Norah Owaraga

Social media account suspensions of Ugandan activists concerning

Twitter has suspended Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s account. I did not see that coming. And so, it happened shortly after I had ‘facebooked’ that considering the exponential growth of Kakwenza’s Twitter following since his most recent abduction and torture, his Twitter following could potentially grow to a million; and therefore, his anticipated third book, yet to be…

Papa Emorimor Osuban’s aipuduno – burial

The programme for aipuduno (Ateso (language of the Iteso) word meaning: “ceremony for taking out the corpse from the house”) of Papa Emorimor Osuban (1934-2022) is out. Yesterday, Thursday, 10th February 2022, a special sitting of the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda was convened, in order for the legislative arm of government to pay…

Elders die, what then for Teso Knowledge?

These reflections were shared by Samuel Gilbert in comment to a previous post on nowaraga.com titiled: “Liberation in daily life.” He wrote: “I once thought to myself, what will happen of us when our parents and grandparents pass on? Has anyone documented their knowledge on certain things pertaining our society and culture? being a born…

Our limited medical vocabulary

Just wondering why our Uganda languages mostly have one word for medical personnel – doctors, nurses, lab technicians and health workers as a whole – village health teams, herbalists and all others. We do not have a different word for Clinicians, for example; and it is often the case that we perceive all clinicians to…