CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ii
Prologue iii
About The Author vi
Part One: My Early Life
Chapter 1: My Roots 1
Chapter 2: My Father, Darling Of The People, Dies 5
Chapter 3: My Step-Mother Rescues Me From The Claws Of Death 17
Chapter 4: Francis Tamwine Reforms 21
Chapter 5: My Early Talent Development And Setbacks 27
Chapter 6: Some Untold Stories From My Primary School Experiences 34
Chapter 7: The Trials And Tribulations Of PLE 46
Chapter 8: The Most Blissful Time Of My Life 57
Chapter 9 : The Irony Of Life 73
Chapter 10: Joining A’ Level At Ntare School 76
Chapter 11: My Best Teacher Has Always Been The Book 80
Chapter 12: Secondary School Battles 84
Chapter 13: Bigger Life Uncertainties Set In 89
Part Two: Professional Training In The Former Soviet Union (USSR)
Chapter 14: A Chance To Join The University 99
Chapter 15: Prejudice And Pride 103
Chapter 16: My Journey To The Former Soviet Union 107
Chapter 17: Preparatory School 117
Chapter 18: At Odessa State Economic University 127
Chapter 19: Shying Away From A Love Life 132
Chapter 20: Completing My Studies At OSEU 136
Chapter 21: Returning To Uganda 142
Chapter 22: Jobless For Over A Year 148
Part Three: The Wife Who Melted A Golden Wedding Ring Into A Tooth
Chapter 23: The Biggest Absurdity Of My Life 157
Chapter 24: Mistaking A Wet Thunderbird For A Dove 168
Chapter 25: Wickedness Does Not Release Those Who Practice It 178
Chapter 26: A Righteous Person May Fall Seven Times, But He Gets Up Again 181
Part Four: My Calling To Higher Levels Of Reaching Out
Chapter 27: Envisioning Ideological Leadership 191
Chapter 28: Making A Call To University Leaders 203
References 213
Appendix 218
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PROLOGUE
Over the period of August 2009 to February 2010, I published a series of nine politically-sensitive articles in Uganda’s New Vision newspaper. In late February 2010, the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), an indigenous NGO where I was working as a Researcher and Computer Systems Administrator, demanded that, in writing, I denounce writing any more articles in the newspaper or else apply for unpaid leave and go to pursue and finish up with my political aspirations.
I weighed various options and concluded that if I allowed myself to be silenced and trodden upon in that kind of manner, I would be denying myself the fundamental human right of freedom of expression. I filed for three months’ unpaid leave, which started on 1 March 2010. Courtesy of the forced leave option, NAPE exploited the opportunity to get rid of me.
However, my situation became compounded because after my departure from NAPE, and until the inspiration to write this book occurred to me, I wrote and submitted several other articles to the New Vision, which they declined to publish. Peter Kashure, a cousin and friend who hailed from my village, Butsibo, in Sheema, Ankole, on several occasions advised me to write a book and publish it. He argued that if a person fell and remained on the ground crying, it would exalt the devil. Kashure’s persistent counsel and encouragement that I write a book did not make any sense to me until on 18 September 2010. On that Saturday evening, as I chatted in my sitting room in Bukoto, a Kampala suburb, with another close friend, Edward Obbo, who was also not happy with my decision to relinquish my job at NAPE, he also suggested that considering the highly dramatic twists and turns that had characterized my life experience, I ought to write my autobiography and publish it.
I began to take more seriously the persistent inner voice that urged me to write my autobiography and, I must say, I finally got convinced that it was God speaking to me about this long overdue need. Hence I complied. The following day, 19 September 2010, after returning from the service at Watoto Church at North, where I was also one of the facilitators in the discipleship classes, I embarked on the long journey of writing this book.
At that time, Watoto Church was going through a series of themes based on the ‘Greeting to the Seven Churches’ in the Bible book of Revelation. St. John the Divine, the author of the book of Revelation, was told, ‘Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea’ (Rev. 1:11, NAS).
In that message, which was passed on to John, Jesus had something to commend, condemn, counsel, warn and challenge each of those churches about, as can be read in chapters 2 and 3 of the book of Revelation. Likewise, I have used this style in writing this book. Hence, for everyone of you and myself to whom this message is directed, there is at least something for which you are being commended, condemned, counselled, warned and challenged.
Lifted and strengthened by Hillsong United’s Christian lyric, ‘What the Lord has done in me’, I have mustered the courage to recount what I have written in this book and would like to assure you that you will find reading it very exciting. The song’s opening lines affirm the assurance above thus:
Let the weak say, ‘I am strong’
Let the poor say, ‘I am rich’
Let the blind say, ‘I can see’
It's what the Lord has done in me
It is on this premise that I stand to say that in my long-short life, I have enjoyed good things that most people only dream about. This is the story that I am sharing with you in this adventurous account of my intertwined life dilemmas and opportunities.
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THE BOOK'S BLURB
Striking highlights of my story include: a socially rich life and untimely death and spectacular mourning of the death of my father; my survival of a vicious attack of my leg by mysterious swelling which was cured through the miraculous intervention of my already divorced step-mother; my perseverance through primary and secondary school education with no reliable source of income; how I won a scholarship to study Economics and Statistics at the Odessa State Economic University in the Ukraine, former Soviet Union where I had flamboyant study time after failing to beat the intense competition to enter Makerere University – the only one in Uganda at the time; my shying-away from the love of Novikava, a young, beautiful classmate from Moldova who, disappointed, showers her love on another student from the Congo, bears him a son and gets an occasion to taunt me (in the presence of her husband) with the searing comment, ‘You know that child should have been yours’; my failure to get a job for several years in Uganda after my return with a Master’s degree; my marriage to a beautiful Rwandan con woman whom I met at my computer training institute in Kampala and who deserts me after stealing from me dear sums of money with the connivance of witch-doctors; my dabbling in advocacy for sustainable use of the environment by virtue of my employment with NAPE, which finally sacks me for my ‘pursuance of political interests’.
Destined to Triumph is divided into four parts, namely:- Part One: My Early Life; Part Two: Professional Training in the Former Soviet Union (USSR); Part Three: The Wife Who Melted a Golden Wedding Ring into a Tooth; and Part Four: My Calling to Higher Levels of Reaching Out. Each of the four different parts still makes comprehensible appeal even when read independently. So Destined to Triumph can be read on a micro level as well as on a macro level, thereby catering for the interests of different groups of people. Nonetheless, the four parts flow very coherently, when read chronologically. So, you will ‘reap bigger’ reading the entire book.
Wish you blissful reading.
Julius Babyetsiza.
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§ Saint Paul Book And Media Centre - Plot 57 Rd Kampala, Uganda§ Aristoc Booklex Centre - on Plot 23 Kampala Road, Kampala [in Uganda]
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