By Henry Mutebe
If you get some time, visit the Uganda AIDS Commission for just. They will welcome you. It’s located in Ntinda. Whilst there, ask for two elderly figures; one is called John Mukasa, and the other is James Okoboi. They are quite interesting figures to interact with. I will tell you why.
They are not senior officials. They do not sit at the head of meetings. Their names may never appear in strategic plans, annual reports, or lists of institutional achievements. Yet, in their own quiet ways, they hold a very important part of that great institution. They preserve something within it that is increasingly difficult to find.
John Mukasa is an elderly gentleman who works in the cafeteria and helps with some other errands, including tending to the buildings. He is the last person to leave. He checks all the windows and doors to ensure the place is closed and secure. This he does every day.
The other is James Okoboi, who works in the records/archives office. He receives visitors with the warmth of a man welcoming people into his own home. He receives all documents and letters that come to the Commission, registers them and conveys them to the relevant offices. You will never know if James is happy or sad. He always wears a genuine smile that lights up everyone’s day. James is so respectful that he almost greets everyone- the young and old- with a salute.
To many people, especially the young generation, these guys may simply be two elderly employees going about their duties. But to me, they represent the last surviving members of a particular generation: the old stock of civil servants who believed that work was not merely something one did to earn a salary. Work was a responsibility. It was a source of identity, dignity and honour. They belong to a generation that took pride in being useful.
They report to work with zeal, with passion, with a joy that is hard to put into words. In many workplaces, there is a sense in which people are at work but not at work. There is a sort of anxiety. As though they were simply passing by or doing their work as a by-the-way. But John and James are something else. They love their job. They do their job, and they are proud of their job.
I have watched John Mukasa in the cafeteria. A young man or lady may come looking for a spoon, and John will not merely point towards where the spoons are kept. He will pick one up—with a clean smile, carefully clean it and hand it over to the person with so much love and respect. He does this without irritation, without making the person feel that he has disturbed him and without acting as though the task is beneath him.
For those of us who grew in the rural areas, its almost taboo to be served by a man his age. You are supposed to be serving him. But these guys just serve with so much respect and care that you almost feel embarrassed by their humility towards you.
There is skill in the way John does his job. There is patience. There is humility. But above all, there is respect for the person standing before him. It is a simple act, but it is not a small act. You feel it.
In a world where people increasingly perform their duties mechanically, John still places a little humanity inside his work. He understands that service is not only about completing a task. It is also about how another human being feels while receiving that service.
At the end of the day, he helps to close the building. He moves through the offices with the quiet seriousness of a man who understands that even the smallest responsibility must be completed properly. He does the work as though the building were his own.
He takes care of everything with such grace and wholeheartedness. As he moves through the different buildings and rooms, there is no audience, nor applause. There is no one watching, but he does it well.
Then there is James Okoboi. James receives visitors with a smile that makes them feel as though they have met him before. James is smart, his shirt always firmly tucked in, his trousers flat and on point.
He does not look at people suspiciously, as though their presence is an inconvenience. He welcomes them. His smile tells them that they have arrived at the right place. It tells them that they are seen. It tells them that they belong.
Some people are able to make strangers feel like intruders. James has the rare gift of making strangers feel expected. For me, he represents the best of that old generation of civil servants who understood that a public institution belonged to the public. A visitor was not a disturbance. A visitor was the reason the institution existed.
These two men carry the humility of their generation, the generosity of their cultures and a deep appreciation for what life has offered them. They smile easily. They greet people. They reach out. They notice who has entered the room.
Mukasa gives off that air of those good uncles, with that calm voice of a typical rural uncle—bred and raised with values of respect, goodness, humility and community.
Meanwhile, many of us, the younger and more ‘modern’ generation, walk through the same spaces with our eyes locked onto our phones and earbuds pushed deep into our ears. An old man greets us, and we return the greeting with one hurried glance. Sometimes, we do not even hear him.
