Laceys in Arua

Only in Africa

2009-12-18T18:17:00.002Z

The BBC World Service, Africa network, has recently been running a feature called ‘Only in Africa’. Listeners write in with 400 words describing an incident, funny, tragic or just plain weird that can happen ‘only in Africa’. Passing through Kampala on our return to UK recently, we encountered a suitable entry – though it won’t be committed to the airwaves.

We discovered, to our delight, that our two days in Kampala included a Sunday when Namirembe Cathedral was holding its carol service. Three years ago, coming here in December for a visit, we had happened upon a rehearsal for this service, hearing strains of ‘Once in Royal David’s city’ coming from the open doors of the cathedral as we walked outside in the tropical heat. But we had missed the actual event on that occasion. So now was our chance.

Namirembe has an excellent choir of men, women and boys. They are accomplished in a wide repertoire from classical English church music to rhythmic African songs and visually stunning in traditional red cassocks and white surplices. So we rejoiced in traditional settings of Christmas carols accompanied by excellent organ playing, with the usual nine lessons read between the carols.

It would have rivalled most services of Nine Lessons and Carols in England, almost..... but for the ‘Namirembe Cathedral Media Team’ - four or five men dressed in the fluorescent yellow jackets more usually worn by men repairing roads in England. Of course mending roads is a lost art in Uganda so maybe the gear had been re-designated for use by cathedral staff. Their brief was clearly to capture as much as possible of the event on camera, both still and video. So, throughout the service, members of the Media Team, resplendent in fluorescent yellow, (beautifully counterpointing the choir red) stood directly in front of the singers and readers, pointing camera lenses into people’s faces and shining brilliant arc lights to illuminate the action (“ve have vays of making you sing”!!!). Rarely could we see the choir at all, just the back of three of four men bristling with electronics. They fell over each other and had whispered conversations, wires trailing and lights shining, while the conductor and choir tried to carry on regardless. Whether the choristers could even see each other or their conductor most of the time we doubted – ‘Only in Africa!’

But despite it all, the significance of the event was not lost on us and it was a great service. Here we are in Uganda, temperature around 30°C, brilliant sun illuminating palm trees standing outside the open cathedral doors, joining a full congregation to celebrate the same wondrous events of Christmas we remember in much colder climes. The truth of what we sing and hear is universal throughout time and across cultures, not ‘only in Africa’; although that Media Team was probably unique to this continent.

Come and worship...Christ the newborn King

An Englishman’s Home is.........Part 2

2009-11-28T12:51:00.009Z

Following our last blog the good news is that the dreaded Chapel tower ‘clock’ chimes have been silenced, and it involved no vandalism on our part, (so no bail required, Simon)!!! Before we had a chance to make our feelings known, others had already decided. Normally a bell (or more accurately, the metal rim of the wheel of a car) sounds to announce a service or a death, or some other significant event. The apparent 15 minute frequency of ‘significant events’ was so disturbing to residents and patients at Kuluva that a unilateral decision was taken (in the absence of the German expatriate) to turn off the chimes. We uttered a prayer of heartfelt thanks.

From time to time we still experience power cuts and the accompanying flying insects. The crickets and spiders also continue to keep us company, but they are not the only visitors to come to our humble home.

The approach of a human visitor is normally accompanied by a call outside the door of ‘ho-di’. It’s a cheery call, but often sotto voce so that you can hardly hear it. Sometimes this means that the owner of the voice can be left standing outside our house for a short time. It depends on the music we’re listening to and whether it is fortissimo or pianissimo at the time. Sometimes the call might be so quiet that even if all else is silent it sounds little more than the far cry of a turtle-dove. Generally these visitors are persistent though, and some are prepared to wait for 5-10 minutes ‘ho-diying’ until they get a positive response.

Many of these visitors are trying to sell something – Tom with his wood carvings, Luke’s table mats, assorted women selling fruit and vegetables or charcoal. Other visitors are keen to encourage you to pay for their children’s school fees, or their own university fees, or hospital fees, or make a contribution to their motor-cycle fund, or..... Our reaction to these requests tends to depend on what sort of day we’re having and whether we are still in bed or not.

Some visitors though are very welcome and a pleasure to share time with. This morning (Saturday), for example, we had two visitors in succession – first the hospital chaplain, then one of the senior laymen from Kuluva Parish Church. They were with us for 2-3 hours in total, but wanted to talk about things of real importance here at Kuluva and in the diocese as a whole. Both are truly spiritual people with much wisdom and great humility. It was refreshing to talk with them and we felt blessed by their presence. Such visits are a joy.

The animal and insect visitors are mostly quieter than their human equivalents. One exception is the monkeys. They enjoy performing gymnastics on our roof first thing in the morning which makes the tiles rattle, and us wonder if they are going to fall into the room. They come to hoover up the insects that have been attracted by our external lights during the night. We lost three fluorescent tubes in very quick succession because of monkeys jumping on to them to retrieve juicy morsels for their breakfast. Fortunately a metal guard seems to have solved that problem.

Geckos are frequently seen scuttling up the wall and into the roof, but we have no idea when a snake visited us to shed its skin. We simply discovered the skin in our living room one morning.........

And although termites leave tell-tale trails up the walls and over the floor if they get into the house, often they leave them discretely behind pieces of furniture. It was with some surprise that we removed a flip-chart from the top of our mahogany chest of drawers only to find a big hole in the top of the chest seething with termites. Some months later we removed a rolled-up flip-chart from the floor to discover it was half eaten and a trail of termites heading for the leg of the bed.......

