life in Christ.

baptism by immersion

But Pentecostals and Baptists insist on baptism by total immersion, and reject the baptism of infants, saying the act should be carried out when an individual is mature enough to comprehend the finished work of Christ and make a commitment to God.  

More controversial is the view that baptism should not be a one-time thing. In The Power of God in the Two Sacraments (Baptism and Communion), the author argues that since baptism represents the washing away of sins, it should be an everyday experience seeing we sin daily. 

“Many, many mornings when I get in the shower, I thank Abba Father that the water is washing my sin, failure, fear, guilt, and everything else negative from me.” she writes. “I get out of the shower 'baptised' in His love, grace, peace, joy, etc…” 

But Pastor of Bashan Zziwa of Makerere Full Gospel Church confutes this by quoting Jeremiah 2: 22: “For though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, yet your iniquity and guilt are still [upon you; you are] spotted, dirty, and stained before Me, says the Lord” (Amplified Bible). 

It implies no amount of washing and scrubbing can expunge man’s impurities except through the blood and name of Jesus. As Ananias tells Paul: “…arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” (Acts 22:16)

Pr. Zziwa faults mainstream churches for ignoring the clarity of Jesus’ demonstration of how baptism is done. “If Jesus Christ is our master, we should emulate His example of baptism by immersion,” he says. “There’s no excuse as technology has made it possible to have baptismal pools even at the alters as we do have at Full Gospel Church.”

Once, Peter and the apostles preached to multitudes who got convicted of their sins and asked, what shall we do? Whereupon they were told to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins, and the receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2: 37-38).

“This makes baptism is a conscious act that comes after confession, signifying the turning away from sin to live a transformed life by following Jesus Christ,” says Pr. Ziwa. “Since infants are unconscious of their sins, they should not be baptized, however they should be dedicated to Jesus by letting a minister pray to God’s blessing on these young lives as Jesus did in Mark 10: 16.”

Anita Asiedu of Promise Church of Christ, in Accra, Ghana is an example of one who got dedicated to the Lord as a baby.

“The pastor prayed for me and it was after I turned 18 that I finally got baptized by submersion,” she emailed Sunday Life. “I was supposed to be baptized at 16 because I knew everything by then. But I fell in love and started living in filth. Later I gave up the world for the work of God, and put my old self to death in baptism. The devil would be very happy if you would stay the whole of your life in church without what God wants you to do to attain total liberty. That’s why adults should actually put pressure on their pastors to baptize them.”

Rev. Canon Dr. Johnson Ebong, Chaplain St. Francis Chapel Makerere, says the baptism of infants by sprinkling and the baptism of adults by immersion are all right, water being the indispensable ingredient. 

He’s backed by Fr. Lawrence Kanyike, Chaplain of St. Augustine Chapel who says: “How baptism is done does not matter; it’s either by pouring [of water on the forehead] or by immersion, but the essential thing must be water.”

It’s the church’s responsibility, he adds, to welcome parents who feel the obligation to share their faith with their offspring through baptism. The baptized infants are after they have become adults then fully initiated into the community of believers through the sacrament of confirmation. The priest lays hands on them, anointing them with consecrated oil. This nullifies the need for a second baptism popularized by Pentecostal churches to those who become born-again.   

Some rush to baptize their children fearing that dying unbaptized would send their souls into what the Catholic Church calls “Limbo” –where they won’t suffer the torment of hell but are denied the everlasting bliss of Heaven. To this, Fr. Kanyike says: “What happens after death is not for us to judge.”

It is Biblically clear, overall, that baptism is a rite of purification that Jesus desires for all: “He that believeth and is baptized shall have saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

--Sunday Monitor (Sunday Life Magazine, page 4-5), March 20, 2011 

A penetrative look at the cultural aspect of circumcision

Title: Upon this Mountain

Author: Prof. Timothy Wangusa

Reviewer: Dennis D. Muhumuza

I once asked a Makerere University literature lecturer what to him is the greatest Ugandan novel. His answer was instant and emphatic: Upon this Mountain! I bought the book that afternoon! 

