Widows and orphans

 

The drive to Kakira is quite beautiful. Located a little way past Jinja where you can find tourist attractions and crumbling colonial houses. Tea plantations and sugar cane growing for as far as the eye can see. Lovely and green and fresh. The air is warm and you might at one point or another catch a glimpse of the River Nile or Lake Victoria.

The entry to Kakira Sugar Works is grand. With guards and a sign in sheet.

Driving in you could be forgiven for thinking that this place would be a pleasant place to live. Good security, beautiful surrounds and steady employment.

Instead you are increasingly overwhelmed by the mass of humanity crammed into this prison of poverty, disease and despair. Mudbrick house after mudbrick house, with little room between each, shared latrines that flood in wet season, the sickly sweet smell of alcohol being brewed illegally from sugarcane in backyards, children who should be in school running around in rags.

Almost every day Lulenti and Mary, our Australia HOPE International partners, would have someone come to them in crisis. Currently they are trying to put over 60 orphans through school. When these kids land on their doorstep or are found abandoned, homes are found, whether Mary and Lulenti’s own, or a relative or friend of the childs parents. Many parents are from IDP camps in northern Uganda, or from southern Sudan, all looking for work after fleeing the war and the LRA. When they die, many from AIDS due to the high level of alcohol consumption and promiscuity in the area, they leave children who have no connection to family or culture. In Australia, when parents die and leave children behind it is tragically sad, here the result is devastating, leaving the fabric of culture and society to disintegrate.

One woman they found a few years ago was living under a tree, where she had been for at least a year with three children. One boy was found almost unconscious, abandoned near a road. People die because they can't afford medical care. Kids go hungry because there is no food.

Bill, Suz and I were taken into Kakira to meet the orphans that they care for. It was a very short time but lovely to see these faces that I've heard so much about. And yet, on the fringes, like I said before, hung the children in rags and not school uniforms, who are not lucky enough to go to school, whether they are orphans or not.

HOPE's involvement in Kakira is limited to helping with emergency relief, helping out a few widows, trying to raise support to help with the cost of sending the orphans to school and a few small, mostly agricultural projects. It is not small or meaningless, especially when the money sent is added to the love, care and sacrifice of Lulenti and Mary.

But this is not the dream for Kakira. What we would love most is to build a school, with a boarding section, so that these vulnerable kids will have a chance. A chance to be loved and cared for. A chance for an education. A chance to get out of the prison of poverty that they are currently trapped in.

It may seem like you cannot do anything. But I beg to differ. Scattered across Uganda and even into DR Congo are schools that are a testament to people doing something. Can you give five dollars? A thousand dollars? Sixty thousand dollars?

Isaiah talks about true fasting and James talks about true religion. And both of them equate that trueness with looking after those who have nothing. To share our food, to clothe the naked, to help the widow and the orphan. Yes it is true that we can and should do that in our own neighbourhood but I can't help but think as I spend more time here that this global community we live in makes anyone our neighbour in a way that was unimaginable 2000 years ago.

Once again this week I was struck at the unfairness of it all. That we drive out, sign the sign out sheet and go and sleep in our hotel on the banks of the River Nile. Now I know that I can't change the situation and at this stage I don't think I'm meant to go and live in Kakira but I do feel that part of what I am here for in this world is to be reminded and remind others that we need one another. And these kids in Kakira need us more than most.

Mukama akuhe omugisha

bron

Bonjour, Merçi

Ca va? Ça va bien.

In our schools back in Australia we have to learn a language. It mustn't have been compulsory when I was in primary school because I never learnt a language until Year 8 when I started learning French. I learnt French for three and a half years and when I stopped learning halfway through Year 11 (because 'surely biology has to be easier than French?') I didn't ever have any thought of ever using it again.

In Australia, French is a fairly useless language. But I have been surprised as I have been here in DRC how much of my high school language experience has stuck with me despite having to recall much of it from dim, dark recesses in my mind. Don't get me wrong, I can't hold a conversation but at least I can tell someone I don't know French.

How does French come to be the language used here? The same way that English came to be used in Uganda, and Australia for that matter. Colonisation. Although I see the many benefits that colonisation has brought to many countries, I cannot help but see it as an ugly word, a word that has mostly contributed to the devastation in Africa today.

