Final thoughts of Uganda

The colours – green for the lush plant growth, red for the soil and mud bricks, black for the colour of their skin.

The weather - not as humid as we expected as the temperature was moderated by the altitude (380m) and closeness to the mountains.

Frustrations – to hear of sick people referred to hospital still waiting for operations while a price is negotiated with a surgeon, people who are very sick but too scared to go to hospital because the practises are so risky, kids asking you for money, power failures and the unpredictability of.

Corruption – if you want anything quickly through government agencies you need to pay a bribe and wait, wait, wait while papers are shuffled around desks.

Cutting the visitor's cake at Bushikori church

Warmly welcomed and treated as “heroes”. There are over 7,000 registered non government organisations (NGO’s) many who are Christian who are educating the people here with schools, sanitation and hygiene, health and better farming practises.

Main street Mbale with the prominent clock tower

The dark side- living in a guarded compound because of burglary and violence/ armed guards at the bank, supermarket, chemist, and all official government buildings. Not wearing a necklace down the street as it could be ripped off you. Evidence of witchcraft with “charms” placed in houses and beads on children.

Hearing kids call out “Muzungu! How are you!” and laughing at their fascination with Rex's hairy arms.

Sadness at seeing the large bellies of malnutrition on the children in the villages, the poverty, the many orphans being cared for by very elderly grandparents or older siblings, the effects of malaria treatments in the red eyes of the Ugandans.

Enjoying eating somasas (John’s favourite take away food).

Waking early to the sound of the rooster who crows at four different times during the night. Being ready to be picked up at 7.30 by the Bushikori Bus.

Saying grace fervently before every meal not only as thanks but also for protection.

Washing hands before eating and after being in the villages and shaking hands.

Open air Butcher stall

Eating matooke (cooked green plantain bananas steamed in banana leaves) and liking it!

Our serving size! not their's

Marvelling at the size of the serves of food the Ugandans can eat!

Four wheel driving on/through village roads and tracks, bone jarring and bottom numbing!

Being a Millionaire when taking out 1,000,000 shillings out of the ATM (about $A720). Everything is paid in cash, no mastercard or visa here.

Christianity – Christian slogans on matatus (mini buses that are taxis) like “In God We Trust”(and surely you have to by the way they drive and overload with passengers) / “Jesus Saves”. Christian music being played in the cafes. Saying Praise the Lord when you greet someone. Meeting other Christians who have dedicated their lives to live here long term.

Laughing at funny sayings like “Would you like some passion?” (meaning passionfruit or passionfruit juice, which is very popular here) “Are we picking you?” (Are we picking you up?) “Use some colours” = Use your colour crayons/pencils. “Do you want a bite?” = Would you like something to eat? Their understanding is literal, so if you say “I need to see you” they lean forward and look at you!

Being amazed that the power is off because someone stole a length of the main cable.

Liane being scared stiff when riding on the back of a boda-boda (a taxi bike – a highly efficient means of transport and an easy way for them to earn an income) even though she was straddling not riding side-saddle like most of the women! (Sorry no pictures of that!!!!)

Facing the oncoming traffic.

Learning a few words in Liguisu (the local dialect) “Melembe” = Hello, “Orienna” = How are you, “ Kali Kali” = ok, “Wanyallanarbee” = Thankyou very much, “Watchenyala” = Well done. (Apologies for any incorrect spelling)

Rejoicing with the African singing at Church/when a new baby is born in the clinic/ when the power comes back on/ when you get an email or blog comment (don’t forget to check out the blog archives on the side bar for previous entries) / playing “cooking” with Annie and Emma/ with Lyn when a parcel arrives that has been in transit for two years!

Why did God send us here? Perhaps to see the awesomeness of His creation and that the needs to be wanted and loved are universal. Perhaps to show us how much He loves us, as we were treated as honoured guests, and that is how we will be treated (no matter our circumstances here on Earth) when all believers are seated at the wedding banquet up in Heaven. Rev 19:9

Jinja - The start of the Nile

Had a touristy day and travelled 2 hours back toward Kampala to Jinja, the start of the Nile River.
Jinga sits on the edge of Lake Victoria and is a better maintained town with a lovely streetscape.

Went also went to see the baby orphanage where John and Lyn found Emma and Annie.

We then went to see Bujagali Falls. The photos speak for themselves. Truly spectacular! Unfortunately a dam is going to be built shortly and these falls will be gone.

