If you are still not sure what Studio Edirisa is all about, or if you are hopefully thinking about joining the team, we have something powerful for you. Nobody before David Tumusiime has spelled it out so well!

Why I Write for Studio Edirisa?

1. The believers here

There are fewer greater thrills than meeting a like-minded believer. You know that click, that connection, they are always talking about in the movies? It is real, realer in Kampala, Uganda because the believers, the devout in the things I follow, in the things I care about, are so few and far between. were it not for Facebook, not for Lee-Burners, I would never have believed in Uganda are people who would buy a book to read before an Alvaro or missing out on Chilli’s.

I would never have guessed that there are free thinkers with their own group who meet to talk ‘rationally’ and want to create a space for themselves, a big hut shelter, and I could come in anytime I wanted, check out if I wanted.

Away from the crowd, the roar of pork talk and premier league statistics, there are people who have refused to believe East Africa is a gone case and that there is nothing you can do. Nothing but to join in the hog killing, the ham chewing, the three-double-chin developing, as you get those deals that deprive hospitals of funds to buy baby incubators, stock the medicine stores, allocate funds to the local councils to start working on the roads, get us national IDs.

There are Ugandans and their non-Ugandan friends who do not cry over what has happened but believe in every situations dire nightmare, there is a tunnel waiting for you to emerge into the light. Studio Edirisa reminds me of that. Reminds me that friends are not just for idle texting when I see a grammar mishap that would amuse us all, but that in times when my faith is shaken, when I begin to wonder, the believers are here and we are many!

2. I was tired of doing nothing

The first step to achieving anything is taking that very first step. Yes, I know it seems so obvious but it is the most seemingly obvious that eludes us most times. If the obvious were so, well, we would all be in the right jobs, with the people we want to be, exactly where we want to be in life. Our talents and abilities would be clear-cut and we would know exactly what to do, and when to do it. But the obvious isn’t so…

It took me a long time to get out of the hell of keeping ideas bottled up, mulling over, sneering when yet another ‘talentless wannabe’ made it doing what I thought I was so much better at it. I was so far down the rabbit hole of criticising I never for a moment stopped to admire the beauty of their efforts. The raise from your seat and applaud them for trying angle because they were doing something, even if very badly, about fields I cared about – Ugandan culture, art, young people and the opportunities that will shape them. Studio Edirisa gives me a starting platform – far from perfect, far from the ideal I also daydreaming envisioned, but it is here, it is real, it is trying to make a difference and I want in with this crowd!

3. Something I have never done

I will be on radio sometime soon. Yes, me, who likes to ponder every word before I bring it out! (And I hope I will not be as tedious as some talk show hosts on UBC TV – why do they always get the oh so serious it’s like we are before a High Court judge and the charge is murder?) I will be on radio, doing some interviews and though I’m nervous, though I’m not sure what kind of voice I will project out (people who call me always start by asking me ‘were you sleeping?’) I’m still going to do it. That’s what Studio Edirisa is about, for me – doing things. Especially things you are terrified of doing – because you don’t want to look, sound silly – have never done before and are not sure if you want to start now.

Studio Edirisa is like the brother who taught you how to ride a bicycle. Everyday, you found more courage to push those pedals, wobbly yes, they were so hard to bring down, but you kept trying because there was voice behind you – ‘I’m holding you, push yourself,’ and you could feel the steadying hand on the carrier of the bicycle. Then one day, you were pumping, pedalling, the bicycle had a momentum you had never felt before and you knew it was you who was moving it, riding it – you turned to laughingly tell your big brother – this feels good! He was not there! He had let you go, and he was now a tiny hand waving speck in the distance – he had let you free. You could ride! Studio Edirisa does that – shows you that what you can do, you are not doing because Studio Edirisa is there, it was always in you, Studio Edirisa gave you the courage to try it finally.

David Tumusiime is currently engaged in creating a Ugandan films website, is the owner of www.madandcrazy.blogspot.com and writes for Studio Edirisa as well as The Observer.

More: He is Mad and Crazy – something about David Tumusiime