“I think, it is foolish and reflective of a certain undesirable nature; when people begin frothing at their mouths like mugs of cheap beer; insulting a good will ambassador, or someone because of a photo gone wrong. Most people don’t even have a decent selfie to their name, which is not cropped and filtered until, the person in the picture seems to be of a different nationality from the owner.”
Blogger Lindah Nirvana who studied with Miss Uganda since they were 13 says they actually thought she was an Arapapa model! Read the life story of Miss Uganda from someone who knows her well before your judge.
By Lindah Nirvana
Until you have the whole world running after you, demanding your head on a barbeque stick and your innards on in a teacup, honey you have not yet made it in this world. That is what I tell anyone who gets caught up in a tornado of negative reaction towards an achievement added to their name.
If you are a hermit living in a cave in Tibet, you will be excused from knowing that the newly crowned beauty queen of Uganda has, walked into a wall of criticism directed to her looks. But again we all know that a panel of judges may not necessarily speak for the rest of the country, and as a result, controversy is bound to cloud it all.
I cannot stop people from talking and giving their opinions, because I am aware that anything in existence, is going to be judged by human beings because that is how people construct their value systems and stuff.
First of all I am not defending Leah’s physical beauty, because it is need of defending. I think she is flawless and to speak of her, I would just burst into poetry and it would be longer than Homer’s odyssey. Although I think,It is foolish and reflective of a certain undesirable nature; when people begin frothing at their mouths like mugs of cheap beer; insulting a good will ambassador, or someone because of a photo gone wrong. Most people don’t even have a decent selfie to their name, which is not cropped and filtered until, the person in the picture seems to be of a different nationality from the owner.
Even in recognition of the fact that, not everyone knows Leah personally to be in position to form an opinion based outside her photos in the media;
I am still going to take out my claws at people for saying giving opinions that will not sit well with me, because someone needs to fix the demented notion this society holds about beauty.
I will give everyone an insight into her personality;because I have had the privilege of knowing her for ten years now.This should help a stranger appreciate her more.
After reading this, It will say a lot about your soul and humanity, if you proceed to pour gasoline on the flames of bad publicity of a 23 year old girl, who hasn’t committed any atrocity outside a having a bad picture.
A girl who just had the giant ovaries to get into a national competition and had the brains and the personality to outshine her competitors.
I hope everyone reads this to the end the same way you read all those comments on social media. Ii hope you share it the same way you shared those pictures and snarky remarks.
I went to high school with Leah, just like everyone else my opinion of her was formed first, basing on her externalities.
While the rest of us, new to the experience of secondary school, were shy awkward and fidgety on the school compound, like fish out of water. There was this one girl everyone talked about, who seemed to have been born there.
Leah was always calm and laid back, like she breathed a different kind of air. It isas if we breathed oxygen and she breathed Nitrogen. She walked with an unsettling grace and a power that none of us thirteen year olds could logically attach to anything other than a modelling agency, and that is what sparked off the rumour in school that she was signed to Arapapa.
As a one of those girls, who had experienced woe at the hands of the popular kids in school too often, I was not keen on making friends with her because, from previous experience, I had come to the conclusion that the high school, popularity mill churned nothing but mean creatures self-centred creatures.
It was not long before fate used Leah to teach me an important lesson about judging books by their covers. Leah’s strong attachment to her faith and spirituality was the window that invited me into getting to know her better.
It was through the church choir and the fellowships, where I first got a zoom in. Of course It came as a surprise to me that she was there because I imagined that, she naturally would have preferred the less “dorky” extracurricular activities in school, but well there she was,sitting in a lotus position on the grass with a hymn book, practicing for Sunday service. And unlike people who use religion as an ornament to adorn themselves, Leah is a good person.
Leah is not like people of my kind who will first be shot in the head before they talk to anyone other than their best friend from kindergarten. Much as Leah had her tightly knit circle of friends from senior one in highschool, that she keeps to date she was so warm to everyone, that at hostel on campus, we always communed in her room, in between lectures and after class. She always cooked for us spaghetti and put for us a movie to watch on her laptop. She was witty and funny, always had little bits of amusing stories to tell us.
You know, how in hostel rooms there are no couches, when people are hosting anyone, they have to sit on their beds. Leah’s bed was always crowded with people watching, munching, or doing course work.
She is so much fun to be around because she has those special funky abilities that come in handy, for instance at parties, Leah is the best person to hang out with. There is never a dull moment with the place.
