Aguma's Story-- Part 1

The day after Thanksgiving a friend and I walked to visit the home of one of our favorite students, Aguma Nicholas. He has just completed his O-Level exams after four years of serious study at CSB. It was a long trek for us, just over and hour each way. (Let's not even talk about how clumsy I was in crossing one of the small rivers that the road passes through!) As we sat outside his home looking at the mountains, he told us again of how he came to be at Christ School. his story had been published last year by our school paper. I have posted a portion of it here (as well as some photos) with his permission.

I was born in a poor Christian family of 12 people. During my studies in primary school, I was cracking stones and whenever I would fill a trip, I could expect some coins. I never had a dream of ever joining secondary school. My mother works only for something to fed us. When I was promoted to primary 7, I came to the market to buy a short trouser. I succeeded and bought the trouser for one thousand shillings (60 cents). After buying it, I heard rumours that there was a football (soccer) match going on at Kevin's school. I never knew its name... Christ School-Bundibugyo, neither did I know its location. "Hey, I am going at the match! Aren't you also going to watch?" A boy asked his friends as I was also listening to them from a distance. "Yes, let's go, I have my two hundred shillings (12 cents) here." The other one agreed. I was following them at a distance. I kept my eyes fixed. I could not have lost these boys for how could I find myself to the match? They slowly led me to a big gate that I had never seen before. I slowly moved towards the gate. I got two hundred shillings from my pocket. I entered the school and really I was green about everything I was seeing. "Hey, Yes! Today we are going to beat Bubandi by 10 goals!" Christ School students were bubbling English like nothing. If you never lived around this school, you could not tell that these girls were Babwesi (the local people). My mouth was wide open because of the way these girls talked. "Hey, you boy, why do you look so cowardly like that?" One of the girls asked me. What and how could I have responded to this girl? I never knew how to construct a sentence in English. I pretended not to have heard what she said, but the girl glued on me to an extent that I said, "Me is of the watching ball." Some of the people who were standing near started pointing their fingers at me, so I changed position. I went near the headmaster's house where these other different whites were watching the match. I looked at the headmaster's house and saw some of the wire lines on top of it and I was thinking why are those wires there? Oh Lord, why can't I join this school also? This was my prayer.

To Be Continued....