| By By Walter Washika,
:: 28-06-2011
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“I lost my scholarship when I sustained a gypsy knee injury in 1999 while in senior two. This was after hoisting my school to the championship of both post secondary tournament and the Coca Cola tournament,”
Moses Mayende spoke as he rested on his left palm pensive.
He was hospitalised for one year and other six months on parole for check-up. Moses who had enjoyed secondary education was forced to terminate his studies pending the change of management and also his faint ability in meeting the outrageous cost.
He is a native of Palisa district, Kadama county and Kengebu Parish. He was born in Budaka hospital at 8 a.m on the Saturday of 23rd in 1986, was raised in a polygamous family of ten to Mr. Elisama Mbayo and Florence Nabula.
He narrated how his parents met. While His father worked as a policeman in Nabowa, Budaka district, he met the mother who was working in an adjacent primary school as an office attendant.
The 26- year- old lost two of his siblings to premature birth and malaria. Mayende did not go through nursery school because of lack of this facility in his village.
He went to Namirembe boarding primary and secondary school for his primary education to P5 before joining Budaka Muslim School where he stayed for a year. He made a u-turn to Namirembe where he completed his primary education with grade B.
He joined Bugwere High School at the age of twelve years, where he played on the school team as a goalkeeper. As a good debater, his ability enabled him to serve in the capacity of a debating prefect. Balancing these three tasks became quite an uphill task and therefore his school work struggled.
Being an excellent goalkeeper he was crowned the best in Budaka district in both the Post Secondary Tournament and the Coca Cola Tournament.
“My performance in class was greatly affected because I was so excited to be on the school team. Yet it would get me nowhere,” he said.
He gave up on the struggle to seek for education. Months later he sought other means of survival and this led him to at a construction site where he worked as a handy man for Shs 3000 per working day.
His basic needs did not match his income and on some days he slept on an empty stomach. This followed eviction warnings after months of not paying rent.
“This job was not stable; I could only work twice a week. I had a lot of demands to take care of and with the meager pay I was always running in arrears,” he explains.
On the supposed dreadful night of eviction, coiled in misery, a window of hope opened when a friend called him to work on a chicken farm in Mukono.
At the poultry farm, his day started at 6am with fetching water for the birds and later feeding them and retired at 9:30pm.
Later when the birds started laying eggs he was to collect the eggs and take them to the market.
Months later he started buying feeds for the birds but his salary never changed. He was forced to vacate the place for an opportunity to work at UCU.
Mayende is the maintenance officer of sports fields and courts. He has served since 2007 during which year UCU hosted The Inter-varsity Games. He was retained thereafter when the project was handed over to the university and worked under Jason Mehl.
He accepted the Lord in 2004; he joined Charity Worship Team of St. Andrews Cathedral Mukono. Mayende delights in serving the Lord both at his place of work and as a singer in church. He remembers the one distinctive visit at Nakanyonyi where he met his fiancée Eunice Naigaga to whom he is now engaged. Mayende says that he can’t wait to enjoy the bliss of marriage come November and looks forward to becoming a responsible husband. Life is unpredictable. Mayende describes it as a walk in the dark amidst the unseen wild.
“I needed light to define my path and salvation was the only answer. I love my work, my form of service,” he concludes.
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Uganda Christian University's community newspaper
:: Uganda Christian University 2008