She always loved dancing, and we always put her as the leader for dance battles to represent our class and boy does Leah send them home howling.
Leah played volleyball in high school for her house and you just hated to be the one to face off with her. It sucked to be on the other team, because it would seem like you were a mortal playing with a goddess.
And Leah wasn’t all fun and games, she was bright and this came as a kick in the butt for those who never knew her, because it seemed like she was always doing everything else but classwork;
She played volleyball, was an athlete, was involved in every charity event from church and school clubs. It didn’t make sense that, with literally no time on her hands she would still come and beat my inactive couch potato ass at academics.
Truth is she is a genius. Ain’t no mathematician I know on this planet since Pythagorus like that sister, Leah Kalanguka.
Leah used to fix all our computer and laptop problems; she is a wizard at machines, whatever she touched even if it was as dead as a dodo, she made it work.
She used to kick ass in Chemistry, Biology and all other science subjects the rest of us were bamboozled by, that it ceased to be funny.
And you would think that she would suck at the endless notes of History plus dull French books but no, Leah was better than us all who claimed naturally arts students.
Leah is a genius, because while the rest of us had our noses stuck in our school books 24/7, and still came out with one digit percentages, Leah was doing all this stuff and she still graduated with a first class in computer engineering.
Yes folks, your beauty queen graduated Magna cum laude.
And she doesn’t just possess book knowledge or a head with good storage capacity.No.
She has got this emotional intelligence which is a rare gem, say for instance, many times when I have gone to Leah feeling sad or angry or bothered by something.
She knows when to just sit next to you in companionable silence, when to hurl pillows at the wall to release your rage and when to make a nice music play list and help you dance or sing it off.
If you needed some wise counsel from my circle of friends, it’s only smart that you go to Leah, because she has got this ageless insight and maturity, she uses to help you put things into a clear perspective.
She is one of those people who will empathize with you but will in her own sweet way help you get out of self-pity and equip you with the knowledge and material you need to get to a better place. She is so bubbly, and effervescent that, she is someone who supplies you with the positive energy, when you are running low. It’s weird but Leah always has the working solution to stuff, I do not know whether it is mystical or she is that wise but, it’s like that.
Leah is so caring that if it grew dark, and she hadn’t seen you in hours, she would pick up the phone just to ask where you are.
There is something so maternal about her, the way you would bet on your mom being there for you in everything, is the same way you know Leah has your back. I do not recall ever asking Leah for a favour and she turned me down. From helping you pass a hairpin at the end of the room, to asking her for lunch money to boarding a taxi to bring your earphones, because you forgot them…. Leah will just do it for you.Leah would never tire of being a friend. She had this unworldly patience with everyone. Like at hostel, she had a roommate but many times when my roomie left, and I was scared of sleeping in the room alone, (coz am one of those immature people) or during examination time when suddenly make up my mind in the middle of the night that, I needed motivation to read later at night or wake up early.
I would find Leah fast asleep, and then wake her up to get a spare mattress from under her bed so I could sleep in her room. She used to just get her drowsy self-up, dismantle her bed to get the mattress out and then go back to sleep mumbling goodnight. I do not know anyone who acts that sweet, when you get them out of sleep at three in the morning over silly things.
She taught me that friendship and love is not just birthday cards and titles, friendship and love is practical and sacrificial. Friendship is a verb.
Leah is the most kind, patient sweet tempered person in the world, a week towards examinations in her third year, someone at campus lost her laptop to con men; and being a computer engineering student, all her notes and class work were stored on it.
People used to go nuts and drag people to the police for losing their laptops, but precarious as Leah’s position was, with the possibility of her failing her exams with no reading material to revise, Leah kept a cool head when the person who lost it, told her. She told the person that she understood and just tried to look for material to take her through the exams.
Ten years of knowing someone can make a long blog post, but I will wrap this up by giving you my own definition of beauty as taught me to me by Leah’s in the past decade.
Beautiful eyes are eyes imbued with kindness,
Beautiful lashes are those that cry with those in sorrow
Beautiful lips are those from which wisdom and truth flow
Beautiful ears are those that listen and heed to knowledge
Beautiful hands are those that make things better
Beautiful legs are those that carry joy to wherever they go
A beautiful body is that which is home to a beautiful soul.
Uganda has and will never have a beauty Queen more deserving of the crown than Leah Kalanguka.
Reign Queen Leah.
This article first appeared on Lindah Nirvana’s blog and was reproduced with her permission. Click here for original article.
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