Working as volunteers in the Church of Uganda hospital and school in Kagando, Kasese district, Uganda.
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Tippy tap
After using the toilet people use their left hand to clean themselves (no toilet paper or water). Children at Helen’s school then walk 50 yards to a barrel of water with a screw tap. They use the clean hand (hopefully) to undo the tap, wash their hands, and then do up the tap again.
Dave’s learnt about ‘tippy tap’ through his work on Typhoid. It is a foot-operated water fountain, which in the home is a 2.5-litre container, supported by string. For the Kagando Primary School Dave designed a 20-litre model. Helen trained the staff and classes on how to use it, which became an event. Everyone's happy!
Failing at school. Parents get involved
A friend of ours has 4 children at primary school, who all failed their end-of-year exams dismally, some scoring 5 %, and none above 20%. In Uganda you don’t go up a year if you fail these exams, and the two girls had already stayed down one year. Father is very busy, and mother doesn’t read. Neither of them realized that anything was really wrong.
Two things happened; one the father broke his wrist and had to stay at home for 3 weeks, and two, Helen and visiting Christa gave the children an hour or two of coaching daily for three weeks during the Christmas holidays. Father took part in the lessons, and started rewarding the children when they did well.
Both girls moved to Helen’s school. Two weeks later exams were set. Both of them came in the top 5% of their class! Now both look more confident and happy with heads held high. Both have done well again in mid-term exams.
Stages of a Bakonzo Marriage
Marriage ceremonies in any country are full of interest and colour. In Bakonzo culture there are two vital events before the wedding day, the ‘introduction’ and the ‘give-away’. These may be combined to keep costs down, as on this occasion, when Helen’s fellow-teacher was the bridegroom.
Introduction: The groom and representatives of his family go to meet the bride’s family in their home, bringing with them the dowry. This is traditionally 12 goats, worth £20-30 each. Six of these at least must be alive; the remainder can be substituted with cash and baskets of gifts. A mattress and a hoe are also essential.
The bridegroom’s family are admitted after the cutting of a ribbon. The elders of the bride’s family then discuss whether the dowry is adequate or not.
Give-away: The bride’s family hosts their friends, and some representatives from the groom’s side. A charade is performed with the bridegroom’s male representatives searching amongst the series of girls presented to them to find the real bride. When she is ‘found’ there is great jubilation, by the crowd, helped by some traditional dancers. However the couple themselves are not allowed to show any emotion.
Wedding: The wedding is hosted by the bridegroom’s family and may be days, weeks or months after the above events. Although Uganda has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world these events cost large sums of money, as the many hundreds of guests have to be fed and entertained. It is all about the honour of your family in the community.
School Debate: ‘Tourism has a negative effect on the country’
At the start of the new year the above motion was proposed to the 160 pupils of Primary 5,6, and 7. In favour of the motion many stated that that tourists stole minerals from Uganda, and that they brought diseases; surprising as we have few gems , so copper, cobalt or oil were in mind perhaps. Also, when asked for clarification on diseases the answer was “Jiggers.” Jiggers are itchy parasites that are passed from one bare foot to another via the dust, and only occur in the tropics!
Disruption at the end caused the vote to miscarry. Afterwards most of P7’s 50 pupils were publicly caned (not by Helen) for not participating in the speeches and comment.
PS By extraordinary coincidence today Helen DID find a jigger in her toe! Here is Dave extracting it with a needle and dousing it with paraffin.
Holiday Bible Clubs
We are at the end of the long two month Christmas school holidays. The hundreds of children in this densely populated valley are getting bored. Helen, Jethro (diocesan children’s worker) and a friend form UK have run Children’s Holiday Bible Clubs in two churches over the last two weeks.
The Bakonzo children love drama and games but the Sunday school teachers rarely use them. One of Helen’s aims in running these clubs is to train Sunday School workers in these skills. Two wonderful young people helped both weeks and another three joined for the second week.
In the African situation we play simple games, and avoid using materials not readily available, with the exception of “parachutes” which the children love. Actually the favourite game of the two weeks was a team game throwing flip-flops at an empty water bottle by numbers.
There is never a shortage of children; we had 200 one week and 350 the other. The challenge is finding enough helpers for games and translation. Helen is glad that she has enough Lukonzo to pick up some of the mis-translations. Yesterday the whole message was changed because of the missing word “Not”. The children all gave a heart felt ‘EEEE” to the punch line “It is always easy to obey God.” When in fact we intended “It is NOT always easy to obey God!”
Road Show: 3rd phase of Typhoid campaign
well in September and October, we today entered the 3rd phase of the
campaign. 100 selected volunteers from 4 local sub-counties, many of
them already involved in health promotion gathered in the ‘Glory to
God’ hall, Kagando for a 3 ½ hour training seminar. From 9 am men and women drifted in, and started reading the 15-page
booklet I wrote on Typhoid (email copy available on request). Chairman
Ericana, a very gifted Health Officer and friend from Kasese
introduced the day. I told the story of the epidemic over the last 5
years. We took a lot questions from the audience, and then Ericana
and I gave a dramatized presentation of ‘The Message’ (attached).