Prof. Timothy Wangusa’s first novel is set around Mt Elgon; indeed the front cover sketch of a small boy staring ahead at this protruding mountain should prepare you for the mountainous challenges and other affronts that the central figure Mwambu, must confront during his metamorphosis from childhood to adulthood, or rather from boyhood to manhood. And we are not talking about any ordinary transformation here. You see, Mwambu’s apprehension about circumcision –the important ritual around which the novel revolves –is felt early in the novel. The tension’s so tangible it sears the reader to carry on; turning page after page, to discover how Mwambu will face the crude knife if at all he does!

Mwambu’s fascination with the “exalted, everlasting mountain,” is so stirring that to reach its peak; to touch heaven, becomes his overriding aspiration. It’s evidently symbolic; he must conquer all the small mountains of life to reach the top of the world! 

Mwambi’s real life journey begins when he’s forcefully stopped from sucking his mother’s breast. Soon after his father Masaaba, leads the keen boy so school. Oh how sad he feels to be told the school’s not on the top of the mountain, “where the earth touched heaven and where the world ended!”

All the way, Mwambu exasperates his father with curious questions, and at school is quickly noted for his brilliance, his religious devotion and his close relationship with a beautiful girl called Nambozo.

The 119-page novel engenders a healthy debate on many cultural aspects. Should one be dismissed as a chicken-hearted, half-man for refusing to bow down to cultural dictates, or should he be admired for a taking a stand and embracing modern science rather than end up like the cowardly Wabwire who has to endure the shame of wearing a skirt like a woman the rest of his life?

This 1989 novel crackles with special beauty and humour; thanks to the poetic inclination of its author, which he combines distinctively with African folklore, songs and chants, proverbs and Biblical allusions to explore traditional marriage, superstition, religious hypocrisy, clash of cultures, and promiscuity among other issues.  

Prof. Wangusa’s description and depiction of the ritual of circumcision; the preparation of the candidates and the antecedent excitement is dramatically unforgettable. 

Setting the novel around the mountain, and using other symbolic physical features and items gives it an enviable local flavour that any African reader will gladly identify with. The knife is for example a metaphor of the whole cultural practice of circumcision by which a boy becomes a man among the Bamasaba.  

After I had read, I called the literature lecturer up, to concur. It’s not in vain that Upon this Mountain is on the O-Level literature syllabus. It’s the best Ugandan novel I’ve read so far!   

--Sunday Monitor (Sunday Life magazine, pg. 16), March 20, 2011

The loves and frustrations of ordinary working-class life

Title: Sons and Lovers
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Reviewer: Dennis D. Muhumuza 

 

 After hearing endless plaudits about Sons and Lovers (1913), I exploited the recent election madness in Kampala and stayed indoors reading the book. By midway, I was getting a little disappointed that it was not holding me as magically as expected. 

   And that’s not to mean the book’s boring really. Far be it from me to impugn the skillfulness of D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), who some critics have called the greatest English writer. But I feel this book’s weakened by the rootlessness of its plot. 

    I couldn’t figure out who drives the book. Is it Walter Morel, the hardworking coal miner who puts in the best he can for his family but is least appreciated? Is it his resolute little wife, Gertrude that’s as difficult to please? Is it their excessively handsome first son, William, whose early promise is obstructed by his dull-witted girlfriend before death finally snuffs out his young life? Is it their sensitive last son, Paul, struggling to divide his love between three women: the intricate Miriam Leivers, the busty Clara Dawes and his jealous mother? 

Everyone in the Walter Morel household, around which the 474-page volume revolves, is a protagonist and antagonist in one way or the other. Therein is the uniqueness of this sensual novel. To be admired also is the lucidity and sincerity with which Lawrence captures the loves and frustrations of ordinary working-class life, giving us new perspective into human behaviour.

Love’s gone out of the Morel homestead except for that of a mother for her children. Basically life offers little fulfilment, and some resentment sneaks on in the hearts of the children who find their father irritable. He seeks solace in work and the bottle while Gertrude escapes from the claustrophobic home by talking to Paul, who in turn finds release in painting. To William, it's dances and women while Arthur lives recklessly, eventually joining the army.

Throughout, the restlessness and listlessness of the main characters heightens the tension, bespeaking of the complex relationships among the sexes. After the death of his mother, Paul finally, determinedly, extricates himself from his attachment to Miriam, and quickly walks “towards the city’s gold phosphorescence,” symbolic of a new life ahead; a life devoid of the mistakes and failures of his parents.  

