- Enock Okong’o recalls how Austin Bukenya’s visit to Taranganya High School deepened his love for English.
- A teacher’s invitation and a principal’s warm welcome showed learners the lasting influence of education.
- The encounter demonstrates how teachers can shape careers through exposure, example and enthusiasm for language.
I met Austin Bukenya before I knew he was Austin Bukenya. It was 1985 at Taranganya High School. It was a Saturday when lessons were not on and the school was quiet. Our teacher, Gamariel Ogechi, received a stranger in the compound, unaware himself of exactly whom he had brought. The stranger entered the school compound dressed in a navy blue suit and walked slowly like a pastor, each step measured, without hurry.
We gathered in the hall out of curiosity. It was only inside the hall that we discovered he was a poet. He stood and said he would talk about poetry, with special reference to his poem I Met a Thief. He spoke slowly in a slanted Ugandan accent, respecting every word. I loved him instantly that afternoon, and from then on I started loving English more than before, even though I was already in Form Six doing my A levels.
When the principal of the school, the late William Ogutu Wagalla, drove his white Datsun into the school, he moved directly to the podium, hugged Bukenya and mumbled happily to the effect that he had met an old colleague. Later, we boys came to discover that our principal had studied at Makerere University. That explained the hug. It was not just a principal welcoming a guest. It was a Makererean meeting a Makererean. The Hill has a brotherhood that does not die.
Exposure, example and a love for language
That is how teachers shape careers without knowing it. Mr Ogechi did not announce that a great writer was coming. He simply opened the hall on a Saturday and brought the man in. That act of exposure is the first influence a teacher has on a learner. He brought Makerere to Taranganya.
Mr Wagalla showed us the second influence, which is example. He showed us that school can take you far, but it can also bring you back to hug your own.
Then Bukenya did the third work, which is infection. He did not teach us definitions of poetry. He infected us with love for language. He made words feel holy and rhythm feel possible. Many of us thought English was just a subject to pass to enter university. After that day, it became a love.
I was that kind of student. I ended up being a journalist, not because my parents or the syllabus planned it, but because a man in a navy blue suit walked slowly into our hall on a Saturday and stole me into another future. That is what good teachers do. They steal learners from one future and place them in another.
I did not see him face to face again after 1985. I met him thirty years later, not face to face but through his commentary in the Saturday Nation, where he writes a weekly column.
It was there that I learnt his explanation of the origin of the word “Boxer” as used in university. According to that explanation, “Boxer” referred to female students at Makerere University who lived in wooden hostels that looked like boxes. Their male counterparts therefore referred to them as “Boxers”. The word travelled from that Hill to our universities.
When I read that explanation alone in the newsroom, Taranganya of 1985 came back. The pastor-slow walk, the navy blue suit, the white Datsun driving in, the hug on the podium, the Ugandan accent and I Met a Thief.
From a teacher who opened a hall on a Saturday, to a principal who showed us what Makerere brotherhood means, to a poet who opened a language for a lifetime—that is the influence of teachers on the careers of learners.
A lifetime devoted to literature
Professor Austin Bukenya was born on February 10, 1944, in Masaka, Uganda, where his father served in the police. He was baptised Augustine Bukenya at Kitovu Cathedral in Masaka.
He first joined Kisubi Seminary intending to become a Catholic priest, but left after four years and joined Namilyango College. He later studied at the Dar es Salaam college of the University of East Africa and graduated in 1968, then returned to teach at Makerere University. It was at Makerere that his name Augustine was anglicised to Austin because of British influence at the university.
He is a poet, playwright, novelist, actor, literary critic and academic administrator. He is the author of the novel The People’s Bachelor, published in 1972; the plays The Bride, published in 1987, and A Hole in the Sky, published in 2013; and widely anthologised poems, including I Met a Thief and The Dancer’s Challenge.
He has taught literature, languages and drama at Makerere University and universities in Tanzania, the United Kingdom and Kenya, and has held residencies at universities in Rwanda and Germany.
He taught for twenty years at Kenyatta University in Kenya, where he founded and directed the Centre for Creative and Performing Arts in 1993. He also helped found the Kenya Oral Literature Association in 1985.
With his colleague Jane Nandwa, he co-authored African Oral Literature for Schools in 1983, a central text for the 8-4-4 curriculum. His later works include Oral Literature: A Junior Course and Oral Literature: A Senior Course.
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For over forty years, he has been a leading textbook author for Oxford University Press in East Africa. He has been recognised as an emeritus professor of literature at Makerere University and continues to write for the Saturday Nation, teaching Kenya and East Africa the decency of language.
By Enock Okong’o
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