Skip to main content

UGANDA JANUARY 2012

Eloise and Caitlin are spending 2 weeks in Lira, Uganda, to monitor and evaluate the Cents for Seeds project. Here is their first travel journal entry:


8/01/2012 - Elzy

It's about 5am here in Uganda and I'm wide awake. I'm trying to tap softy so as to not  to disturb Caity or to rouse the mozzie's lingering outside my mosquito net. 

We had a long but safe flight here and we arrived in Enbebbe on Thursday to Julius's welcoming beaming smile at the airport. We had one night in Kampala and we had a nice dinner at the hotel catching up with Julius and Grace and playing with 6 month old Jayden.

On Friday Julius and I went for an early training run in Kampala before starting the 7 hour drive North to Lira on a bumpy, dusty road. We had a full car, with Julius, Grace, Jayden, Florence and her 1 year old baby Grace and Caity and I. About 5 hours into the drive, all the warning lights lit up in Julius's car, we were in the the middle of no where so we made it slowly (and nervously) to the next town where we found a mechanic so we waited by the roadside whilst he worked for 3 hours on the car with no result. We finally were able to pay a guy to take us all to Lira and we arrived exhausted but safe at about 1030pm. We are staying at the Kanberra hotel in Lira, and the staff are lovely and I feel safe here.

Yesterday, I got up early for a run with Julius and 19 year old Samuel (one of the original orphans who Julius found underneath the bus in 2003) and Samuels friend Quinto. Samuel is following in Julius's footsteps with running.

I love running here, the sun rises and the roosters crow, we run along a dirt road the goes for 100's of miles, passing farmers who stop and stare and sometimes call out as we run by. Julius translates as we run, they say things like "go go Muzungo", (Swahilli for "White Person" or more literally "confused person walking around") or they yell to the boys "don't let the Muzungo beat you!"

After the run yesterday we had breakfast and headed to the village of Barr. This is one of the villages we do the cents for seeds program with. About 200 women met us singing and dancing and welcoming us into their village. We all sat in the church and they sung to us as a gift for running the program with them.

We then spent the following hour with them explaining how we were going to improve the program, what our vision is for it and encouraging them to make the most of it. It went better than we could have ever imagined, they were responsive and happy with what we had come up with to help break their cycle of poverty. We have a few new comers to the program and so we explained step  by step from how we fundraise by telling our friends about them in Australia, to them registering their names to receive their seeds and having a educational agriculture workshop (one of the big step in improving cents for seeds) to planting and farming and eventually harvesting and returning their loan and the rest they keep to eat, feed their family, sell at the market and store for the future.

We answered their questions and calmed their fears about if their was a serious drought and they did not get a harvest what if they couldn't repay the loan. We told them about all the friends and supporters they have in Australia who love them and are standing beside them.

After the meeting we cracked open the some 200 bottles of soda and we watched and took photos as they sat and drank. A number of women came up to us at the front they would get down on one knee with hand reached up and say "opoyo" which means thankyou. There is not much that moves me more than this. To know that we are making a difference in this village causes me to thank god over and over again.

As we drove out of the village, a man who was very sick, shaking and groaning and sweating profusely  tried to get into the car, Julius thought he was a mad man and ordered him out, the man collapsed on the ground and Julius realized he was sick, he said he had no family to take him to get help and we were told by another man that there was a government run medical clinic a few miles up the road. On the way to the clinic in the car, the man was in a really bad way so Julius reached back and layed hands on him and we prayed for him, Julius asked if he wanted to receive Jesus and the man said "yes" and begun praying with Julius. We got him to the clinic and told the doctor and they layed him down and said they would take care of him.

It was a sobering drive back to Lira after a morning like that, TIA (this is Africa)





Comments

  1. Wow. Such a divide between the comfort of our Western lives and the mere survival each and every day in Uganda.
    This is a wonderful program, and you can be proud of your efforts!
    I was wondering what the women are going to be growing, did I miss somewhere what type of seeds they are loaned?
    Keep up the great work, I look forward to reading the next chapter of your trip.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I am Strong

Tug of war with the boys  We began our second session - this time talking about "strength" in the harsh heat of the afternoon on Friday. We started with a brilliant demonstration of strength. We bought 3 yards of rope and  set up a tug-of-war. We started with two strong boys against each other, and then added  more and more people but only on one side. The game made everyone laugh and led to lots  of different teams: kids vs adults, girls vs boys etc. Andy began the session by stating "on our own we may not be strong, but together as a  team, we can be strong." this was a clear way to communicate a strong message of the  importance of unity. Then we explained that being strong is not only about having big muscles. Strength can  be on the inside as well as on the outside, and being strong means making good decisions. Andy used the example of two coke bottles. He took one and shook it very hard, then put another unshaken bottle next to it. He ask Bri

KONY 2012: Our Response

After the dust has seemingly settled on the overnight media frenzy that was "Kony 2012" we thought it a good moment to contribute to the mass of online information on the subject. Our aim in this post is to simply inform and empower those who have been moved by what they have seen in recent weeks, to be able to make wise choices about their response. Hopefully we can contribute to the conversation in a way that does not further dilute the real issues. There have been many criticisms of the Invisible Children campaign and video, from those who have chosen to unpick IC's financials, to those who have personally attacked the maker of the film Jason Russell. After the sad events of the weekend concerning Jason, we offer our best wishes and support as he recovers from what has clearly been an extremely draining and difficult period. I personally felt so overwhelmed and stressed by the huge media response that Love Mercy experienced two weeks ago, yet this was compara

Love Mercy X Water for Africa

Love Mercy Foundation has been operating Cents for Seeds for the last 7 years in remote villages in Northern Uganda. On each of our trips, we could see the progression and improvement of our villages in a tangible way - the women and families had more food, they seemed happier, but we couldn't say for sure.  We did some pretty significant research in February to try to confirm what we had hoped- that Cents for Seeds was working. You can read the full report here BUT one of the key findings was that access to water has the highest correlation with levels of wellbeing in the communities studied in Northern Uganda. People who have to walk 10km or more (up to 3 times per day) have lower levels of Wellbeing. Which seems sort of obvious, but this means that, no matter how well the Cents for Seeds program is going, unless the community has access to clean, safe drinking water, the levels of wellbeing will not reach the highest point they could.  Enter.... Water for Africa.   W