Sons and Lovers was turned into film in 1960, which I must watch to fully appreciate the merits of Lawrence’s first major novel. 

--Sunday Monitor, March 13, 2011

Memoirs of an exciting road trip to Dar es Salaam

It was a journey of laughter and discovery as we shared anecdotes and funny tidbits that more than compensated for the weariness expected of a whopping 1800km, writes Dennis D. Muhumuza. 

We boarded the red Nissan Kampala Coach at Nakumatt and set off at 7a.m for the two-day road voyage using the Masaka-Mutukula-Bukoba-Biharamulo-Kahama-Singida-Dodoma-Morogoro route, what’s called the “Central Corridor.”

The Benjamin William Mkapa pension towers in Dar

Dar es Salaam was the destination.

As seeing is believing, the business magnets from Uganda, particularly importers, had been invited by the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) to inspect this route and see for ourselves that it was the safest and most viable for the transit of their cargo from the Port of Dar to Kampala.

It’s because of their financial and business standing that they were escorted all the way by a Toyota truck-full of security personnel from the Tanzania Police Force, with the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dar es Salaam Special Zone Police, Mr Nsato Marijani, in the bus with us.

After about 100km, we arrived at the Mutukula boarder post, where it took us only about 10 minutes to get cleared by the immigration officials. The bus was filled with a sense of euphoria the moment we reached Bukoba, stepping on Tanzanian soil at exactly 11: 35a.m.

We made a stop at ELCT Bukoba Hotel, just about 1km from Bukoba Port, where in tranquil ambiance under the beautiful trees outside, we had a finger-licking lunch, the cool breeze fanning our faces while we enjoyed a spectacular view of Lake Victoria yonder.

It’s here that Super FM, the only Ugandan radio station I could still get on my phone radio, suddenly switched to Swahili and started playing Congolese music pakalast! I lost my Orange network too and laughed at the smartness and fastness of the Vodacom “hackers”, who sent me a text message wishing me a pleasant stay in Tanzania!

Bukoba is dotted with huts of fascinating “architectural” design, with their calabash-like appearance, some crouching on the ground like a mother hen shielding its little ones from birds of prey. The Coca Cola bottles there are industrially gifted with slender necks, gracefully longer than a giraffe’s, metaphorically speaking!

Anyhow, we soon hit the road again, determined to sleep in Singida by Lake Kindai, but the journey was longer than expected, so we slept in Kahama, the effervescent mine town notorious for debauchery, hard liquor and awfully beautiful women.

At Miami Beach Hotel, I fell for a stunner after she shot me a killer smile, but miserably failed to enchant her, thanks to my faltering Swahili and her nil comprehension of the Queen’s language. So I plugged my earphones in the right places and consoled myself by listening to holy hip-hop from my home boys Renee Emcee and No Hell of the Levite Clan.

Most of the road to Dar is in this excellent shape

The meals here were specially revitalising and with darkness closing in on us, we embarked on our journey again. Enticed by the perfect condition of the road (Eng. John Nasasira should see it), the driver brought his foot hard on the accelerator and soon we were flying past Dodoma, all the while the tyres of the bus wailing exhilaratingly on the hard tarmac. I closed my eyes and made peace with God, just in case!

Dodoma is the capital of Tanzania and Dar remains the business city. Along the way, we counted about 13 weighbridges, where containers of cargo are weighed to ensure they meet freight standards and don’t choke the road with their heaviness.

As we drew closer to Dar, the business moguls among us, who are accustomed to covering such long distances by air, were rather than gripe over their weariness, actually excited at having been part of this first-time adventure - a two-day on-the-road trip across the vast country. They had seen for themselves and agreed with TPA officials that “Uganda was no longer a land-locked country but land-linked!”

Close to midnight, we cruised into the soothingly glowing Dar es Salaam city, stopping outside the towering Paradise City Hotel that would be our home for the next two days. We were completely spent but at the same time overtly glad we had safely made it into “the haven of peace!”