An Englishman’s home is.......well, here it certainly isn’t his castle. But if it were it wouldn’t be half as entertaining!

P.S. We’ve got a new cooker too!

An Englishman’s Home is.........

2009-11-15T16:12:00.007Z

8.00 in the evening and we have washed up the dirty plates and saucepans from dinner. Dinner itself is often a technological triumph. The oven in our cooker has ceased to function in the proper way. It insists on going out at regular intervals. But we’ve discovered the solution! A piece of wire wound around the spindle of the oven-knob and tightened to hold it in place once the oven is lit works well, and usually results in a well-cooked meal. So far there have been no explosions, but time is probably not on our side and we think we might need a new cooker.

Of course for washing up there’s no running hot water – and indeed, sometimes there’s no running water at all. In that case we resort to the jerry cans Lucy has (hopefully) filled. But after dinner, provided we remember to put a pan of water on the gas to heat up whilst we’re eating, we can get cleared up pretty quickly and have a couple of hours to relax.

Sometimes one of us might decide to have a ‘pour’ (the local equivalent of a shower), in which case another pan of water has to be heated up. It’s a bathing process you get used to after a while; pouring boiling water into a bowl and mixing with cold water to achieve a reasonable temperature. Then, with the aid of a large margarine tub you can wash your hair and have a general, well, pour... It’s quite effective really, with the only attendant problem being the possibility of spiders or crickets jumping on you (see earlier blog for details).

But more often we’ll settle down to read, or watch a DVD, or listen to an episode of ‘This Sceptred Isle’ (we’re up to 1815 and the Battle of Waterloo), or even (sad people that we are) listen to the latest episode of ‘The Archers’. Sadder still, we have even been known to watch the odd episode of ‘The Weakest Link’, but don’t tell anyone!

It’s usually in the middle of a DVD that the power goes off and the DVD dies. That’s the cue for falling over the furniture in search of our solar lamp. Provided we’ve remembered to charge it we can at least read or do a Sudoku, or chat (we do talk to one another occasionally). At intervals we have to spray the lamp with Doom to annihilate the multitudes of flying insects that tend to colonise it. This results in a mini-graveyard which has to be cleared up after the power has been restored between 15 minutes and an hour later.

Bedtime is usually around 10.00 pm. A cup of tea in bed (old habits die hard) and a half-hours’ read, then the mosquito net is deployed around the bed, we turn off the light and are ready for sleep. Often we go to sleep pretty quickly, unless we’ve used the mozzie-net to trap a mosquito inside to share the night with us. It’s extraordinary the way they manage to discover where your ear is in the dark. They sound like light aircraft when they get that close. Then, it’s on with the head torch to hunt down the little beast, but they usually manage to hide very effectively. And so to sleep – until the water decides to return and we are woken by the sound of a mini-Niagara from the cistern in the roof as it fills up.

One other addition to the Kuluva day and night experience is a bell that has recently (yesterday) been installed in the Chapel clock tower. There’s no clock as such, but every quarter of an hour the bell strikes. Once at a quarter past, twice at half past, three times at a quarter to, then four times on the hour followed by the number of strokes to mark which hour it is. At midnight that’s sixteen strokes of the bell. This new arrival which so wonderfully and accurately marks the passing of time is the gift of a German expatriate – I doubt that he can hear it from his house, and in any case he’ll soon be going back to Germany. I don’t know if the Africans appreciate it, but for myself I may indulge in a little vandalism in due course.

Garden Talk

2009-08-31T10:20:00.007Z

They say that if you plant a walking stick in Uganda it will sprout and take root. Uganda is, for the most part, blessed with fertile soil, temperatures that are not too hot (this is Africa!) most of the year, and plenty of rain. In many parts the countryside is green and lush all year round with banana groves, tea and coffee plantations, fields of maize and beans.

But our rocky hillside is a little more challenging. The soil is very sandy and doesn’t hold water well on the 1:3 gradient. Its also pretty thin, with bare rock showing through in many places. This year we had a serious drought (see previous blog) when most of the plants turned brown and sickly. We gave some of them up for dead, as we couldn’t justify using precious water to keep them alive when people were watching their crops die for lack of rain.

But now the rains have come, with regular thunderstorms and torrential downpours. When it rains hard the water pours off the roof and rock garden and runs down the hillside outside our house to form a river running into the storm drain and creating a lake on the path below. The land has turned green again – it happens within a day or two of the first good rains.

We’ve now been here two years, and its taken us this long to learn how to create a garden in such conditions. But now its beginning to take shape, though we are still somewhat envious of friends who live in the south of the country, whose garden of tropical luxuriance and abundant bird life blossomed in only a few years. During the first year here we planted a few shrubs in the front garden, to keep company with the one rather sad bougainvillea that was already there when we arrived – it had been pruned to within an inch of its life, but is now resplendent with purple blooms. Then last year we tried growing vegetables in the plot at the side of the house – but the monkeys ate all the groundnuts before they were ripe, and the tomatoes produced only pea-size green fruits that were of no use to man or beast. So we cut our losses and planted some more small shrubs there. At the back, where the soil is thinnest, we made a little rock garden with cuttings from a friend’s established estate.

Some of the plants we used to grow as pot plants in UK are naturals here. Mother-in-laws tongue, and tradescantia (‘wandering sailor’), for instance, and poinsettias that reach shrub-size proportions. Spider plants do very well in pots outside our front door – the single one we started with has produced babies with no regard to family planning! Then we have some small pink flowers that remind us of mesembryanthemums, only coming out when the sun shines – but of course that happens a lot more often here than at home. And succulents are happy here, though they look a bit different from the spiky cacti we are familiar with. Then there are the exotic beauties such as hibiscus and frangipani that wouldn’t stand a chance in a British climate.

