Posted by Howard Richman on August 15 2008 at 09:59:44:
An article posted at allafrica.com reports that Dora Mwiima, 18, was homeschooled. She will compete as Miss Uganda in the Miss World beauty pageant. Here is a selection from an interview with her:
Did you live in Nairobi prior to the Miss Uganda auditions?HowardYeah, my dad is a pastor and he got the calling to go and do missionary work in Kenya. We stayed there until three months ago when we came back home.
Tell us more about your background?
I was born in Nsambya Hospital and grew up in a family of two boys and two girls, along with mum who was a teacher/women´s counsellor. Unlike other children, I have studied primary and secondary school from home. My mother was my first tutor.
In nursery school and sometime in primary, we got a professional tutor. I enrolled into the School of Tomorrow, an American distance learning academy, whose offices are in Nairobi. So I studied at home until 12th grade.
Hasn´t your home-schooling turned you into an introvert?
On the contrary, it has not. I have always challenged myself to always interact with everybody and make lots of friends whenever I attend a social event.
I am reserved, but I also try to make the best impression on the people I meet. I really get stressed when I talk to people who do not appreciate me. I keep asking myself, what have I done to displease this person, but I make peace and let them think they are right....
At the Miss Uganda finals, NileBreweries´ Shem Semambo ´crowned´ you with six bottles of Club Beer, saying you were the ambassador for the beer. Did you drink all the six bottles?
Oh no, I did not. I do not even know who took them. I do not take alcohol and I never want to.
I presume that as Club´s new ambassador you are supposed to be kicking off the party for beer drinkers wherever you go
That is true, but I will only be going to gatherings and telling people that Club is great-tasting and easy drinking and so they should buy it. I have never tasted the beer, but I trust what the billboards say.
So you believe in judging a book by its cover?
Not really, but it is just like an airline assuring you that they are going to give you a great flight to a place you have never been!
How many languages can you speak?
English, French, Luganda, Swahili and Greek. I learned the latter from my home school tutor and much of it is the old Greek from which the Bible was translated....