--Sunday Monitor, March 20, 2011

Ugandan Obama fires up Bufumbira South campaigns

At only 28 years, Bernard Sabiti is the young prodigy that has fired up the campaigns in his constituency with his Obama-like confidence and enviable intellect, writes Dennis D. Muhumuza

At the height of the Obama mania in early 2008, a young Ugandan took his fascination with the then US presidential candidate by forming Ugandans For Obama (UFO), a movement of Obama’s die-hard admirers that within a few days had over 100 registered members. The brain behind UFO was Bernard Sabiti, who two years later, finds himself on the campaign trail, seeking to represent Bufumbira South constituency in Kisoro District.

Ugandan "Obama" Mr. Bernard Sabiti

His Obama-like confidence, eloquence and enviable intellect has driven many into composing songs and slogans of praise in his honour.

“Representing my people in parliament was my childhood ambition,” he says assuredly. “I stand for integrity in politics, truth, hope and change.”

The born-again independent candidate is tussling it out with NRM’s Tress Bucyanayandi who is also the incumbent MP, FDC’s Joseph Munyaneza and another independent candidate, John Tereraho.

“Mine is a struggle to get our country out of the quagmire of corruption, which is in part rooted in the methodology of electing our leaders with politicians taking advantage of people’s poverty to bribe voters,” he says. “I’ve tried to unequivocally denounce such actions on the local FM stations and wherever I’m having rallies and the response is great. In fact, my opponents are scared dead and are beginning to realise their money won’t take them far in this election!”

Sabiti quickly adds, “I’ve been found between a rock and a hard place, with my most vocal and influential campaigners telling me to do as others are doing –give some money, booze, soap etc., to voters to stand a chance. The soul of this nation is so fundamentally flawed that in Muramba Subcounty, I was almost beaten for calling people and just reading them my manifesto without buying them local brew at least.”

The lanky contestant has made it his preoccupation to urge voters to vote wisely.

“Leadership is such a serious virtue that it is ridiculous for anyone seeking it to think they can buy that mandate.” he says. ‘That should be the first indication to us that this person is a mere pretender because he violets the most basic of leadership tenets. Let’s look at qualities that make a good leader and elect someone based on those qualities.”

In his manifesto, poverty eradication comes on top: “I’ve felt the pangs of poverty myself through the tough childhood that I underwent, and the deprivation I suffered as an infant when I lost my parents.”

Kisoro is well endowed with fertile soil and reliable rain fall, he argues, and that people are hungry because of poor leadership and unreliable representation in parliament. Sabiti also promises to invigorate the tourism, improve education as well as find the antidote to the water shortage in his constituency.

The light-skinned and soft-spoken contestant was born to David Sebujangwe and Jurita Mukandanga of Kisoro, south western Uganda, and attended Gitenderi Primary School, Kabindi Secondary School for O’Level and proceeded to St. Paul’s Mutorele S.S. for A’ Level. He then joined Makerere University in 2003 for a Bachelors degree in Social Sciences, majoring in Psychology. He returned to Makerere in 2008 for a Masters of Science degree in Population and Reproductive Health and has since been working with Straight Talk Foundation.

Sabiti says he devours books like breakfast cereal, with Charles M. Sheldon’s In His steps: What Would Jesus Do, as one of his favourites.

“I like his insistence that in a bid to be Christ-like, today’s Christians should ask themselves; ‘What would Jesus do?’ before doing anything,” he says. “Although he was dismissed as trivialising Christ by applying him in the world’s social troubles, Sheldon was a decisive voice of the social gospel in the mid 19th century and his books are still relevant today.”

He may not be the “political rockstar” that Obama became on his way to becoming the first African-American president, but Sabiti quotes Job 19: 25 (My Redeemer lives) to denote his optimism.

Come the February 18 polls, he hopes to overshadow his opponents by winning the majority vote off the 53,000 registered voters in his constituency, thereby becoming one of the youngest legislators in the 9th parliament.

--Sunday Monitor, February 6, 2011

Is blind Muhumuza's legal profession the next big thing?

He had to hire people to read for him sometimes, move him around and he came from remote Kanungu District, but Boaz Muhumuza overcame even taunts to top Makerere’s Law class, writes Dennis D. Muhumuza.

