Michael Kibwika Bagenda (1937-2014) was a retired librarian, who we met when he was organizing the Ham Mukasa Foundation Library. When we worked with him there he invited us to visit him at his place to also document his personal collection.
We met him as the librarian of the Ham Mukasa Foundation library in Nasuti, where he was very helpful in opening up that collection. He also invited us to see and digitize his personal photo archive. Michael was a walking encyclopaedia of Uganda’s history, partly through his own experiences, partly because of his interests. He was not only Uganda’s first trained librarian, but also an active member of the Uganda society. Michael served as a city councillor in the late 1960s and was a member of the custodian board that dealt with allocated (and returning to the rightful owners of) Asian businesses.
We now regret that we didn’t push harder to hear the stories in his head attached to his life and the photographs he cherished. We will never know what it was like for him to visit White Horse Inn in Kabale in the 1960s. We will have to imagine what he took home from his experiences as a student in the UK.
Of course Michael did not only have a professional and public career. He was also a husband, a father, uncle, grandfather and friend.
His interests are as colourful as these slides. You have to stop and stare, maybe care about what another chooses to share.