So we enjoy walking around our little plot, talking to the plants and encouraging them on. And after the recent drought? We haven’t lost a single plant, they have all sprung up again, though some are still convalescing. That should be a lesson to us to persevere in other ground that may seem unpromising and dry.

Blessings from heaven

2009-08-28T10:02:00.006Z

When it rains in Uganda, everything is disrupted. Its a bit like snow in England. We awoke this morning to a grey sky which, during the next hour, became blacker until the inevitable happened at 8am, just as we were due to go out for the 9km drive to the Diocesan HQ. Thunder, lightning, deafening rain battering on the roof. Torrents of water cascading down the hillside. A little frog sheltering beside one of our pot plants on the verandah – obviously this was too much even for aquatic creatures such as he.

But Allan was taking the morning devotions at the Diocesan HQ, so we felt we had better make the effort, even though rain in the morning usually means nobody turns up at work until it stops. After all, we have a roof that doesn’t leak, a car that goes, several umbrellas and kagoules – we don’t really have any excuse. Clothes already wet from the short run to the car from our back door, our car felt like a speedboat as we drove to Arua along roads that were all but deserted. The usual crowds around the market areas had vanished, the boda bodas (motorbike taxis) absent from their stands. An occasional lone pedestrian trudged along the road, drenched from head to foot.

Arriving at the Diocesan HQ we parked the car in a small lake and paddled to the office. Amazingly, we found a couple of doors open. Dripping into the office of the Diocesan Education Secretary we discerned four people already assembled in the gloom (the power was off), including the Bishop himself. So we sat and shared the Bible passage from II Corinthians 10, those who were too far from a window using a mobile phone torch to see the words. We considered Paul’s vehement defence of his calling as an apostle, and pondered our own calling on this soggy Ugandan morning. We prayed for those struggling in the weather, and for the Bishop going off to Maracha (usually an hour’s drive away, today rather more) for confirmations this morning. The rain will disrupt that for sure.

But six weeks ago we were suffering from the worst drought for some years, and the prayers were generally of thankfulness for the life-giving provision of rain, today and over the last few weeks. Now people’s beans and cassava will grow strong, and they will have food for the next year. That is much more important than soggy clothes and disrupted work patterns – even confirmation services.

“(S)he had suffered...under the care of many doctors” (Mark 5.26)

2009-08-08T11:20:00.002Z

.......Well, not that many actually, only about three.

I had first visited the doctor about my leg about four or five ago. Anne has always been keen on extending my life by applying healthy doses of walking, and after particularly strenuous exertion I had begun to feel a dull ache in my right leg. In addition, I noticed a small lump developing around the site of the pain.

The first doctor diagnosed a varicose vein, which was a bit of a shock because I have always associated such things with advancing old age!! She said there was little that could be done at the time, but if things got worse to return.

I did return about 12 months later as the pain had become more frequent, about once a week, and a little more intense. By this time the GP had changed, but the verdict was much the same. Some gentle examination caused a little pain on that occasion, but not enough to complain about.

Just before coming to Uganda, the lump was much more pronounced and the pain more frequent and acute, so I visited our new GP in Leicester. He looked at it, and then proceeded to prod and squeeze the lump with some violence, causing extreme discomfort, nay, agony. He then added insult to injury by informing me there was nothing he could do about it, but maybe some cream applied externally would help........ I limped home from the consultation thinking dark thoughts about doctors in general and this GP in particular.

By July this year, the pain had become considerably worse and was occurring 2-3 times a day for around an hour with each episode. It seemed to be associated neither with extreme activity or standing still for a long time. It would occur at any time, sometimes even in the middle of the night.

Anne made an appointment for me with an expatriate GP in Kampala. I had refused ever to let another medical practitioner near it after my last experience – but Anne insisted, probably because I don't like pain and tend to inflict pain on others when I experience it.

So it was, that on 24th July I found myself in the doctor’s surgery in Kampala explaining how much I dislike doctors who prod me and cause pain without doing anything useful. The doctor looked, prodded (I yelled – but didn’t punch him on the nose), and said “You've got a varicose vein, but it's not that. I can get rid of the real problem.”
“How?” I asked, still aware of the painful throbbing in my leg.
"Just a little operation."
"When?" I enquired.
“Now, if you like. It’ll take about ten minutes.”

Five minutes later I was lying on a bed. The local anaesthetic was a real joy as, gradually, the pain in my leg subsided. I felt nothing as the doctor made his incision and exclaimed, “It’s a glomus body! I came across one of these when I was a student. The book said it was v.painful.”

I agreed.

Ten minutes and three stitches later the procedure was over. I got off the couch and have felt no pain in my leg ever since.

Anne and I reflected on how long such a procedure would have taken in the UK after consultations, scans, waiting lists........

Our conclusion – come to Uganda for an accurate diagnosis and speedy treatment.

Pastors, preaching and Plasmodium

2009-07-19T12:23:00.009Z

Madi West Nile Anglican diocese is quite big – around 120km north to south, and 80 km across. That doesn’t sound too bad until you remember the state of the roads, and the fact that the River Nile has to be crossed on a dodgy ferry to reach Adjumani , the furthest point from the centre. The diocese is divided into ten archdeaconries, and recently we’ve been visiting each of them with a one day workshop for pastors.

