The flavour of Uganda

I never seem to fully communicate the flavour of Uganda and get you to smell the smells and sense the sensations, so this Blog’s purpose is just that!

1. We learnt recently that until very recently women were not allowed to eat chicken – the preserve of men alone!
2. The Buganda (main tribe, and our area) greet by falling on their faces (women) before each other and before men (I love it!!) – but tribes from the south of Uganda actually hug and kiss each other on both cheeks!
3. A couple of people were arrested recently in Kampala for selling dog meat as goat meat; it seems that elsewhere in Africa, e.g. Nigeria, dog meat is prized and there are special dog meat butchers.
4. Ugandan men (and some women!) find it quite acceptable to pee at the side of the road.
5. You should never talk to a Ugandan woman about being pregnant and NEVER touch her tummy (not that I ever do) – this is seen as an attempt to curse the baby or put witchcraft on the child.
6. The bodaboda driver is quite happy to carry two or three passengers as long as they realise it costs more than one. 6 incl. driver is the maximum I have seen to date.
7. Men here are generally more fanatical supporters of English Premier League teams than the English.
8. Tilapia, the main local fish of Lake Vic, beats cod and haddock any day, but is an ugly brute. Best eaten chargrilled, with ones fingers.
9. One of the regular ‘village’ jobs of women out here (that really upsets me) is stone breaking; women sit with babies on their backs hammering rocks on a large stone to create aggregate of different sizes for concreting, which they sort into piles around them, for which they get paid a pittance; they never wear protective glasses and Lord knows how many of them go blind.
10. The driving … LORDY LORDY! The driving …. not enough room here to describe. There are no rules, be clear on that point at least.
11. Ugandans don’t generally discuss important things with each other (unless very, very close friends) because showing any interest is seen as an opening to offer financial help – which everyone is always looking for - such a sponsorship for children at school (there is no such thing as free education in Uganda whatever the government says); so conversation tends towards being shallow and dull – almost an art form; this is apparently why mzungus (ex-pats) get into such trouble being asked to provide financial assistance – we show too much interest in people!
12. Lake flies and grasshoppers are delicacies here – crunchy fries, mmmmmm!
13. Papyrus is no longer found in Egypt but abounds here around Lake Vic.’ a papyrus mat or screen 2m x 3m costs 70p - I use it as one of my key materials in construction out here as a shade screen etc.
14. A common site here is a bodaboda carrying a massive, live sow on the back, strapped up rather fetishistically, or an 85kg Nile Perch protruding from a vast sack. No-one blinks an eye!
15. For Ugandans a woman’s most provocative part of their body is their bottom. Breasts are, apparently, boring. I have yet to work out what a sexy bottom looks like to a Ugandan because it is a no-go topic of conversation….! However one could balance a full tea-tray on the top part of the bottoms of many women in this part of Africa, although I have yet to see this.
16. Bilharzia is a deadly disease caused by microscopic flukes in the liver, which the BBC website will tell you comes from swimming in the lakes, but in fact you get it from any contact with any infected water; I have it (because of my sailing) but am now in a sort of safe symbiotic stasis with several of the worms living in me and defending their territory against all invaders – all of which keeps me safe!!
17. Entebbe, the old capital of Uganda, has not a single public butcher’s shop with fridges or cold stores for keeping meat, let alone separate cutting boards for different things.
18. 50% of all deaths on the roads (which occur 100 times more per capita than the UK) involve bodabodas (mopeds) – about 16 deaths a month in Kampala city each month alone; now you know how terrified I am of driving my bodaboda and how exhausted I am after every trip!
19. Wherever a Westerner goes in Uganda the children will scream out incessantly, “Bye, Mzungu!” and not stop until you reply (Mzungu is their word for stranger – its not meant to be insulting). It can get a bit waring …..
20. Go to the National Livestock Research Centre, Entebbe, to get help with an infection with your birds. They will have no medicines or vaccines to treat them although they are the national centre for breeding Uganda’s chicken!
21. Pineapple cost from 25p; mangos from 13p; a huge hand of bananas 65p; massive avocadoes from 13p; pawpaw from (papaya) 45p; it’s heaven!!
22. Women must have multi-jointed hips; they bend 130° from the waist. This means that they can stand upright but pivot down above the waist and wash the floor with their palms spreading a large floorcloth - for hours at a time.
23. You haven’t really experienced thunder and lighting until you come to the northern shore of Lake Vic – Kampala is the lighting capital of the world! The cacophony continues for up to two hours within the same location with maybe 10 and minute. The thunder is louder and more intense than anything in the UK. Nearly every night one can look out to the lake and se in the distance somewhere an amazing firework display of the heavens. It’s awesome and beautiful - until one is under it!
24. You get on a taxibus and the conductor tells you the intended journey is 100USh more than you know it to be. All the Ugandans inside are also being cheated and agree with you that it is too much, but none of them says anything. You complain and insist on getting off and at the stop find the bus immediately behind you will charge the right price, at which point everyone on the first bus gets off and joins you. But no Ugandan will challenge the wrong price themselves – not even when in a gang!
25. 51% of all Ugandans are aged below 15. Kids are everywhere! They are intoxicatingly happy, beautiful and FULL OF LIFE!
26. T-Bone steak form the very best butcher in Kampala – superb quality – costs £2.50/kg or £1.13/lb.
27. When you enter a house the person entering should greet the owner, not the other way round. So when you go shopping at a local/village shop the shopkeeper will expect you to greet him not him to greet you. So customer service starts on the wrong foot!
28. Ugandan skin is like black satin or velvet; one wants to reach out and stroke it …… there is almost no body hair.
29. A regular sight is a dog lying dead in the middle of the road. This tends to happen mostly on Saturday nights for some unknown reason – Sunday trips to church are most unpleasant! No-one ever seems to remove the carcasses so the stench by Wednesday affects a long stretch of road. I do have a satirical comic sketch I have written on this subject, but not for here!!
30. Queuing is a western art, and don’t forget it!
31. Ugandan men have a habit of walk along clutching their groin area of their trousers in bad weather to keep their trousers out of the mud. It’s not a pretty sight.
32. Police override the traffic lights when directing traffic at junctions – although the lights carry on operating as normal. Police don’t seem to understand that this probably is more likely to cause accidents ….
33. A constant background noise is the sound of a colony of male weaver birds chattering as they weave their nests.
34. Fetching water in jerrycans from the lake or village pump is a task for children from as young as two years old.

Have you got the flavour?

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