This included a presentation of clay sand filters, shown in the photo. A break followed with water and biscuits, then everyone broke into
sub-county groups, led by their coordinators. (Two of them arrived
very late because their motorcycle had broken down in the game park,
forcing them to walk!) Everyone practiced delivering ‘The Message’ to
each other. Back in plenary the 4 best presenters competed for a prize of water
purifying tablets! Ericana and I answered the questions that had been
given, and a senior local politician present closed the meeting with
commissioning the trainees, and a prayer of thanks. Everyone was paid their travel money and £1 to buy lunch. All went off
delighted, enthused and equipped to reach 180,000 people in the next
30 days. Gut perforations have dropped by half in Kagando in the past 6 months,
thanks partly to the radio shows and Health Centre training I am sure.
In the next months we shall perform 8 Road Shows in the remaining 22
sub-counties. Thank you to those who have financially enabled this
work to start (you were applauded during the meeting), and to those
who will help us complete the task.
Sunday out
suddenly last month invited us to his family home on Sunday. After
the service, which we both spoke at we went to his family home for
lunch just 500 yards from the Congo border. His brothers and sisters
were there, and remembered their father who had been killed by Congo
rebels 15 years ago. The children were taught songs, and told a story. On the way home we saw some interesting vehicles, and passed a
grasshopper catching device: they are attracted by an electric light
to the iron sheets and then fall into buckets below, to be fried and
eaten. (quite tasty actually). When we reached home Dave was called to operate on a woman both of
whose ureturs had been tied during a hysterectomy – elsewhere. That
was Sunday.
Keith Waddell: Medical Legend
becoming a doctor 50 years ago from Oxford, and St Bart’s Hospital,
London. The strong message through the chapel service and afterwards
was “Sacrificial service and faith can move mountains.” Keith joined the Africa Inland Mission in 1965, and with support from
St Mary’s Church, Islington set out for a hospital in Eastern Congo.
Before he arrived the hospital staff there had to flee into Uganda
because of violent rebellion. Once here they established themselves
in Kagando, and some months later Keith took over. He built and lived
in a one-roomed mud hut that he built, and over the next 15 years
became something of a medical legend in East Africa. One year he
returned to Bart’s (where Dave was training as a medical student), to
get his post-grad degree as a physician. In 1980 he left Kagando (to Dr Rob Morris, Dave’s brother in law) and
retrained as an eye surgeon. With the help of CBM he founded an Eye
Institute in central Uganda, which is now a department of the
University there. Keith still spends most of the year on the road doing eye surgery
camps around Uganda, into Sudan, and occasionally Congo. Aged 75 he
would like to retire from operating and do teaching, but so far has
not found a replacement for himself. He best loves to chat and tell stories with young African men, and
here is a typical pose, just below our house.
UK leave
We arrived back in Uganda today after 2 ½ months leave, prepared for perhaps our last 12 months in Uganda.
Re-occupying our lovely house in Dunfermline was a delight; it formed the focal point of many other activities. Stan and Gill and the children now occupy the main house (for Stan’s 12 month Masters degree in theological interpretation and exposition), and we two in the granny flat that we originally built for Helen’s Mum. Now we are the ‘Grannys’. We certainly had a wonderful time with the grandchildren.
This month saw the exciting arrival of Daniel and Sarah’s first wee baby. He is called Johnannes, and is totally cute.
Christa had surgery for her injured left ankle this week, and we pray fervently for improvement in her pain and disability.
Our Church, the Rotary club, 'Common Ground', and friends responded amazingly to our appeal for water filters for the Typhoid epidemic. No less than £3,500 was donated, meaning hundreds of homes and thousands of people being able to drink pure water. A HUGE THANK YOU FROM US AND THE UGANDANS!
UK leave
We arrived back in Uganda today after 2 ½ months leave, prepared for perhaps our last 12 months in Uganda.
Re-occupying our lovely house in Dunfermline was a delight; it formed the focal point of many other activities. Stan and Gill and the children now occupy the main house (for Stan’s 12 month Masters degree in theological interpretation and exposition), and we two in the granny flat that we originally built for Helen’s Mum. Now we are the ‘Grannys’. We certainly had a wonderful time with the grandchildren.
This month saw the exciting arrival of Daniel and Sarah’s first wee baby. He is called Johnannes, and is totally cute.
Christa had surgery for her injured left ankle this week, and we pray fervently for improvement in her pain and disability.
Our Church, the Rotary club, 'Common Ground', and friends responded amazingly to our appeal for water filters for the Typhoid epidemic. No less than £3,500 was donated, meaning hundreds of homes and thousands of people being able to drink pure water. A HUGE THANK YOU FROM US AND THE UGANDANS!