On a typical day we set off about 8am, having loaded up with flipcharts, pens, handouts, water, Bibles, Lugbara hymnbooks and mosquito nets (all will be plain later!), and travel for perhaps two hours on suspension-shaking roads, not always entirely sure just where we are going. But there aren’t so many roads to choose from, and we haven’t got lost yet. We reach the archdeaconry headquarters around 10am, as promised, to meet a delighted archdeacon, who always seems slightly in doubt that we will actually come at all. He has called all his pastors together, usually around 10-20 men, and a sprinkling of women.

The venues are hardly ideal, but actually work pretty well – usually a round, open sided grass thatched hut, sometimes a simple church. Twice we sat outside in the shade, once on a verandah and once under a mango tree – a scene that has all the stereotypical qualities of Africa about it.

But the pastors won’t actually be there yet – over the next hour or more they gradually assemble, arriving on ancient bicycles or on foot, some having travelled for two hours or more to get there. Despite that they all arrive with a big smile and a handshake for everyone who is already there.

Then we begin with introductions, and talking about holistic mission and the appropriateness of combining teaching about spiritual and physical health. Next its Allan’s turn to teach about the vital importance of the preaching and teaching ministry in the Church of Uganda, where the pulpit is all too often given over to any lay person who fancies their chances, and little emphasis is laid on Biblical foundations. He includes some group work, and the pastors sit earnestly working together around a Bible, producing fascinating answers that give us many insights into local culture.

During the morning session we stop for ‘break tea’ around noon, usually bread, nuts, sweet potatoes or rice with a cup of black and sweet tea. Then lunch is around 2pm, or whenever the good ladies of the parish manage to produce it from their basic kitchen facilities. Sometimes the food is pretty unpalatable to us, but for the pastors it’s a feast and an essential part of the day.

In the afternoon Anne takes over with teaching on malaria prevention, and distributes some mosquito nets left over from a previous project. The pastors’ excitement at receiving a high-tech insecticide treated net is perhaps overshadowed by the offer of the packaging materials – particularly the strong metal bands that bind the bales. Excellent building material, we are told.

We finally manage to get away around 5pm, home by 7pm.

Each workshop is different, in ‘feel’ as well as in location, but all have been rewarding and have revealed so much to us about church life in this corner of Uganda. We have been appreciated as if we have been visiting heads of state.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, malaria is caused by a parasite, Plasmodium Falciparum

Timber!

2009-06-29T16:12:00.008Z

In the grounds of Kuluva Hospital is a marvellous variety of trees. Eucalyptus can be found in quantity throughout this part of Uganda because they grow quickly and provide a sustainable source of timber and fuel. Others can also be found including mahogany, and these hardwoods are usually used for making furniture. Even the most ordinary pieces of furniture, chests of drawers, tables, plain chairs, etc. are usually made of solid mahogany and weigh a ton.

My dad, who was a master cabinet maker, would have loved it here with so much quality timber on hand. When he retired he had two or three garages filled with pieces of timber he was saving for some indeterminate job in the future, but there was nothing in those garages to compare with what is available here in West Nile.

Kuluva Parish is in the process of constructing a new Church building. It is an ambitious project, but the congregation has been working hard on it, and our home parish in Leicester at St Denys has been supporting them in the venture. In the present building the congregation sit on solid cement/mud benches (which are not too good if you suffer from piles!), so they are planning hardwood furniture for the new church.

The present church stands at the entrance to the site of Kuluva Hospital. Behind the church are several rows of terraced houses occupied by hospital staff, and surrounding them many trees, some small and shrubby, but others, truly venerable and majestic.

One night earlier in the year the area was buffeted by high winds. One especially strong gust of wind brought two of the biggest trees crashing to the ground. Miraculously they fell in such a way as to miss both the church and the houses and nobody was hurt. In fact they fell in about the only direction they could have done with causing very significant damage.

The church the following week echoed to songs and prayers of thanks to God for preserving both life and property in what could otherwise have had devastating and possibly tragic consequences. What was more, the church leaders realised that these trees would provide much of the timber they needed to construct the church furniture they required. Jehovah Jireh! Indeed, there was much rejoicing, and the following Saturday a team of church workers cut up the tree into manageable chunks.

They discovered, however, that there was not quite sufficient timber to make all the furniture, and so decided to fell another of the big trees to make up the shortfall. The work was carried out on a Thursday morning, the men cutting away at the base of the trunk, careful to ensure that it fell safely. But just as the tree was about to fall, a small breeze blew (or so I am told) which nudged it slightly to the right causing it to fall elegantly, but very heavily - on to the back of the church, demolishing half of the roof and one corner of the building! Nobody was hurt and the Pastor remained cheerful, but there was a degree of embarrassment at the irony of the situation.

Anne and I went away on a trip the following day wondering what they would do – the church did look pretty bad. But returning a week later, we found the back of the church reconstructed, the newly felled tree cut into pieces, and everything back to normal.

The resilience of these people is truly astounding.

Hunger Season

2009-06-24T16:47:00.007Z

The cricket season followed the first rains. But they didn’t last. A couple of months of occasional downpours was enough to green up the grass and rejuvenate our struggling garden, but not enough to grow the life-giving crops. Now it is dry again and likely to remain so for a few weeks; hence the hunger season.

A small group of women meet on our verandah on Wednesday mornings for a short informal Bible study. Most of them do domestic work in the houses around here, and others are members of our local parish church. They are uniformly poor, engaging in subsistence farming with their families. In a mixture of Lugbara and English we sing, read a Bible passage, discuss, pray, and finish with a cup of tea – our sugar jar is always empty after Wednesday mornings! One of the women acts as translator both ways, as I have little Lugbara and some of them have little English. It’s always an encouraging experience to share with people who are hungry for some teaching, however brief, and who express a simple but profound faith.

