Are You Ever Ready?

‘I am not ready’. ‘You are not ready’. ‘We are not ready’.

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and landed on a post a friend had commented on. A woman had written in to a radio station saying that her boyfriend of 5 years is soon turning 30 and wants a positive pregnancy 🤰 test as a birthday present. The woman is 2 years shy of 30 and is not ready. 

This made me think, are we ever ready for a situation? Do we know how ready we are until we are in the middle of it? No. 

Before I braced myself and then some to go for studies, I was a bundle of doubts. 

When a friend of mine sent me the application, I fired him so many questions just to dissuade him from encouraging me to apply. He had an answer to all the questions. To get him off my case, I accepted to apply. I went to office, sat on the application for the day and sent it to him. Late in the night, he told me he had issues with sending it and I told him to leave it. But he convinced me to send it myself. I did that the following day. 

I wrote that off until months later when I received an email inviting me for the interview. This interview. Let me first laugh at myself. 😂 I received the date and time while I was busy packing for the African Women’s Leadership Institute program. It was for 7 days and at a hotel deep in Namugongo while the interview was to be in Ntinda at the former offices of National Council for Disability. You should have seen me try to make it work. 

I had already stalled with the AWLI program and to cancel at the last minute was not right. I thought of turning down the interview because I couldn’t see myself flying from Namugongo to Ntinda but my friend and my  mother convinced me otherwise. I had also read for it like my life depended on it. 

Like in all life changing situations of my life, my brother was around and had use of my sister’s car. When mum informed me that he would pick me up, I told him the time he should pick me up and to bring along the dress I had in mind to wear for the interview. At NCD, someone I know (a fellow woman with a disability) walked into the room and she told me she was interviewing for the same. I told her then that I wouldn’t mind losing the interview to her. They could only take one of us. I interviewed with the mind that she will be the one to succeed. 

Months down the road, I received an acceptance email on a really bad day. I braced myself before opening it because I couldn’t take anymore bad news and was shocked. I didn’t know what to do because I wasn’t expecting to be accepted. I didn’t even celebrate. 😢 

In the period of chasing academic and travel documents plus work commitments, my sister was diagnosed with a blood clot & was admitted to the High Dependency Unit. 

This literally put a wrench in everything. I was just returning from a trip to Iganga when my mum explicitly told me to go stay with my nephew for the duration. I worked and looked after my nephew until his mother was discharged. This set my mum and I back severally. I applied for our visas when the visa office was a day to breaking off for the December holiday. 

January 2020 dawned. We were to travel the first week of January but because we had applied late for the visas… I still harboured doubts about leaving the job, all that was familiar to me (family, friends, weather) and having a doctor a phone call away. In the background, there was also someone’s son. He had just hinted at a tea-date and I kept thinking, ‘what if this has the potential to blossom into something and my leaving kills it?’ I was a mess! Chap wasn’t even proposing but I actually considered the repercussions of the trip. That’s how you know it’s not easy being a girl. 😂

I had misgivings. I kept talking to my senior advisor about most of them and he firmly told me that losing the job should not be cause for me to turn down an opportunity to better myself. If I lost it, there would be something else. I tendered in my request for study leave 3 days to the day of travel while my mum did all the running around shopping and packing. 

On the day of, I had to do more shopping, lunch with my sister Anitsha and continue to pack. I’d also wanted to see my nephew one more time before I left because I was so afraid he would forget me. He’d just learnt to say my name, picked up on the fact that I used crutches and was becoming a little connoisseur of tea. 

Yeah, misgivings and doubts did not go away even while I was going through the student experience. Nevertheless, I went. I lived. I loved. I studied. I thrived. I did it all while I was afraid and do not regret it one bit. 

My point is you never know that you are ready for anything until you are either right in the middle of the situation or walking the steps. All you have to do is take that leap of faith but prepare for the consequences. Like leaving someone’s son yet all he had suggested was a tea-date. 😒 

This post was also inspired by a current situation in my life...

