My name is Lamwaka Agnes, and I live in Gulu. I like writing. A couple of years ago I applied for Kuonyesha fund with my story, but I was not successful. Still, some people had recognized my abilities and asked me to write for a TV series, but I could not manage, given the demands at the time, and since I did not know how to write screenplays well. While at school, I wrote a lot, mainly plays, speeches, poems and articles, since I was studying literature. I entered school writing competitions, and I would sometimes win cash prizes. This nurtured my passion to be a writer.
I studied in missionary schools, and while there, since I’m a Catholic, they encouraged me and were training me to be a reverend sister. I vowed to be a nun. However, I had difficulties in my life while I was still at school, especially as I’m from a polygamous family. I found it hard to decide which way for my life to go. First, I wanted to study law in university, but my father could not afford it, so I settled for a degree in procurement. While at university, my stepmother influenced my father to chase me out of home, after she accused me of stealing food to care for my younger siblings. I could not live with my mother because she has nothing, and she was also living with another man.
I ended up staying with my boyfriend, who took care of me. I got pregnant and had a child. This crushed my dreams of ever being a nun, and it made me very sad since I could not fulfill my vows. Unfortunately, my boyfriend died, and I became a widow while still very young. After school, I got a job, but I was fired because of sexual harassment. I mean, I refused to give in to the demands of the boss, and so he fired me. I am doing a small job with my sister to earn a living. Life has not been kind to me.
I came to learn screen writing in the training, and it has opened my abilities. It has improved my skills, and my thinking capacity, and it has helped me find a way to heal. Given the trauma I have been through, writing is therapy, and when I write, I forget what is happening to me. When I have pain in my heart, I write. When I’m struggling, when I can’t reach my goals, I write. The more I write the happier I become. You see, I have a quiet personality and rarely talk to people. Often, when something hurts me, I fail to disclose it to other people, but I find a channel through writing, and now that I have learned how to write for the screen, I have found a way to cope with the traumas I’m going through.
The training has now opened a lot of possibilities for me. I want to become a producer, as I see I can write stories and make them, and sell them, and earn a living for myself. For now, I have finished writing my first script, which is like a story about my life, though of course I wrote it like it is happening to another person, for that is what writing does to me. I’m able to detach myself from the experiences that life has put me through, and when I write it down it’s as if things happened to other people. This helps me heal. And it sets up a basis from which I can create stories, and make them into films, and perhaps one day earn a living.
Written by Lamwaka Agnes.
Agnes was a participant in the 2023 Mobile Film School in Gulu.