The Garuga Road II

Life in Uganda has many unexpected dimensions for the newcomer or mzungu (white person). One example is the taste of food. I suppose if you buy organic food in the UK this won't be so true (we could never afford it), but here eating an egg is an explosion of flavour! A chicken here tastes like I remember chicken used to taste before Sainsbury's and frozen ones came along. And so on. A huge delicious pineapple costs about 42p; massive sweet avocado's cost 21p each. 20 bananas cost about 50p.

(The Karamojan dancers)

Christmas Day was moving. We had about 20 Ugandans with us for a big Ugandan meal which included matoke - mashed, steamed plantain - and goat stew. Goat is expensive meat; beef is the cheapest! We had two orphan girls here, one of whom had never ever been off her Ssese Island - never seen a car even. We had 10 young Karamojans who did the traditional war dance in tribal costume and war paints and played the drums; they are so poor that we bought the drum sand the costume materials. They were out of their minds with gratitude. One of them is our security guard. These three, plus our housemaid, were all given presents from us. For all of them these were the first Christmas presents they had ever received. We were all in tears of emotion at the sheer joy and excitement on their faces as they received their presents - before they even got to open them!! One danced around the room with the present on their head. Another danced sort of waltz style holding the present as their partner. The magic of Christmas, the joy of giving, was never as strong or as bright in all my 52 years as that moment.

Everywhere we go people, especially the little children, shout out "Mzungu! Mzungu!" and wave and run after us. The kids want to touch our skin to see whether it is painted on! Many are totally naked and they have almost nothing to do. Children are worked very hard. In the photo they look like they are having fun, but this was a photo-interlude in doing all the family washing in bowls using the water from Lake Victoria just behind me. They have to scrub the clothes with a soap bar and then trample them in the bowl for ages. Then the clothes are rinsed in the lake and then spread out on the grass to dry. One problem her is that the clothes them become infected with the Mango fly. The grubs hatch out and bury into your skin and then erupt out through ones flesh days later! The main task of children here is to fetch and carry water, and this is done using large yellow plastic cans. Tiny girls can be seen almost being run over by cars as they struggle along the roads and tracks with two huge 15L cans.

Top: Typical group of kids; bottom: typical improvised toy

Many kids make toys out of plastic cartons with wheels from bottle tops or anything they can find. This little lad's was quite effective; I saw him at a fishing village near our site where the HIV/AIDS infection rate is probably over 90%. 600 people living in tiny shacks thrown together from bits of rough planking and corrugated sheeting!


Living here I cannot help but be amazed at the privileges that even I, someone always brought up with a keen awareness of the world, have so taken for granted. The need is so vast that unless one is very disciplined and focused one can be overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and hopelessness.


But I can see already that if one is convinced that one is making a difference for the many with one's life out here, then this enables the difficult and painful choice of saying "No!" to individuals. Even so I carry lots of small packets of peanuts with me to give to the endless stream of Karamojan child-beggars in the main streets of Kampala.


Jesus said: "There will always be poor among you", quoting from the old testament. The question is, why are there the poor, and what can we do about it? Or do we do nothing? Do we justify our inactivity with comments about the corruption in Africa, and the missing millions of dollars? Is that the answer? I don't know the answers. I am just trying to plough a straight furrow for some good seed.

The Garuga Road

(Photo: The Garuga Road -site frontage)

Hi. What's a 52-year-old doing leaving a highly responsible and well paid job, his kids, friends, comfort, etc and going to Uganda (let alone do a blog)? And with an unfinished barn conversion left behind and only a caravan (14 years old) to live in when he returns with his wife, Sandy, to the UK each break!

Those who know me say that such a move is not entirely unexpected. I would add that my wife and I have known that we would do something like this since we were about 18 and childhood sweethearts. When God begins to set out His destiny for your life its hard to walk away and be happy with anything else. He designed and made me exactly the way I am; I am surely foolish to ignore the mastercraftsman's plans!

I have had 26 years or so plugging away at architecture and project management, raising a family, planting and serving a church, trying to be the very best that I can with the material I have in my hands and life. I feel that I have proved that I do not need to run away to Africa to succeed. I am not copping-out. I am not inflicting myself as a failure on Africa - the last thing it needs.

No! For Africa deserves the best that the 'developed world' can give. After plundering its wealth and violating its people and cultures, often in the name of progress, God and humanity, I feel it is time to repay debts. So much of what I have enjoyed in life has come from Africa. Coffee, tea, chocolate, bananas, pineapples, metals, leather, music, etc etc. But my vision is to serve a people who have everything they need to succeed. What they need are servants who can help build hope and courage, vision and self-respect, who can help them paint a picture of what could be and then hold their hand along the path.

The Team!

I am part of a team. Team. What a sinple word, but what a challenging thing to be a part of. One person can make or break it. Each person plays a unique role and brings to it a unique set of gifts as well as problems! My gift to the team appears to be a set of technical competencies: architecture/design , construction management, tropical agriculture, development. But I am aware that the team out here needs more than that. We need a commitment to each other that goes beyond anything that I have experienced in business to date. The closest I got to it was the first three years of married life when we were founders/leaders of a Christian community house in Ardwick, Manchester ('Barnabas'), living out of each others pockets and coped up really close with almost nothing in the world but each other - and a vision of what 'might be' in that forgotten corner of the inner city. Very similar to here really. Another backwater, bearing the flotsam and jetsam of the capitalist thrash for success at any price.

The team is 'Cherish Uganda'. We all feel called by God in some unique but interlocking way to see today's HIV orphans of Uganda (110,000 estimate) cherished, nurtured and equipped to become the leaders and movers and shakers of Uganda tomorrow. We are amateurs at this but each an accomplished individual in a proven sphere before we met here. And the team is not just those of us out in Uganda but a hidden team of funders, supporters, back-room administrators and friends in the UK, US. Australia, Canada, and elsewhere.

What makes this project unique -at least as far as we can see - is not the idea of orphan villages. that came from KPC's Watoto villages. Inspirational people with huge experience and credibility.

(Top: A typical Watoto house; bottom: Looking out over a Watoto village)

It is partly the fact that orphans with AIDS rarely get admitted to orphanages in Uganda. (AID Child in Musaka is one of the few doing this; pray for them!). It's also that Anti Retro viral therapy (ART) is also rarely given to orphans, since such therapy only works effectively to those living in caring, stress-free conditions with an excellent diet and support. This is unlikely for kids who have lost their family through AIDS and are seen as having o economic value - just a drain of already short resources. Cherish Uganda has been promised full medical and ART support to their children from The Mildmay Centre - the leading AIDS hospital in Uganda. Finally our village will be sustainable in every sense of the word. The leadership will be handed over to Ugandan nationals; the site will be self-financing; the food will be grown organically on the site's farm; vocational training in a wide range of subjects will be given to all the children before they leave the village so that they can either go to college/university or take up jobs in the community.

Sandy and I arrived here on 4th December 2006. This blog will tell the story of how our dreams unfold. Follow with me this incredible adventure. Be a part of it! You will see as you follow that this is probably one of the most integrated and dynamic projects you have ever heard of. It 'ticks all the boxes' that you have dreamed of and longed for when you watched Bob Geldorf and Bono go apoplectic over the pillaging and waste of Africa, the failed schemes and the wasted aid.

See you in the next blog