Boaz Muhumuza having a light moment with a friend

In the movie, The Great Debaters, James Farmer Sr. (Forest Whitaker) says, education is the only way; “the way out of ignorance, the way out of darkness into the glorious light.”

To Mr Boaz Muhumuza, who was born without a silver spoon in the remote Kanungu District and lost his sight at the age of three, Whitaker’s words ring true. He surmounted poverty, prejudice and other debilitating issues and will this Friday graduate at the top of his Law class with a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.21.

Beating 311 students in the most competitive and prestigious Humanities course at Makerere University is a stellar achievement, although the crown for best overall at the 61st graduation belongs to a female student, Ms Barbara Nansamba, who scored a CGPA of 4.9 in Computer Science.

In a course that is qualitative and analytical in nature; requiring students to cite several legal cases and quote accurately from endless legal works, and other complexities involved in making arguments, getting a First Class degree is rare.

As Human Rights and International Law lecturer, Mr Kabumba Busingye, says, “An Upper Second in Law is a very good achievement. Muhumuza also benefited from the concept of reasonable accommodation which gave him equal platform with other students.”

Mr Brian Bwesigye, a classmate, said: “Muhumuza’s brainpower is mesmerising. We all consulted him.”

But intelligence without diligence is like faith without works –it is useless. This much Mr Muhumuza recognised in primary five and set the goal of becoming a lawyer and toiled toward this fulfilment. He would have wept and wallowed in self pity following the teasing from fellow pupils at St. Helens Primary School, but nothing was going to obstruct or destruct him.

“I decided that anything a sighted person can do I can do,” he says. “I believe I’m ordinary, I believe in me!”

The believer became an achiever early on when he scored 11 aggregates in the Primary Leaving Examinations to join Iganga Secondary School, a girls’ school. He studied there for six years because the school has an annex for the blind. He learnt to use Braille, a writing system that enables people without sight to read by touch.

He excelled in O’level examinations, scoring 14 aggregates in eight subjects. He sat for UACE examinations in 2005, and beat Iganga District, with a whopping 25 points (4As) in History, Economics, Literature and Divinity and Credit 3 in General Paper. This earned him a government scholarship to study his dream course at Makerere University.

“Education for the blind is extremely expensive. The machine I use to write costs Shs2.5 million, a mere rim of papers costs me Shs70,000 and the software for my machine itself costs far more than a computer.” He adds: “Then you have to hire someone to read for you sometimes and to move around with. Then the negative attitudes here and there, but I refused to be drained by those.”

Mr Muhumuza was born with full sight but as a child suffered from a rare disease called retinoblastoma, a malignant tumor of the eye. It is was not painful, so by the time it was discovered, and the boy rushed to Mulago and Kenyatta University hospitals, it was too late. The last born in a family of 11, Muhumuza was showered with endless love.

“So I grew up thinking life is normal but later realised it was not so. Kids used to laugh at me, some people don’t think you are worth anything, so it was very challenging, but I was lucky, I’ve strong parents who care and took me to school.”

There’s no trace of resentment in his voice when he speaks about what it means growing up blind. He has accepted his situation so much that he does not long to regain his sight.

“My belief is that God does everything for a purpose,” he says jocularly. “If I was sighted, you would not be here covering this story, so I look at my being blind as a miracle in itself.”

A man of majestic physical stature, complete with a paunch, Muhumuza speaks contemplatively. His equanimity drifts into boy-like affability when he begins to speak about his love for soccer and good company.

“The English soccer bug has not spared me either, I support Arsenal and we’re taking it this time round,” he laughs. “I love dancing too, and one day you’ll catch me in a club having some wild times on the dance floor.”


Mr Muhumuza is pursuing a post-graduate diploma in legal-practice at the Law Development Centre.

“I have a passion for human rights,” he says. “I want to contribute all I can to create a perfect environment for people with disabilities; help them know their rights and benefit from the policies, laws and structures that there are.”

The son of Mr Pancrius Bazaara and Ms Florence Tibifumira has certainly proved that disability is not inability but ability and possibility. He has given meaning to Whitaker’s words in the movie that the education of the child is the most important job. Most of all, by letting his academic light shine, others can step out of the darkness and follow suit.