We have become more educated, more technologically connected, and perhaps more professionally ambitious. Some of the young speak polished English. They understand modern systems. They know how to prepare presentations, attend webinars and navigate digital platforms. But I think, in gaining all these things, they must ask themselves what they are losing.
The modern workplace has increasingly placed youth, speed, English proficiency and technological confidence at the centre. The old are often pushed to the margins. They become almost invisible. Some people actually think that an old man or woman has no business being in Kampala- or in a workplace. Yet, in many workplaces, it is these old folk, who are remnants of the good past, who must keep teaching us the values that created this generation.
Sometimes, their duties are described as minor. Their experience is treated as outdated. Their slowness is mocked. Their stories are regarded as interruptions. Their presence is tolerated rather than cherished.
Many young people raised in towns have had limited contact with older people. They have not lived close to grandparents, elderly uncles, clan elders or the old men and women who once sat under trees and told stories about families, communities and the country. Some young people actually fear the old.
They have therefore not fully encountered the old in all their warmth, patience, humour, gentleness and accumulated wisdom. Their idea of what is good and admirable is often located elsewhere: in youth, visibility, money, fluency, fashion, speed and modernity. Yet an old person is a register of history.
The old carry stories of survival. They remember what institutions were before we arrived. They know the people who built them, the mistakes that were made and the values that once held them together. They know the people that have been through the gates and seats of an institution. They know those who rose and fell. Those who succeeded and failed. They have seen it, from a distance, the becoming and unbecoming of those that have come before. These guys are grand libraries of memory.
They are witnesses to governments, wars, economic difficulties, disease, family losses, professional changes and social transformations. They have buried friends. They have raised children. They have watched the country change. By the time an old man reaches the age of John or James, he has learned things that cannot be found in manuals.
He has learned patience. He has learned that human beings need to be treated gently. He has learned that not every disagreement requires a quarrel. He has learned that dignity is not determined by job title. This is why we must pay attention to the old people in our workplaces.
Not only because they are old, but because they hold values that our institutions desperately need. John Mukasa and James Okoboi are not merely employees at the Uganda AIDS Commission. They are custodians of an older moral tradition of public service.
They represent a generation that arrived at work on time, remained committed to its responsibilities, respected authority without losing kindness and treated service as something almost sacred.
They remind us that professionalism is not only about qualifications. It is also about character. It is how you welcome a stranger. It is how you perform a task when nobody is watching. It is how you speak to people who cannot promote you. It is how you treat the person who needs a spoon. It is whether, after many years of work and the many disappointments of life, you can still look at another human being and smile.
We should tell their stories while they are still here. We should sit with them. We should ask them questions. We should listen to their memories. We should learn their names and not merely refer to them by their duties. We should let them know that we see them.
Every workplace has its own John Mukasa and James Okoboi. There is always that elderly cleaner, driver, messenger, security guard, records officer, gardener, receptionist or cafeteria attendant who has quietly served for decades.
Look for them. Greet them. Sit beside them. Listen to them. They are not obstacles to modernity. They are not leftovers from another age. They are not simply figures from our past. They are mirrors of our future.
One day, if life is generous to us, we too shall become old. Our steps will become slower. New technology will confuse us. Younger people will speak a language we do not fully understand. The institutions we helped build may begin to treat us as though we no longer matter.
How we treat the elderly today is a rehearsal for the world we are building for ourselves.
John Mukasa and James Okoboi deserve to be known beyond the corridors of the Uganda AIDS Commission.
They are the best in class of that old stock of civil servants: proud of their work, committed to service, generous in spirit, humble in conduct and still smiling.
In an age obsessed with what is new, fast and modern, they remind us of what must never become old-fashioned: Kindness. Humility. Duty. Respect. And the sacred act of making another person feel welcome.
On this Sunday, I just thought about these two old folks and felt the need to send some loving and appreciation to those Johns and James that make workplaces more kinder, more humane and continue to show us that being humane is more important than anything else.