The prayer requests illustrate the difficult lives they live. One woman had a field of cassava uprooted in the night – that represented her family’s bank account. Another said the neighbour’s goats had been eating her crops, and there had been arguments between the families. Another couldn’t find school fees for the orphans who were living with her family. But the biggest problem at the moment is ‘hunger’ and the lack of adequate rain – stalks of maize look fairly healthy, until you discover that they are all leaves, and the cobs that will feed the family are not developing. Groundnuts have withered before anything like a nut appeared. Stores of beans from last year’s harvest are running short. The next planting season is next month (provided it rains), but the harvest won’t be in until October.

So we pray that neighbours will tie up their goats, that fields will be protected, that school fees will be found, and for rain. It hasn’t come yet. But these women never waver in their trust in God. He will see us through, they say. They have seen hardship before. And our passage today? Consider the birds of the air...........your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? (Matt 6:26)

It’s difficult, when the verandah is outside our little house – TV, computers, books, and a well stocked kitchen. The women never once cast an envious glance. But I am conscious that the loose change in my purse would buy them and their children a few meals. We give, yes, but it can never be enough, or sustainable against future ‘hunger seasons’.

Of course it’s a vicious circle of environmental degradation as well as the usual vagaries of weather and harvest. Trees are being cut down at an unsustainable rate to provide firewood and charcoal, still the commonest sources of fuel for cooking and washing. Land is increasingly scarce, and many people have no rights to the land on which they live, so risk eviction if a landowner is sufficiently unsympathetic. Soil is not enriched with any kind of fertiliser, so crop yield is low. Water sources are often polluted and streams reducing to a muddy trickle.

But the women still meet with a smile, and if we go to their homes we are never allowed to leave without being given some refreshment. “God is testing us”, they say, “but He will provide.”

We pray He does, soon.

We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land
But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand........

Cricket Season

2009-05-30T10:09:00.007Z

I can’t play cricket. Anyone who knows me well knows that. At school I was no good with a bat and usually managed to be out first ball which, to be fair, didn’t give me much chance to improve. I also remember the experience of attempting to catch a cricket ball. Instead of nestling neatly in the palms of my hands it hit the end of my index finger. In this way I discovered that cricket balls are dangerously hard, and concluded that they are best avoided. Such cowardice was not an attitude best suited to becoming an effective cricketer.

But even if I can’t play cricket, I do enjoy watching it and remember several sun-soaked days relishing the contest as it played out on the cricket pitch before me. But too often I also recall ominous dark clouds gathering and large spots of rain beginning to fall, such as happened at the Anglican Clergy v. Imams of Leicester match Anne and I attended in Leicester shortly before coming to Uganda. On that occasion, the match was played to its (bitter for the Anglicans) conclusion, but “rain stopped play” becomes the epitaph of too many cricket matches because, for some reason, in Britain, the arrival of the Cricket Season seems to herald the coming of rain.

But if in Britain the coming of the cricket season signifies the coming of rain, here in Uganda it’s the other way round as the welcome sound of thunder and the opening of the floodgates of heaven marks the coming of the crickets.

Crickets are wonderful creatures with shiny, leathery, brown bodies. They come in many different sizes ranging from the size of a pea to just a little smaller than a golf ball. They have the most incredible ability to leap and spring and bound great distances. Their trajectory is hard to predict which can be a little alarming as they explore the living room, but when you get used to them they are strangely endearing.

Unfortunately, my first encounter with a cricket was in the ‘shower’. I was washing my hair (the little of it that I possess), my eyes closed to protect them from the shampoo. Suddenly I felt something jump up my leg. Quickly washing the shampoo suds from my eyes, I looked down, and saw this thing (I didn’t know what it was at the time) clinging on to me for dear life trying to escape the pools of water accumulating on the floor. I have to confess that the shock forced me to consign the poor, harmless creature to a watery grave. Having now grown more fond of them, I feel frequent pangs of guilt as think back to this summary execution.

But crickets aren’t the only creatures that show up with the coming of the rain. Moths, beetles, appear in profusion, as do white ants which emerge from termite mounds in their thousands, and after dark fly around outside our window attracted by the light. By the morning the verandah looks like a graveyard, littered with the wings and bodies of countless ants.

Our Ugandan friends wonder why we don’t collect them, after all they will lie in wait by termite mounds ready to catch them when they emerge. They cook them to eat mixed with beans, or grind them into a sort of paste from which they make ‘cakes’, which actually look a little like meatballs. We have eaten both forms, but there are more appetising delicacies to our taste (like Bendicks Bittermints). However white ants do provide extra protein which the local diet often lacks. Folks here are so fond of them that they preserve termite mounds, even though they are home to the termites which gobble up their houses (quite literally), in order to maintain this source of extra nourishment.
“How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.” (Ps 104.24)

Indeed, the world is home to a fascinating variety of living creatures, insects, peoples and customs! And what a privilege to be a part of it all!

Bendicks Bonanza and Baboon Bandits - A Bittermint Tale

2009-05-23T13:16:00.007Z

"A firm fondant very strongly flavoured with peppermint oil, enrobed with intensely bitter chocolate.”

These words scarcely do justice to the amazing experience of eating a Bendicks Bittermint. For many years they have been my (Allan’s) Christmas treat. At times I had been tempted to buy them out of season, but the discipline of keeping them as a luxury limited to only one season, something to be looked forward to with anticipation from year to year, always enhanced the experience of biting into this most exclusive of mints - silky textured and outrageously delicious but with the ‘bite’ of real peppermint.

