Uganda, Oct. 17 -- BODANOMICS In the African setting, the fireplace served as a centre for learning and education, and for sharing wisdom and the ways of the world. One sat and listened with rapt attention to the elders (philosopher-sociologists) regale the family with conquests and calamities that befell their ancestors, how they dealt with taboos and how the next generation could be social betters. Many can recollect the exciting tales of how the small but cunning hare ('wakayima') overcame myriad enemies including the leopard, the elephant and the lion. How the slow tortoise won a race over the cunning hare. There was always a moral to these stories that addressed social dilemmas. One of the enduring fables, as told by my mother, was the...