There is a big red- tiled house along Entebbe road , on the way to the country’s only International airport, that I have passed by for over fifteen years. On many occasions it has been pointed out to me as the house belonging to an ordinary man who, through sheer determination, worked his way to the top. The story goes that from a mere porter at a welding workshop he struggled to build his own metal fabrication and design business. On more than two occasions, he had to start afresh but he never gave up. He acquired the necessary skills, became professional and built a solid business.
I think by now he is an old man but I only know his name. Many times I have wished to put a face to the name. Then, just yesterday as I accompanied my sister to the airport, Kizito my long time trusted driver from the Airport taxi service, pointed out another house to me. It is a four-storied commercial building, as good as new but looking empty and forlorn. “ That building has been like that for two years; the owner died and his children could not agree on how to run it,’’ Kizito explained with a heavy heart. I found myself thinking about how each one of us lives and writes his or her legacy every day through our actions and interactions with the people around us.
Like the owners of those two houses, I have two different friends whose lives bring out the values and purpose of their lives. The first is none other than Kizito himself. His telephone number is among those written in my dog eared notebook that I have kept for over ten years! It is one number that has been among my contacts since the Mobile phone became a vital part of each one of us. I did not know him before . He was recommended to me by a childhood friend as I was looking around for a reliable driver to take me to the airport for the South Africa Airways 7:00 am flight.
I used to take this flight back to Botswana through Johannesburg for most of the time I lived and worked there. The check-in time was an awkward 5:00 am. For all those occasions, reliable and dependable Kizito picked me up from home, located thirty two kilometers from the airport, on time. If anything, I sometimes delayed him!
We have come to know each other well and whenever we travel together we take the trouble to catch up on each other’s lives. He dreams of owning his own transport company. Little by little, he is getting there. He took a bank loan to buy the Toyota Harrier that he is currently driving and is left with seven months of repayments. I was happy to learn that he ensured that he did not secure the loan against his small home. He is also doing his best to get his four children in the best schools within his reach. As a satisfied customer, I have recommended him to many other friends and true to his word, he has never left them wanting. I always remember him with a smile.
The second friend is Moses Kunene of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is another taxi driver who was recommended to me by Kalagi, my childhood friend who has lived in Johannesburg for thirty years. Worried by the violence in the country at that time, I needed a reliable and trustworthy driver to pick my children from the bus terminal and get them to Oliver Tambo International airport for a flight to Cape Town where they undertook their undergraduate education.
Kunene has picked me from the airport and dropped me at Kalagi’s place in Pretoria, many times over. He has proved as reliable as they come. He shared his biggest dream of owning his own Safari Tours company early on and it has been great joy to watch him grow as opportunities and choices opened up for the black South Africans. True to his word; he now owns a small tour company that ferries tourists around Johannesburg, the ‘city of gold’, and Pretoria, the Jacaranda city and administrative capital.
Kunene employs four other drivers but whenever I call, he himself shows up. He took me and my sister from Gothenburg , Sweden, around the main tourist attractions like Soweto and the Mandela Museum, the Apartheid Museum , and The Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO Heritage site, the Pretoria National Botanical Gardens and the Union Buildings.
Kunene loves what he does and is extremely enthusiastic about his work. He has invested time, practice and money in his work. At the same time, he has been able to move his family of five from a shanty area of Johannesburg to Mayville suburb of Pretoria! What he considers as his best achievement so far is having guided his eldest son into a Business Administration degree course at the University of Witwatersrand- WITS -, Johannesburg. The transformation has been remarkable! How I wish Kizito could tell me something close to this story for his family in Entebbe, Uganda.
These two men are ordinary, happy and optimistic people walking around with an attitude of gratitude. They treat their jobs with respect and give them the priority they deserve after their families. They make our world better by what they do and say. From the time I got to know them, they had clarity about where they were and where they wanted to be and were determined to find ways of getting there.
The real takeaway from Kizito and Kunene’s stories is that as we go about our day-to-day jobs, we are writing and living our legacy. We influence the present generation and the generations to come, long after we have gone out of this world.
Shannon Alder said: “Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.’’ I for one have decided to write my legacy every day by what I think, speak and what I do.
Just when I was about to post this article, I was informed of the untimely death of Peter Nyombi, a former Attorney General of Uganda( May 2011- March 2015). I did not know him personally but as I read through the tributes I was quick to note that all the writers acknowledged that he was a highly intelligent man and many lamented how he had applied this during the course of his work. They claimed, and for good reasons too, that he had helped take our country to the dogs. Sadly, this is the legacy he wrote for himself!