Coming to Uganda and abandoning Bendicks Bittermints was a sacrifice in itself, but through the kindness of friends and relatives, Christmas 2007 saw two boxes of this exclusive confectionary turn up in Arua Post Office. But Christmas 2008 was another story – not one box appeared.

In desperation we made an appeal to any visitors coming out to see us. At Christmas we may have been bereft, but a whole year without another Bendicks ‘fix’ would have been unthinkable.

A visit to the Post Office in April, however, was rewarded with a parcel, and wonder of wonders, it contained one box of the thick, dark chocolate-covered peppermint bombs. The parcel had been posted in November! The mints were still in excellent condition, a real testimony to their ability to travel thousands of miles in sometimes extreme conditions without adverse effect. Our spirits rose as were able to acknowledge that someone had thought of us.

Just a few days later we travelled to Kampala and Entebbe to meet our visitors. Richard and Helen presented us with two boxes, and Anne’s sisters Cathy and Kathy (don’t ask!) another two. Five boxes in one year was little less than a miracle and we rejoiced!!

Returning to Arua with the two C(K)athys, we stopped off at Paraa Lodge in Murchison Park for a game drive and a Nile River Launch. Because Anne and I had done the river trip several times we saw our visitors off and returned to our room taking with us one box of Bendicks we had retrieved from the Paraa fridge. Our intention was to enjoy them together with our visitors after dinner that evening.

Leaving the box in our room we went downstairs for an afternoon cup of tea and a snack. After a short while Anne went to collect her sisters from their river-trip to the Falls, whilst I returned to the room.

At first sight everything looked normal, unchanged from when we had left it. But then my eyes fell on a quantity of green and gold silver foil lying on the floor. A short distance beyond lay the box of Bendicks Bittermints, its top gouged open by some wild and voracious beast and empty (apart from 3) of its original contents! It lay before the open door to the balcony of our first-floor room.

Then I remembered a previous visit to Paraa when I had chased two opportunistic baboons from the balcony. This time they had returned, but on this occasion with greater success and to their greater benefit. Amazingly, nothing else in the room, laptop, camera binoculars or anything else had been disturbed.

But now, we are looking forward to encountering a new and more classy breed of baboon at Paraa; baboons who have begun to appreciate the finer things of life, and whose eating habits will more reflect the refined character of the food they have now tasted. The alternative, of course, is that they will be driven into a wild frenzy (like me) in their search for more of these glorious mints, very few of which can ever have made their way to Murchison Park, and will rarely ever do so again.

Certainly we will be much more careful in future!

Sunrise

2009-04-13T07:42:00.015Z

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.........” (John 20.1)

We got up at 5.30 am and it was certainly dark as we walked down to the hospital chapel on Easter Sunday morning with the temperature having dropped to a ‘chill’ 20 degrees in contrast to the rest of Holy Week when it had been around the 33 degrees mark.

The week had begun at Kuluva Parish Church on Palm Sunday (see last blog) a truly cross-cultural experience as the children and young people waved their palm branches enthusiastically and responded with spontaneous applause to the Christmas messages from St Denys. They didn’t seem to think it remotely odd that we should be talking about Christmas on Palm Sunday. After all, a king whose first bed was a manger and who had to flee to Egypt to escape the anger and paranoia of Herod fits well with a king who rides a donkey and whose throne was a cross.

But half way through Holy Week, Alice, the new Chaplain at Kuluva Hospital, asked if I knew anything about Easter Day Sunrise Services. She had attended one when at University in Mukono which had made a lasting impression, but since that had been in 1990 she couldn’t remember much about it.

My mind drifted back to parish life in South Yorkshire and the almost 20 years of Easter Sunrise Services we had shared with the churches of Rotherham. There we had climbed a hill overlooking the town’s shrinking industrial landscape to pray and to celebrate the resurrection, often in sub-zero temperatures and freezing rain.

Kuluva was a different context, but it was the same celebration, and indeed I had compiled some material during preparations for a Muzungu Sunrise Service in Arua the previous year. That had been a bit of a disaster, but when I showed the material to Alice she thought it would provide a good framework for what she wanted to do.

And so it was that by 6.00 am we had begun the walk to Kuluva Hill, the growing company singing Lugbara songs accompanied by drums and guitars. For much of the night it had been raining with thunder in the distance, but now it was dry, although we were wrapped up warm against the new, lower temperatures.

Arriving at a collection of grass thatched houses just below the hill, the home of Shadrach and Josephine and their family, we read John’s account of the resurrection before continuing up the hill singing 'Thine be the glory'.

There, at the top of the hill, overlooking the hospital and with a backdrop of sunrise over the distant hills through now dispersing clouds, Alice set up a little table for an al fresco Eucharist. A gusting wind stirred things up a bit – pause for thought – and the sixty or seventy of us shared in Lugbara/English/Celtic/Anglican and Free Worship and prayed for the hospital, for unity, for peace and that the transforming power of the resurrection would make a difference in all of our lives.

We descended the hill, again singing as we went: Above all powers; How deep the Father’s love for us; Jesus Prince and Saviour, as well as a collection of Lugbara songs Anne and I didn’t know the words to. So what!? We were overwhelmed by the privilege of taking part in this special service and experiencing something of the miracle of the cross and resurrection as we shared in cross-cultural fellowship.

This, we felt, is what we are really here to learn.