However, here in Bunia in the north east of DRC (that's the Democratic Republic of Congo, not to be confused with the country next door, Congo) while colonisation has left it's mark and may even have played it's part in creating the world that these Congolese live in today, it's the conflicts of tribal or political origins since gaining independence that have left the country destabilised and debilitated.

Why am I talking about DRC? I am here in Bunia, a largish town of around 600 000 people, with Bill and my friend Suz. We are here visiting our HOPE school and our partners Mozart and Sephora who run the project. Bill and I visited earlier this year and although I'm sure I told the students that I would look forward to coming back one day, I did not expect it to be so soon.

This time we have been here longer and it has been good to not only spend time with Bill and Suz and to visit with Mozart and Sephora and their family but also to meet some of the children and hear their stories.

This is a town that in it's recent history has been devastated by war and is now trying to recover. How you recover though, from seeing your parents hacked to death with machetes, is beyond me. Or hearing that you are the sole survivor in your family after they've been bombed. Added to the devastation of war is the HIV epidemic and in the school if you are not an orphan through the war, more likely than not you will be an orphan through AIDS.

These are some beautiful kids, gracious, joyful, and born with an inbuilt ability to dance and sing. Short of people coming here to hear them, I would love for them to come to Australia for people to meet them. And for them to see a little of this great big world that we all live in.

Flying away, looking down at houses that look like they could be placed on Old Kent Road, Pall Mall, Regent Street or Mayfair, it struck me that I have the choice to fly away. I have the means to see the world. It grieves me that we cannot give that choice to all the kids we have sponsored. Forty dollars a month doesn't change the fact that a family lives in a mud hut, without electricity and still struggles to feed the kids. But I do rejoice that we are able to offer these kids education which gives them the choice to not become a prostitute, contract HIV and become a mother at fifteen, or to not sleep on the streets, becoming a drug addict and alcoholic, stealing to support your habits.

This world we live in is a real world with real people and to support a lifestyle that we in the western world are used to it takes real amounts of money. We forget that we are only around 12% or less, and that most people in the world are not living like us. For us at Australia HOPE International we are able to do a lot with a little. But at the same time, it does takes more than play money to build a school. And we do have hopes and dreams of building Secondary Schools, Vocational Education Centres and a University, to be able to give these kids the best chance in life we can possibly give them.

So if you are thinking or praying about giving money to HOPE for any of our projects, I pray that you would consider giving real money and not Monopoly money - in whatever way that means to you.

Many blessings

bron

The dead mouse

 

There was a dead mouse in my suitcase last week. At least it only took a day to work out where and what the smell was from. It died in my clothes. I reacted with a bit of a yell when I found it and a few loud "ew's". The guys who where home at the time wondered what was going on. I left my clothes strewn across my bedroom floor and dragged the suitcase outside, tipped the mouse out, left it outside all day, brought it back inside, wiped it out and left it airing while I'm away in Kampala, DR Congo and a few other places for two weeks.

It was icky. And kind of disappointing seeing as there is a cat in the house. So I spent half a day washing 'moused' clothes that were otherwise clean.

But to put that in perspective.

Last week as I was driving to the office I went past a small, empty roadside stall. Little more than a few eucalypt poles and a piece of iron sheeting. Jane's stall.

I would guess that Jane is in her early thirties. She has five children. Her stall is empty because she has no money to buy produce to sell on the stall and she has been sick. She has not really been around much at home with her children.

Jenny, her eldest at around 17 or 18 with a baby who is somewhere between eight and twelve months old, came to see us in the office this week because there was no food in the house and her sister was sick.

Jenny, lives at home with two other siblings, Jill, 9, and Jack, 4. Another sister, Josie, 13, is at boarding school. The last sister Justine, 15, is married.

Both Jill and Josie are HIV positive, as is Jane. So they are prone to sickness, especially when they are not eating.

Justine is married to a much older man and is not his only wife. She went with him a couple of years ago and some of the people here who are looking out for the family tried to get the man charged with rape. But life at home is tough and he had promised the world so she has ended up back with him and no one seems to be able to do anything about it.

Josie is the only one in the family at school. She is sponsored and is in boarding school because her home life is not stable and if she is in school, she is guaranteed to get the food she needs to support the ARV (anti retro viral) treatment she is on.

