The Garuga Road: almost home!!

It was an odd feeling to return from the UK to find so much accomplished without me! Humbling, and yet encouraging that we are a team and that the intensive planning had paid off. Now it is the beginning of September, the month when the autumn rains should begin, and we saw the roof go on the first house and our first crop - beans - gathered, threshed and winnowed. Our yield, on very poor sandy soil at the bottom of the site, and without any manure or fertiliser, was about 800kg/hectare - which is the standard yield in Uganda on a soil containing 8kg of nitrogen/hectare - which we certainly don't have. I watched the threshing by the local women, using large poles cut from trees on our land on a huge canvas we spread on the ground, with great emotion; to see 167kg of beans from 10kg sown - 17 beans per plant - was unexpected as I quite anticipated a much lower yield. The net value of the harvest was about £59 and I mused that this tiny harvest had created about 15 person-days employment within the local village over a period of about 90 days on about 3/4 acre. It may be a small number but it is a ripple across a very flat pond, and it will gather momentum.


The whole of the farmed land is now laden with produce. The maize in places is towering over 2.5m high. The sweet potatoes leaves are pouring like green lava over the mounds. Cassava, intercropped with more beans, is spreading like a miniature jungle obliterating the reddish soil.

We were having terrible trouble with monkeys (Vervets) who were stripping the maize nearest the forest rim of its cobs, and so we bought two male puppies for Mark, our Karamojan guard to train up to see them off. After 3 weeks of this trouble (3 times a day), we also sent out a prayer request to our supporters and within 24 hours the monkeys mysteriously vanished - the local people had no explanation at all! It is a salutary reminder that God has a deep interest in fruitfulness and the balance of His natural world and man's husbandry.



And at the same time the roof finally went on to the first of the three houses on site! It made a huge difference - to feel enclosed AND sheltered from the sun and rain. What was thrilling was the coolness within, despite my decision not to include a ceiling. I had argued that the design elements of significant cross-ventilation, high roof, and the huge overhanging eaves preventing the sun striking the walls, would all combine to remove the need for a ceiling, but it is always slightly scary for an architect when the theory comes to be tested. But at the same time the large windows let in a very significant level of light and allowed great views out, which I was determined to achieve.


The three housesare higgledy-piggledy and fit between the existing trees, following the contour of the land. So many of the NGO schemes are in serried ranks, as well as trying to aspire to some sort of colonial architecture. I feel that what is needed is simple design, using the materials that the local people know how to work with and with which they feel comfortable. I don't want the children and mothers feeling as if they are living in some sort of institutional design-statement. The focus should be a natural family life in simple but well thought-out surroundings where we don't fight nature and the culture but work with it.


One of the most exciting aspects of our work is to see how early we can involve Ugandans in what we are doing and to start handing over our roles to them. I believe that it is daft to suggest that Westerners are 'better than Ugandans' . What I believe is true is that we have been raised with an amazingly privileged education and training. We have hundreds of years of democracy and good government and systems of justice , bureaucracy and so on. We are also fortunate to have been brought up in a country where, generally, there is equal opportunity and access to work and positions not based on corruption and 'who one's father knows', but on real ability. I believe that we need to spend intense, quality time with Ugandans to help them to get the benefit of this from our lives and way of tackling things, whilst at the time time we learn humbly to 'walk with them' and learn about how Ugandans have managed to cope without these things. So right now we are working with a young man called Sam, a construction manager, to get him on board and to take on the task of managing the Ugandan construction teams on site. At the same time to work with us on transferring our ideas into reality in the best way in this set up. It seems to be going well for all of us.


Photos from top: The first fruits - the first bean shell to be split; The women surveying the bean harvest prior to threshing and winnowing; our sweet potatoes; the latest progress on our houses; 245kg on a boda boda - the drivers, Fins and my combined weights!!