Christmas Delayed

2009-04-04T13:01:00.008Z

Mid-March, and great anticipation as we visit the Post Office in Arua to see if there is anything in our PO Box. Often there are letters, or our Guardian Weekly, but at times there’s a slip of paper, a real source of excitement because it means the Post Office have received a parcel or packet for us.

And so it was this day in the middle of March. It always takes some time for the PO officials to rummage their way through the piles of parcels and large envelopes, sometimes having to go through them several times. But always, eventually, they come up with the goods, today a large brown envelope – not the DVDs or chocolates we’ve been waiting for, but exciting none the less, and more so because we have no idea what it is.

We always wait until we get home to open these treasures – it heightens the level of anticipation. So having arrived home, we made a cup of coffee and proceeded to investigate the contents of the envelope. From the envelope that had travelled so many thousands of miles from the UK, we pulled a large sheaf of coloured card and paper, and emblazoned on the front were the words “Happy Christmas”.

The parcel was a collection of Christmas cards ‘To the children at the Church of Kuluva from the children at St Denys Junior Church.’ The Ugandan Postal Service had truly excelled themselves – only two-and-a-half months late!

What should we do with these cards? Leave them until next Christmas? Just hand them over to the Pastor to make a decision? Forget about them? None of these options seemed right. But with the cards there was a poem ‘Jesus and the Donkey’. As far as I could recall, the only place the Bible actually mentions a donkey and Jesus in the same verses is on Palm Sunday: ‘Jesus sent two disciples....”Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt........the disciples went and did as Jesus instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.......”’

Of course, that was it! Why not bring Christmas into Palm Sunday and Easter? Why not wish the Children at Kuluva a Happy Christmas, invite them to welcome Jesus on Palm Sunday as King, just as the crowds of Jerusalem welcomed him, not to forget him as quickly as they did, but so that he could be born anew in their hearts to be their king for life?

So here we are on the day before Palm Sunday, and that’s what we’ll be doing tomorrow. Another bridge built across the miles from our home church in Leicester to our home church in Kuluva and a bridge across the Church Seasons to celebrate the greatest bridge of all from God to each one of us.

A singular blessing

2009-03-14T11:25:00.007Z

A ‘wheelchair blessing’ was not to be found in Common Worship or other service books that Allan had to hand, but that’s what he’d been asked to do. As ever, things were not quite as they seemed. Our friends Mary and Isaac had asked us to come to their house to bless Tom’s new wheelchair. Tom is a young man of 17 years and delightful temperament, but who has been severely disabled from birth. His old wheelchair was ancient and showing its years. The government, courtesy of the Wheelchair Foundation, had provided a new one, quite miraculously it seemed, and for no money. But Tom had refused to sit in the new chair until it had been duly prayed over, and Allan was requested to provide the service.

If it had been me, I’d have just gone with a prayer half formed in my head. Being Allan, he did a little preparation and produced a short service in a mixture of Lugbara and English, so that the whole family could join in. Then it became clear that half the village had actually been invited, our church pastor was also going to be there, there would be food afterwards ..................... clearly we needed to write off the whole afternoon.

But it was delightful. Tom sat in the old chair as we arrived, lapping up all the attention and beaming whenever he caught anyone’s eye. Canvas awnings, tables covered with lacy linen and hideous artificial flowers, floor mats and plastic chairs were all set out in good Ugandan style and about 20 adults came along as well as numerous kids. The service proceeded with some order, thanks to Allan’s preparations, but there was a good deal of improvisation and unexpected speeches too, not to mention the gusty wind that blew up and threatened to sweep all the decorations away. In a moving moment, we all gathered round the new wheelchair and laid hands on it and on Tom – black hands joined with white ones in a symbolic act. We prayed for Tom, who shows such joy and delight in his life, which is necessarily devoid of so many resources that most of us, disabled or not, take for granted.

Then he was lifted into the new chair, and family photos were taken to record the moment. Afterwards we all proceeded to the house for enya, beans, rice, chicken, meat, and fellowship. Our Lugbara teacher threw in a provocative question (in English, luckily) about whether newly converted polygamous men could be baptized in church before renouncing the spare spouses....................................... a good time was had by all.

Outdated, Failing and Redundant (No! Not us!)

2009-03-07T14:06:00.007Z

At the end of October 2007 we were eulogising about the wonders of our new yellow box. It was a great little piece of technology to get us on to the internet and put us in touch with all you folk. Our lives were transformed – the world was at our fingertips. If we’d had the time, we would have written an ode to the wonderful little yellow box and shared it with you all. At least you were spared that!

In recent weeks, however, we’ve been cursing the terrible plastic yellow thing – a waste of space. It would, tantalisingly, get you on to the internet and just as you were about to do something useful online it would disconnect itself. It felt deliberate, as though The Thing was trying to annoy us. It's interesting to discover just how easy it is to become paranoid.

There we would be, having just started to listen to the omnibus edition of ‘The Archers’ from the BBC, and the nasty yellow object would go offline and refuse to connect again. Or we would just have been ready to send an email (deathless prose that had taken an hour to write) and, again, the nasty yellow box would die.

So the much-lauded technology of yesterday has been declared redundant, and is now superseded by its’ younger brother – the Black Slug.

All this is to say we’re now back on line, and our contributions to the Blog Universe will recommence.

P.S. If we get round to writing ‘An Ode to the Black Slug’ you’ll be the first to know.

Slithering into 2009

2009-01-24T11:17:00.005Z

New Years Day. 8am. Allan is in the shower. I am making breakfast.