Not a bad beer

A visit to see some Jenga Projects

Pastor Vincent (a Ugandan) from Jenga picked us up in the bus and drove us out to Mooni (pronounced Mornay) another very poor area. Without any land on which to grow a bit of food life here is very hard. At night the “hotels” open (an outdoor bar) and other occupations become prevalent.

Herbal Medicine

Vincent then took us up to his house, a little further up in the hills, and showed us around his wonderful garden. He is also a herbalist and has such a wealth of knowledge about which plants can treat which illness. One tree, called the madina tree, can be used in many different ways. The seeds can be used to purify water, the pods can be crushed to add fibre to the diet, the leaves can be dug back into the soil to add nitrogen and also make a tea for stomach complaints. He grows lemon balm to reduce high blood pressure, other plants can be used to treat malaria, leaves can be rubbed on the skin to repel mosquitoes and some can even be used to soothe patients with mental illnesses. He encourages the villagers to grow these plants in their gardens also.

Educating Women

His wife Grace has set up a café in the town and is training some people in basic catering skills. Any that show some aptitude they then help them to set up their own small business. She is also training the women in the villages how to use more fuel efficient stoves (provided by Jenga) so that they don’t have to gather so much firewood each day. Also she teaches them basic hygiene like washing hands and to boil the drinking water.

Goats

We drove up the hill (actually Mt. Wanale) further to see the Goat Breeding Project – quite a rugged trip! We saw the male breeding goats which they breed with the local ones to produce a higher milk production. The first female kid is then returned to be part of the breeding stock.

Lots of little children came out to see us and enjoyed the antics as we tried to reverse the van out and back onto the road. The children were tiny – one boy was 4 but looked like a one year old in size!

Water

After much scraping and mucking around we headed “up up” to see the Water Project. Jenga has installed water tanks and guttering at many of the houses to collect fresh rainwater for the villagers to share. Then they don’t have to walk as far to the village tap to collect water in their jerry cans and balance them on their heads as they walk back. We then headed to the source of the tap water. We parked the van and walked “a bit” to where the water was coming out of the ground. We saw several spectacular waterfalls on the way. There was an original government project using gal iron pipes which had fallen into disrepair (maintenance is not a word in the Ugandan government vocab) so Jenga replaced them with plastic pipes. A rock wall had been built and the water is diverted into a settling tank. Water runs then by gravity to a storage tank before running into the pipes down to the taps. It is not treated and contains high amounts of contaminants from animal and human waste further up the mountains. Jenga has trained a local committee to now look after it all.

It was a very interesting morning up in the beautiful Ugandan countryside.

Working at Bushikori

Our time at Bushikori has just flown so I guess its time to think about what we did in the short time we were there.

Visiting our sponsored children was of course our highlight. Not only did it make it real for them that they had sponsors in Australia who were supporting them, but it also made it real for us and were able to give them a big Western hug.

We were able to take many photos of sponsored students at BCC and see where some of them lived. We trekked up hills, drove along many small tracks to small villages and even helped ferry sick people back to the nearest clinic.

BushBashing to pick up a sick mother

We felt that up to date photos and information were important and saw this area as a high priority (have also stressed this point again with Dan).

We have followed up on last year’s work party projects including taking photos of the house built for Paul Tiboti (A child-headed family).

New library books were donated to Joshua Primary School from the students of Drysdale Primary School. We hope that teachers will use these and read the books to the students so that they acquire a love of reading and learning. A large box of pencils was also a gift from the students.

Some letters from students in Liane’s class were handed out to some P4 and P5 students. With teacher Lyddia’s help these children have now written back and we hope to continue a letter exchange program.

As it was the end of term, many children were going on holidays and so it was difficult to view normal classroom sessions. Some children came in the holidays for extra coaching, so Liane was able to observe some revision classes and assist a few students. Most of our time was taken up with taking photos of students, events, buildings and downloading them off the camera and making sure they were correctly labelled.

Rex also looked at the computer setup. He was able to network the computers and setup general web access from all computers.

With the money raised on the grand Final Day last year and some other donations we were able to allocate these at our discretion. We fixed the ventilation in the kitchen which was causing a large build up of smoke. Five blankets were bought for some boys under Pastor George’s care that live high up in the mountains. (We bargained the Indian storekeeper down from 35,000 UGS to 20,000 UGS - not bad, he tried to charge muzungu price!)Some money was allocated to Paul Tiboti’s household to purchase some bunk beds. The remaining money was donated for the purchase of mosquito nets for sponsored children that do not have any.