--Daily Monitor, Friday January 21, 2011

Anthony Ayebare has improved the lives of the Batwa

Fresh from school and torn between employment and humanitarianism, the then 23-year-old Ayebare chose the latter and brought a difference to the lives of the Batwa, writes Dennis D. Muhumuza.

After his university studies, Anthony Ayebare found himself on the crossroads: should he get a city job like many of his colleagues, or return to his rural village to help the vulnerable community there? After much contemplation, he took the road less travelled and as the famous Robert Frost poem says, “And that has made all the difference”.

A Batwa hut. Then Anthony with his mother

It has made the difference among the Batwa surrounding the Echuya Forest in Kabale District, where this 26-year-old hails. The Batwa, according to the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, are pygmy people said to be the oldest recorded inhabitants of the Great Lakes region of central Africa. They are presently found in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo and Uganda. In Kabale, Kanungu and Kisoro, the Batwa, now a significant minority, were driven out of their habitual forest lands of Bwindi and Echuya forests when they were made national parks. Homeless, they were forced to lurk around, suffering untold poverty, begging for a living, diseased, illiterate and stigmatised.

In 2007, Ayebare was impelled to reach out to them by founding the Global Batwa Outreach (GBO) to advocate for their rights, empower and help them find acceptance. “I grew up seeing them killed by mobs for petty offenses, saw them carry heavy loads of firewood to the Bakiga families in exchange for food, saw them work as guards on non-Batwa gardens, their children as herds boys. I didn’t question these practices because it appeared normal. Like many others, I thought the Batwa were like animals; what I saw was sub-human people who lived in the forest with wild animals.”

Ayebare sighs heavily and shakes his head: “People believed and still believe that the Batwa possess magical powers, a reason people, mostly in the Congo, believed eating them conferred magical powers onto them. When I developed a painful backache in 2004, I was advised to seek the magical powers of the Batwa to get healed.

It’s alleged that once one walks over a Mutwa while he or she is lying down, the backache gets cured. I needed to get cured, so I did walk over a child whose mom was my mother’s friend. I did not get cured; not only did the pain remain, it accelerated until I sought medical help. This pushed me into a world of questioning; I wanted to see any person claim they had gotten cured.

In a quest for answers, I landed on another disturbing brutal fact – the non Batwa elders had carefully crafted the backache myth as a way of getting free sex from Batwa women. Relying on the common misconception that sex helps get rid of backache and aware of the free availability of the Batwa women for sexual exploitation, they took advantage”. Such was the exploitation that existed, coupled with other injustices against the Batwa that broke my heart. I decided to do something.”

Just three years after the community-based organisation was founded, the welfare of the Batwa has improved and the way they are treated changed. Small-plot gardening and rearing chicken have not only had an entire Batwa school of about 130 pupils fed, but also come with some economic empowerment and good health to the parents and their hitherto malnourished children.

“We have started bee-keeping projects, given them dairy goats, pigs, plants, seeds, gardening tools, clothing, land and built them homes and toilets. But most significantly, we are educating the local community to accept the Batwa and treat them humanely,” says Ayebare.

Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist, Brian Bwesigye, after seeing what Ayebare has done for the underprivileged group, wrote on his Facebook page that, “Ayebare’s work in relation to the empowerment of the Batwa people can only be ignored by a deaf and blind man.”

But for this son of a primary school teacher and peasant mother, it has not been easy, considering the ridicule from some of his university colleagues who think he deserves better than “wasting” his future among pygmies. Local politicians too have not helped, but associate with GBO projects while campaigning, not forgetting some of the Batwa who would rather booze and abuse drugs than be helped. Ayebare has however soldiered on with the encouragement of his mother.

“While the rest of the community saw an opportunity to use the available cheap or free labour of the Batwa exploitatively,” he says, “My mother saw an opportunity to lend them land on a seasonal basis so they can plant crops.”

Ayebare threw a Christmas bash for over 430 Batwa families. His New Year resolution is to make operational the health centre that he has built to provide free healthcare to all Batwa.

This pragmatic Human Resource Management graduate of Makerere University may not have attained his childhood dream of becoming a catholic priest after studying at St Paul’s Seminary Rushoroza, but as the Executive Director of GBO, he’s doing a whole lot better shepherding the Batwa of south-western Uganda.

--Sunday Monitor, January 9, 2011