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Canon Gideon Byamugisha seems to enjoy telling this story. When he was two years old, he fell sick and his mother had to take him for treatment.
The clinic was on an island across a lake. But when they arrived at the lake, the only passenger boat had left.
Then his mother saw this little girl of about 12 years paddling a small canoe that was about to leave for the island.
"My mother asked her if we could go with her, the girl refused saying the boat had a hole and a heavy load would make water seep through, but my mother insisted and the girl gave in."
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| Canon Byamugisha: Openness means sharing the information in confidence with people close to you (Photo by Ismail Kezaala). |
In the middle of the lake, the water started seeping through. "In panic my mother started using her hands to throw out the water. In the process the straps tying me to her back loosened up and I fell into the lake."
He sunk. Shortly after the waves tossed him up to the surface. His mother grabbed him and they made it to the island.
"There were many miracles there," he says. "The young girl managed to keep steering despite the chaos, and my mother kept looking in the water and the boat never capsized."
Gideon says it is this belief in miracles that keeps him going. Gideon learnt he was HIV positive in 1992, he is in good health but most importantly for him, he made his status public, making him the first practising priest to announce he had Aids.
"I am not an accident on earth, the God who pulled me from the lake knows this (Aids) problem as well, mine is blind faith, like the one with which one enters an aeroplane."
"I live a day at a time," he says and bursts into song, singing a Christian hymn. The turning point in Gideon's life was when his wife, Kellen died in 1991.
Gideon was returning to the UK and they were processing documents to leave with her. Then she got a headache, chest pains and backache, within a week she was dead.
"I was devastated," he says. "I knew about Aids," he says "but I didn't link it with myself, I knew it as a disease that I could talk about, I never knew that one day I would be associated with it."
Gideon says he had heard of Aids from Philly Lutaaya, a famous Ugandan musician who died in 1989 soon after shocking the country with news that he had Aids.
Gideon was planning to return to Cardiff University in the UK where he had spent nine months on a student exchange programme.
At Cardiff, the principal invited him to study a Masters degree promising sponsorship and accommodation for his wife. That is when a jubilant Gideon returned to collect his wife.
Then she died.
"My sponsor in the UK told me to first grieve for my wife, but later I was told that the person who was to fund me had gone bankrupt," he says.
" I never got to know what really happened." He and Kellen had a daughter, Patience Busingye, who is now 13.
More disappointments started coming in. His sister-in-law, Kellen's sister, a nurse and a midwife had news for him. Before his wife's death, an HIV test had been suggested and she had agreed to take it and it was positive.
She failed to summon enough courage to tell him until six months after Kellen's death, his in-law told him. It was in October 1991.
"In January 1992, I got the courage to take an HIV test and I went to Bauman's house: For two weeks I waited for the results.
"I hoped and feared," The results were positive. The reality of the results shocked him. On a taxi from Bauman House to Mukono he went wondering what to do with the news. He was a lecturer having got a first class degree that got him retained at Bishop Tucker College.
He decided to tell people about his HIV status. "I told the principal, my students and the circle kept expanding, they would get shocked but later would assure me of their support. One of the students said, 'let's pray for our lecturer."
But at times depression would take the better of him; he quit lecturing and enrolled for a Masters at Makerere University. Six months into the course, he saw an advert in the newspapers by Church of Uganda requesting for HIV trainers.
He applied for and got the job in 1993 and dropped out of the course. The church programme got into problems and folded up in 1995. He was jobless. Depression and loneliness set in.
It was during this time that he thought of marrying again, and started searching for, yes, an HIV positive woman. He even asked friends.
When someone mentioned 'Pamela', his heart missed a bit; he knew her! She too had been widowed by Aids. "I doubted she would accept," he says smiling.
When I told her, she was surprised. Then she said she had had enough pain and did not want to go through it again; then she promised to think about it. Slowly and eventually she accepted.
Many pastors thought this was madness, "but one pastor Canon Katwesigye agreed to wed us."
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Canon Gideon Byamugisha works with the World Vision. He is also a commissioner with Uganda Aids Commission. He was born in the village of Kicumbi, Ndorwa County, Kabale district to John Bernard Karakabire and Mary Karakabire in 1959. They were 14 children, but four are now dead. Mr. Karakabire was a catechist and the family was always moving. He studied through Kihiihi Primary School, Makobore High School and Makerere College School and Makerere High School, and then joined Makerere University to study a Bachelor of Education.
After his degree, he went to Bushenyi to teach in Ruyonza School and did part time teaching at Bweranyangi Girls and Bushenyi Teachers College. At the college he fell in love with Kellen in 1986 and the following year they wedded at Emmanuel church Kabwohe.
Soon after he left Bushenyi to teach in Kihiihi, Rukungiri district. While there, the Bishop of North Kigezi diocese then, Bishop Ruhindi while visiting Kihiihi High School got him interested in serving as a priest. With encouragement from his father, Gideon decided to walk the 54 kilometres from Kihiihi to Rukungiri to take an interview for priesthood.
He passed it and joined Bishop Tucker College Mukono for a Bachelor of Theology. Then he went to Cardiff University. Gideon watches soccer his teams being KCC, Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Indomitable Lions. He loves singing, reading, writing, counselling. |
On July 28, 1995 Gideon and Pamela wedded. Soon he got a job at Namirembe Diocese as head of the Aids programme and Bishop Samuel Sekadde and his wife Allen offered me accommodation within their compound.
"Their support has been so tremendous, that in 1998 when I got very sick, they wrote to doctors like Madraa, Cathy Watson and Soozi to help out I got treatment and got better," he says with emotion.
Byamugisha says he has had his ups and downs but has managed to live a normal healthy life because of his beliefs on attitude, faith and openness.
"Aids or no Aids, a positive attitude is important to avoid anxiety, stress and mistakes, life has its problems."
"I seek immediate medical advice for any opportunistic infection, for example TB is not expensive to treat if its treated early, I got it, treated it and the kathing (sic) went."
Openness, Gideon believes will see you live longer. This does not mean going public. It means sharing the information in confidence with people close to you.
"Does your boss know, your wife, your pastor or Sheikh, do your parents, guardian or teachers know?"
Gideon says people who matter in your life should know what you are going through since you will not function well without their support. These are the people who will assist financially and emotionally and will help with taking drugs.
"Using a condom shouldn't be the source of a quarrel between a couple," he says. Gideon is sad that Africans continue to die of a manageable illness at a time when the world knows so much and has resources to tackle it. He is also not happy with religious leaders who stand up to say, 'unless people get saved, Aids is going to finish us'
"Aids is not about religion, but accurate knowledge and attitude. Countries that have low infection [rates] are not more religious than us."
He has two children with Pamela, born in 2002, and 2003 respectively. They are HIV negative. | 