We were able to gain a better insight of the basic functioning of BCC. We met with the Chairman of the Board, Tom Odoi (twice). We learnt the bus pick up route each morning, participated in their Morning Glory sessions, shared the Muzungu office with other volunteers, formed a relationship with the staff, learnt how the Childcare Department operates, met some of the patients in the clinic,

First time mum with new baby in Maternity wing

learnt to eat Ugandan food at staff lunchtimes, Rex learnt how to drive Ugandan style (forget which side of the road to drive on just find a way through the potholes, boda bodas, pickies, matatus, and watch out for the buses and trucks!) and watched as the students prepared for the holidays and came back for extra coaching.

Dr Lervett

We attended a Chapel Service run by the students, the Youth Empowerment Seminar organised for the Secondary Sponsored Students as well as the First Ever Sending Off Ceremony for students who have completed their tertiary or vocational training studies where Rex was privileged to be able to speak to the Graduands on behalf of the committee. We also attended a church service at Bushikori Church.



All of which we have enjoyed very much.

When you write it all down it seems quite a lot. No wonder we came home tired each night!

From what we have seen we are very impressed with the important work BCC is doing in serving the community in this area. We thank God for giving us this opportunity to visit Uganda.

A Special Celebration

Youth Empowerment Conference

All the sponsored children who were in Secondary or Tertiary school were invited to Bushikori for the conference on Friday and slept over at the school that night in readiness for the Sending Off Ceremony the next day.

The students began arriving early with their mattresses and began setting up the chapel for the opening. The children were all registered and given a set of guidelines or rules for the weekend. Linus went through and explained each one carefully. Many students were still arriving late as they had to come from a long way away.

Three of the girls led us in a praise and worship time (one of them was Phebe our sponsored child)! What a thrill for us! Her mother was to be the guest speaker. The theme was “Be careful how you live/ walk” from Ephesians 5:15.

After the usual lunch of Matooke, rice, meat stew, greens we sauntered back to a presentation by a group called the Daughters of Zion. They performed a skit about smoking and drinking leading you away from God and those leading a Godly life and believing in Jesus going to Heaven. They also performed a dance and sang a song. The students then broke up into age groups for their workshops.

We were able to locate a few more students to take photos of and then went back to the office to download the pictures.

Sending Off Ceremony

The program for the Sending Off Ceremony was exactly timetabled from 7.00am to 2.50pm. We arrived at 10 when the Guest of Honour was also due to arrive, but when we got there we were the first of the guests that had arrived and they were still putting up the two marquees. Finally at about 12 we started (the guest of honour the LC5) had still not arrived. We had opening prayers, welcoming remarks interspersed with singing. John then spoke to the Graduates. This was followed by the official speeches from the BCC Child Care CoOrdinator, BCC Director, Australian Representative ( a fine speech by Rex), Probation and Welfare Officer of Mbale and the LC1. These were all translated into English or Liguisu (the local dialect). This was again interspersed with singing. It began to bucket down rain so umbrellas were bought out and the event continued. Finally the Guest of Honour arrived at about 3 pm so apologies were given because we had started proceedings without him (however no apologies from him as to why he was late). We were past being hungry by now! All the formal introductions were once again made and then the LC 5 gave his speech. All the graduates were then presented to the LC5 by Dan (Child care co-Ordinator who declared himself the Vice Chancellor and also wore a gown – he looked quite comical).

All the graduates looked very colourful in their different coloured gowns and with their mortars on. We were very proud of them even though we had only met a few. The other students sat patiently through all the proceedings. These were the first sponsored students from Bushikori who had made it through and had completed Vocational Training or Tertiary studies. As sponsors it was very inspiring to see how the life of a small orphan child, like the many we had seen on our travels through the villages, had been changed with the assistance from a kind heart all the way over in Australia. What a mighty God we have! We then had a formal cutting of the cake! All the graduates were then presented with gifts of blankets, mattresses, sheets and an item related to their profession like a sewing machine or bag of tools and a new Bible!

You can see what a great importance an occasion like this is in their culture. We finally had lunch at about 4, which was all set out in special “bain maries” (even the matooke), and were then free to leave after that, a little stiff and sore.

What a marvellous day!