New Vision At 35.

I still remember that day.

I was at Uni. Makerere University. 2nd year. I had spent months sending articles and applications to editors in various publications. Major dailies. Magazines. Blogs. I would run to the Faculty of IT (computer laboratories) to bench for a computer. There, I would shoot emails. Everyday.

No one responded.

One morning, my lecturer had cancelled. This was the perfect time to bolt to the labs and beat the human traffic of IT and Computer Science students (who acted as though they owned those machines. I mean, ‘some’ chaps in Silicon Valley work from their garages, hello!). Well, I was an intruder, but then again, I paid tuition; I felt it was my right to use them.

That morning. I found an email squatting in my Yahoo Mail (kids, there was Yahoo in 1923). An editor from The New Vision had replied. He was called Nigel M. Nassar. He had been editing Blitz, a lifestyle section of the paper. He had read my terribly written stories (most of them, about my hostel female neighbour and taxis and Kikoni rolexes). He had liked them.

“Come to New Vision on Monday. At 10 am,” he said.

I was there at 7 am. Restless. Scared. Happy. Hungry. I waited for 3 solid hours for a one Nigel. At 10 am, he showed up. I towered over him. Firm handshake. Neatly-dressed. He had this accent that reeked of, “My passport is tired of stamps). And he walked me to the newsroom. We talked. He gave me a seat. And told me, “This is yours now.”

That’s how I joined The New Vision, my first love.

Happy anniversary!