Best Boy Scientist Lives In Slum

By Gawaya Tegulle Michael Ssemuli, the best male science student in the country, often went to bed hungry, walked three kilometres to school and read his books by candlelight in their Nsooba slum home. The Makerere College student, who scored A in Physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics and a credit three in general paper, is teaching in a primary school in Tanzania to earn some money. His parents, Silvio and Teddy Senkumba, burst into tears when they received the news. Teddy wept passionately as though her son had died. She was evidently shocked by the news and walked all over the compound like somebody in a trance, weeping and shouting at the top of her voice. "My joy is all tears," she wailed. "Surely God remembers the poor. I have suffered with this child. We could not afford his school fees. I used to move up and down all day everyday, looking for money. I can only think of the pain I went through. We did not have a single penny, his father and I," Mrs. Senkumba said. She said Ssemuli often wept at his predicament as his chances of completing his education grew dimmer every year. Ends