Jill is not so lucky and continues to struggle with her health.

Jack should have started school by now but if he started soon he would not miss out on much.

Jane has had a hard life but had received much encouragement, care, support and help to turn it around, however it now seems that she back sleeping with guys so that they will support her.

What HOPE do these kids have?

What do I do in response to this family?

When I hold their situation up against a dead mouse in my suitcase it doesn’t even compare.

As a Christian, I believe our only hope is in having a relationship with Jesus Christ and that this is the anchor point for our souls, that we have a hope in a life that is beyond this one. But hope for this world of food and education? While salvation is free, food and education are expensive.

If you are waiting for me to answer these questions, I can't. If you have the answer please let me know.

Cheers

Be blessed

bron

Just to let you know – names, ages and some facts are approximate to protect the identity of the family.

Next week I do not think you will hear from me as I will be in DR Congo. It will depend on the quality and quantity of the internet connection. We’ll see. If not, I’ll catch you the following Wednesday.

The land of freedom

 

Kibogo! The land of freedom

Our supporter is Pastor Billu

Our guide is the Pastor Kaazi

Long living in Uganda

Oh, Kibogo!

 

The song we were greeted with on my first trip in 2008

In 2008 there was a block of three brick classrooms with no roof and a few mud brick classrooms in various states of disrepair. In 2010 there was a finished classroom block, the start of a new one and a very good latrine. Last week there was the finished classroom block, two almost finished classroom blocks, the latrine and an office and staffroom block. Not to mention the two rainwater tanks, one of which was donated by the Australian Government, a pineapple growing project to raise funds for the school and the playing field.

I think some of my favourite, funniest and grossest experiences and memories of Uganda have all happened in Kibogo. A small village in one of the most disadvantaged districts in Uganda, it is a far cry from the town that I reside in. No running water, no electricity. I heard last week from some friends that this particular district has a rate of 25% of students reaching P7. That's a quarter of the population finishing primary school. You can't tell me that that is in any way okay.

We (Australia HOPE International) have two schools in the area, through our partner CVM. One is a small nursery school with around 120 students and one is a more established school of around 350 students, this year with their first P7 graduates going through. Last week I went to visit them both. Kyabyoma is the nursery school. It's pretty basic and only has a temporary structure, a block of three classrooms made from wooden planks. But there is land where they have started a project to grow eucalypts that will provide firewood to the school and enough to sell for a small income that will subsidise teachers income.

Kibogo (about 16kms from Kyabyoma but an hours drive) is the first school I mentioned. I have a soft spot for it as, through fundraising efforts of students at Victor Harbor High School where I previously worked as a Christian Pastoral Support Worker, I have cooked many a sausage to support it.

I love seeing the progress that is made in our schools and at the same time get frustrated when I see all the work that still needs to be done and all the money that needs to be raised/ donated to do it. Individual donations are great especially as capital in building projects. They build classes and get kids into the schools. On the other hand, it is really the ongoing sponsorship of individual students and classes that supports schools to run.

It is one thing to build buildings, it is another to pay teachers, cooks, security, buy food, firewood, water (although hopefully our new rainwater tanks will alleviate this cost), stationery supplies, text books etc. These ongoing costs are constantly on the necks of these schools. And while the schools collect some small school fees from those who can afford, they go nowhere near the full running of the schools.

I was welcomed at the schools like a VIP and, along with the group of people I was with, was entertained for hours (and hours?!) by the students. The village has come a long way since 2003 when most the kids ran away screaming from the muzungu. Each time I have gone back (specifically at Kibogo) I see faces that I remember, I see girls of 15 or 16 still in school and not having kids, I see a community that is learning along with the students to value education, I see a community that has hope for the future.

We have some wonderful sponsors who support many classes by themselves, some raising thousands of dollars every month. If you also would like to be part of the ongoing work of Australia HOPE International and see these classes grow and develop, one day to the point of offering classes like IT, check out the link to the HOPE website, give the office a ring or send an email.

Have a blessed week

Bron

Just had to laugh - reading back through this I realised that I have started to unconsciously use Ugandan sayings, phrases and ways of using the English language. See if you can spot them!