I Am Only Mulya Ikeere: A Discourse on Loneliness, Rejection, and the Triumph of the Broken Soul

 

By Isaac Christopher Lubogo

 

Prologue: Born of a Woman Named Margaret

 

I was born to a woman named Esereda Mugeni Margaret—God bless her soul—a woman who labored me into this world alone, and then, in the cruel arithmetic of life, left me alone. That’s how it began. Alone. With nothing. No job. No degree. No inheritance. No connections. Not even a surname that rang with pride in the corridors of Kampala or the huts of Wairaka.

 

I was just a boy with bones full of questions and pockets full of dust.

 

But I had one companion. Not a man. Not a woman. But God.

As Scripture says, “When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” (Psalm 27:10).

And He did.

 

 

I Was a Stranger in Every Land

 

In Wairaka, I was never accepted, because I wasn’t “Wairakan” enough.

In Kampala, I was ignored, because I wasn’t “graduate” enough.

I belonged nowhere.

 

Those without degrees didn’t understand why I dared live in the capital.

Those with degrees scoffed at my presence as if I were polluting their intellectual air.

I was a ghost walking among the living, a weed among roses, a question no one wanted to answer.

 

And in the midst of that rejection, one day, I turned to my brother and friend Kakuku and, with a trembling voice, said:

 

> “Mwana iwe, ebintu binsoobeire”

(mwa-na ee-we, eh-bin-too bin-soh-bei-reh)

“Brother, I am lost… completely confused.”

 

 

And oh, how true it was.

Confused. Broken. Afraid. Forgotten.

 

Then Kakuku Looked at Me…

 

He saw what others didn’t.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t lecture.

He simply looked at me, wounded and weary, and said:

 

> “Muuna Lubogo, lekera okwekubagiza”

(moo-na Loo-bo-go, leh-keh-rah ok-weh-koo-bah-gee-zah)

“Brother Lubogo, stop feeling pity for yourself.”

 

And it felt like lightning had entered my bones.

It reminded me of the poem Self-Pity by D.H. Lawrence, which says:

 

> “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.”

 

Even the bird, frozen and dying, does not complain.

 

And suddenly, in that moment, the poem Invictus came to me, like an anthem in a storm:

 

> “I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

 

I Asked, “But What Now?”

 

And then Kakuku said something I will never forget.

He looked into my soul and whispered:

 

> “Lubogo, oli mulya ikeere.”

(moo-lya ee-keh-reh)

 

I paused.

“Mulya ikeere?” I asked.

“What does that mean?”

 

And with the wisdom of ancestral pain wrapped in a smile, he explained:

 

> “Mulya ikeere byalondamu eikeere, alondamu eisaavu.”

(moo-lya ee-keh-reh bya-lon-dah-moo eh-keh-reh, ah-lon-dah-moo eh-sah-voo)

“He who chooses to eat a frog, having no choice, must as well choose the fattest one.”

 

You see, in Busoga culture, eating a frog is a taboo—a symbol of degradation, desperation, and disgust.

But if life has pushed you so far that you must eat it, then eat the biggest one.

Make it count.

 

 

So I Ate the Fat Frog

 

Yes.

I was unemployed.

I was a dropout.

I was ridiculed.

I was homeless in my own country.

I was too dark for some.

Too rural for others.

Too ambitious for many.

Too spiritual to be logical.

Too poor to be considered serious.

Too broken to be trusted.

Too raw to be refined.

 

But I worked.

Oh, I worked.

 

I toiled in the night.

I studied when my eyes bled.

I wrote when my fingers trembled.

I knocked on doors that were never opened—then built my own.

 

And slowly, I moved from being a Senior Six disgruntled dropout to a Magnum Cum Graduate,

to a Doctor of Law Fellow,

to a PhD in Law Candidate,

to a PhD in Psychology and Philosophy Candidate,

to the Winner of the 2022 Africa Legal Tech Innovation Award,

to the 2025 Scholar Media Group Africa (SMEG) Excellence Awardee.

 

And yet, I’m still “mulya ikeere.”

 

 

The World Still Says…

 

“You write too much.”

“You are not lawyer enough.”

“Your books are not peer reviewed.”

“You don’t belong in this room.”

 

But they forget,

I am just mulya ikeere.

 

And if I must eat the frog of poverty,

I’ll make it the fattest, juiciest, most seasoned frog they’ve ever seen.

 

That’s why I’ve written over 70 law books—groundbreaking, all free, all at lubogo.org.

Most of them written long before ChatGPT was even born.

That’s why I write like I’m dying tomorrow.

That’s why I dare what others fear.

Because I know the pain of being nobody,

of being whispered about,

of being laughed at,

of being unwanted in every village and every city.

 

This Is for the Mulya Ikeere in You

 

To you who feels unwanted.

To you who failed an exam and never recovered.

To you who sleeps on borrowed floors.

To you whose dreams are dismissed as delusion.

To you whose accent is mocked,

whose clothes are laughed at,

whose very presence is questioned—

Let me say:

 

Eat the frog. But eat the fattest frog.

Let them call you names.

Let them reject your books.

Let them laugh at your hustle.

Let them whisper in corners.

 

But do your very best.

Build. Write. Preach. Teach. Clean. Create.

If it’s hard—do it anyway.

If it’s humiliating—do it anyway.

 

But do it excellently.

So that even your enemies will one day say:

 

“But at least, it was a fat, juicy frog.”

 

 

Epilogue: I Am Still Eating Frogs

 

Even now, with titles and awards,

I wake up and remind myself:

“Lubogo, you are still mulya ikeere.”

 

And so I labor not for applause,

not for validation,

but because in this wounded flesh,

God has deposited the courage to try,

the resilience to fail,

and the grace to rise again.

 

And if the world must remember me by one proverb,

then let it be this:

 

> “Mulya ikeere byalondamu eikeere, alondamu eisaavu.”

He who must eat a frog should eat the fattest one.

 

 

 

And to all the wounded warriors out there,

I see you. I salute you. And I say: Eat the frog.

 

About the Author:

– Isaac Christopher Lubogo

Doctoral Fellow. Thinker. Survivor.

Still… Mulya Ikeere.