The American dream is getting exhausted, judging from the new tide of Africans there who are packing their bags and coming back home. But the Ugandan dream is very much alive and you should try it.

It started over a century ago with the Indian labour gangs who came to build the railway. After the job was done, these simple labourers upgraded into businessmen and today their children are among the world’s most successful entrepreneurs in Europe and Canada.

During the just ended Lent season, we have had two cases of simple labourers who have upgraded themselves to the highest levels of the healthcare sector.

First was this group of builders who put up a health centre in Kasangati, a stone’s throw from Kampala. The centre was finished but the government was dragging its feet posting doctors there (and we can add that the most prominent doctor in the small town was too busy with opposition politics), so the masons upgraded themselves and became medics. Some unkind security people arrested them a couple of weeks ago as they attended to their patients.

Then more recently, a former porter who had promoted himself to a doctor was arrested at Buwambo Health Centre, less than an hour’s drive from the capital.

The brother was going about his duties treating people when a newly appointed resident district commissioner (the president’s representative in the district) came in shivering with several complaints. Ex-porter Fred Mukwaya duly attended to the VIP, relieved her of some money and got ready to fix a drip on her. It was a trap and he was arrested.

There has been a proliferation of unmanned health centres because our doctors are flocking to Rwanda and other countries, hence the many opportunities in the medical profession.

Previously, it took five years of medical school and a sixth year of internship to become a doctor. Today, all you need is a white coat and an unmanned health centre to start practising.

Ours is a land of opportunity. One fellow who never passed his O-levels satisfactorily rose to become a High Court judge. Another who never went beyond primary school became a top pathologist. (Indeed opportunities abound in the medical profession.) And a coffee consultant who had never ever seen a coffee tree in his life learnt on the job in Uganda.

While a country like Tanzania that has had warm ties with China for half a century these days hunts down illegal Chinese immigrants who sell trinkets in Dar es Salaam, Ugandan Immigration gave up disturbing the illegal Chinese petty traders long ago.

At a huge send-off party for a CEO who had led a top industry for many years, staff were shocked when he told them on arrival in the country he had had no knowledge about the process he was to preside over because he was then a mere cook. He urged them to follow his example and aim for the top. So should ye all who are down on your luck.

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism; jbuwembo @knight.icfj.org