As a teenager, I spent a lot of time around my maternal uncles. I grew up very close to them, and in many ways, I looked up to them as the father figures in my life -something I am forever grateful for. One particular uncle had a lock-up shop in Gulu town, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s, his children and I often ran the shop during the holidays. Gulu was very different then. There were bicycles everywhere. Motorcycles were not as common as they are today, and bicycle repair was serious business. Just in front of my uncle’s lock-up shop was a group of men who repaired bicycles. I still remember one of them very well. We called him Zong. Zong handled his work with so much dedication. He had a family, took his children to school, and had a dream for them. He always told us he wanted his children to achieve more than he ever had, which I assumed meant doing more decent work or earning more than he did from his bicycle repair job. But one thing I admired about Zong and the other men ...
Building Better Futures, One Voice at a Time