Finding the Word for Entrepreneur in Luganda

Abstract

technology. As she entered the world, I was struck by how quickly she managed to stand on her feet. For such a delicate animal—when she lay in the grass her skinny legs looked like a pile of sticks—she was impressively strong. Our new addition was a breath of fresh air, but more than that, she was the tangible result of the several years I’d spent conducting research on the internet and reading articles about animal husbandry— studies that no one in my family had thought to undertake before that. She represented a progression toward greater self-sufficiency and more dependable revenue for the farm, and thus toward greater stability for those of us who depend on the land. A year earlier, we had lost my heifer to East Coast fever, a common disease affecting farm animals in my home region of Kayunga, Uganda. It’s hard for anyone who did not grow up on a small family farm to understand how much loss and devastation such a death causes in terms of potential income generated from the farm, and all the effort expended in taking care of the animals. Also, it greatly affects the family’s ability to pay school fees, which come through the sale of farm animals. We agonized over the details. Which warning signs did we miss? Could we have intervened if we had recognized them? No doubt this sort of unpredictable stress, a hallmark of farming life, is the reason many of my peers sought paths to more “professional” careers in sectors like technology, government, banking, and business. At 25, I am one of the very few in my age group who want to stay on the farm. Though my family has managed the farm—troubleshooting and performing daily crisis interventions—for three generations, my grandfather and father still lacked the expertise to respond to East Coast fever. They fit into a wider culture of