IDPD Celebrations.

December 3rd is earmarked internationally for the celebration and commemoration of Persons with disabilities to promote action to raise awareness about disability issues and draw attention the the benefits of an inclusive and accessible society for all. Celebrations in Uganda were postponed to 9th December due to nomination of Members of Parliament.
I wasn’t into taking the trip to Tororo where the celebrations were to be held but as an employee of civil society organisation I had to suck it up and go. The trip itself wasn’t that bad neither was the company. Majority of the problems arose in Tororo and if it hadn’t been for the cheerful celebrations and seeing so many persons with disabilities in one setting, I would automatically call Tororo one of the worst places I had been to-date.
The theme for 2015 was “Inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities” and most of the speeches from the guests of honour were along those lines. Disabled persons need to be included and should participate in all areas like transportation, employment and education as well as social and political participation. However, the opportunities are quite limited for persons with disabilities and if available, they have to work twice harder than their able-bodied counterparts to prove they are worth the risk. That is if they manage to beat the perception that persons with disabilities are lazy and only want handouts.
I have come to learn that laziness and the lack of ambition has no bearing on disability both mentally and physically. It is in fact cross cutting because I have met so many people especially girls who would rather rest on their laurels and wait for hand-outs from well-wishers. And also met three persons with disabilities who I take as mentors because they are highly educated, intelligent and running sought after organisations. They make me believe I am not who I am for nothing and also show me that ambition is inbred not something one cultivates over time. Regardless of disability or not, if one is not ambitious one will never want to work a day of his/her life.
When it comes to education of persons with disabilities; most of the schools available do not do justice to them. I had the opportunity to work closely with two girls from the same university and suffice it to say, the experience left me with a not so good opinion of Kyambogo University. These girls were timid, spoke in whispers and hardly expressed themselves eloquently in English not to mention the degrees pursued. Persons with disabilities really need to pursue competitive degrees not Counselling and Guidance alone. Who said that is all they are able to do? Physical weakness has no implication whatsoever on mental capabilities unless the person is mentally challenged. Universities should encourage them to pursue challenging qualifications that will enable them to compete favourably for well paying jobs like their able-bodied friends instead of being held back.

Anyway, we held an exhibition and had people buy a lot of merchandise we had on sale and I must say I am getting the hang of managing and running a stall. I should be since I have so far run three of them. And the best part of Tororo was being able to see the two men I cherish outside my immediate family – the one who finally got the – gainful-employment-ball rolling for me and his colleague who without a doubt I know I would be married to in another life. Let me not forget the workmate who put on a private dance show for me during the social evening. I think I need to get out more during the night because I am missing out on free barrels of laughter at the expense of drunk people’s actions.

Self Education

There is this website I found about further learning that is totally free of tuition fees. How great is that?

I want to learn a few more things before I throw in the Academic towel. It’s a self education kind of thing so I got to teach myself.

I wonder if I'll be able to commit to that because it probably needs a steady internet connection which I rarely have; I usually subscribe for a week or two to update my laptop's anti-virus and the blog. But if you want something, a little more effort must be used. Will have to see how it goes, the requirements, etc.

Aside from the website for further learning, I've been teaching myself a programming language that I wasn't able to master at school.  It is going to help me during the designing and probably running stages of my website, so I want my skills and knowledge to be very up to date. I should have been done with it by now but since I only study on weekends when I don't have plans, it has taken me longer. I have to see it through because it is a personal goal of mine and for some reason; it seems easier to grasp something taught by you than when taught by a teacher, tutor…very odd?

I realized that it was a 'Website finding' day because I came across one that might help with my need to learn French!!...Isn't that awesome?

This is the one language that I find so fascinating and wanted to muster since high school for so many reasons but I am learning it because; it is the language of LOVE! And it sounds so romantic when I hear the French speak it with their accents.

If you feel the need to learn something for one reason or other, I say go for it. It doesn't matter how long it takes you long as you like it.