New Years Day is big around here. Its almost bigger than Christmas. We have church services on New Years Day to thank God that we have ‘made it’ into another year without dying or otherwise being attacked by the devil. These are big celebrations. Allan is to preach at the service in our local parish church at 10am. Hence the shower, though he might need another one by the time he has spent two hours or so dressed in clerical robes designed for a cooler climate. Its about 25° already.

I go out of the back door to throw away the coffee grounds from last night – coffee was the tipple during our New Years Eve celebrations, as no alcohol is allowed on the hospital site. But we enjoyed an evening of convivial company with some fellow expatriates nonetheless, and went to bed at a respectable 11pm.

As I throw the coffee grounds on the bare earth, I notice movement – a snake, I thought. Then it registers – A SNAKE! We have seen one before just here, but it slithered away like lightning last time. This time its slithering is decidedly sluggish – nevertheless I retreat to the kitchen and close the netting door. From here I can watch the enemy in safety. Its about 18 ins long, grey and skinny. Its then I notice a large, rather obscene swelling partway down its thin body – it has clearly just swallowed a large meal of frog, maybe, or a small rodent. That would account for the sluggishness. I’ve caught it feeling post-prandial and mellow. Well, maybe not so mellow.

Briefly I consider tackling it alone. All the advice here is to kill snakes immediately on sight. Some are poisonous, some not, but you don’t hang around to find out. Then I decide God gave me a husband for occasions just such as this. While I await Allan’s emergence from the shower – I can’t expect him to tackle the thing naked and wet – I keep an eye on it. We wouldn’t want it to get away again. Its slithering its way, slowly, across the cement outside the back door.
Allan comes out of the shower. ‘There’s a snake outside and we have to kill it’ I greet him. ‘Well, you have to kill it’ - I add – ‘I’ll help.’ What a wonderful fellow I married. We don suitable protective clothing – strong shoes or boots to prevent bites. Allan decides it might be better to put trousers and shirt on too, rather than the dressing gown he was wearing.

We creep out to the store, so as not to announce our presence to the recumbent reptile, and find suitable implements – a rake and hoe are the best we can do. Allan then stands behind the snake, which is still snoozing gently, and brings the rake down on its neck with full force. The snake certainly wakes up, but isn’t killed instantly. It tries to bite the rake, but Allan stands firm. I stand ready with the hoe in case he needs reinforcement, but hoping to be redundant. Eventually he manages to cut off the thing’s head with the rake and hoe combined. That is that.

We throw the two bits of snake onto the vegetable plot (thats a euphemism – not a single vegetable has been known to grow there successfully). There it remains, looking increasingly revolting, until our gardener came the next day and buried it.

But we were very proud of our conquest as a suitably assertive beginning to the new year. None of the snake’s relatives have yet been back to seek revenge. So we trust we will live to thank God for bringing us safely on to the beginning of 2010.

The Big Six-O

2008-12-27T10:30:00.010Z

One big advantage of living in Uganda is being able to do exotic things on big birthdays. This year took us to Eastern Uganda for my Big Six-0 and to the highest mountains we have yet seen in the country, with Mount Elgon, its highest peak, at 4165 metres. Our destination was Sipi Falls, a modest 1,800 metres above sea level, but high enough to be free of mosquitoes and cool enough to need blankets at night – a real treat.

We were staying at Lacam Lodge, which prides itself in being electricity-free, using gas for cooking and kerosene lamps to light the restaurant and bandas at night. Another feature was the toilets.

Being built on solid rock, digging ‘long-drop’ toilets is impossible, so instead the Lodge provides bucket loos. These look like ordinary toilets, but instead of a flush guests are provided with liberal quantities of sawdust to sprinkle as appropriate. It was ideal, and 100% effective in rendering the toilet odour-free. Every couple of hours one of the staff would enter the toilet via a back door to empty, clean and return the bucket (presumably ensuring the toilet was not in use at the time). This was a job we decided not to apply for, but to show our gratitude, left a healthy tip under the loo seat.

During our stay in Sipi, we were fascinated to be met by several groups of young people jogging and dancing their way along the road, singing, shouting and blowing whistles. We enquired of our local guide, Fred, what this meant and he told us with some pride that they were preparing for circumcision rites. He explained that these usually happen in the month of December in even numbered years. We thought of little babies, but no. Here, in the home of the Bagisu and Sabini tribes, circumcision is carried out on males, generally, between the ages of 16 and 26!

The ritual marks the transition into true manhood and qualifies the initiate to marry and take positions of leadership in the community. Initiates nominate themselves for the ritual in the previous May or June, which apparently gives them time to prepare for the event. I wondered how you could prepare for such an event. Circumcision is performed, with no anaesthetic, in public before family and friends, and even tourists can attend – although these tourists didn’t. Subsequently we noticed a number of young men wearing skirts – they no longer have to prove their manhood. Fred confirmed what we thought, again with great pride. He had been circumcised in his teens. Better to look back on than to look forward to, I thought.

That aside, Sipi Falls is a beautiful spot. There are four main falls, the last and longest of which provides a magnificent setting for Lacam Lodge. From our banda we could both see and hear the long and extraordinarily elegant cascade plunging 100 metres into the river below. It was a glorious view looking down into the valley and the plains beyond, towards the north-west and our home in Arua some 600 km distant.

On my birthday itself Fred took us along the edge of the ridge above the falls, and then steeply down into the valley itself. The slope was precipitous, involving some rather hairy walking/climbing, including an almost vertical ladder down part of the rock face, but it gave us great views of Lacam Lodge across the valley, and then the Falls themselves. As we descended, our daughter, Jo, rang to wish me a happy birthday and I received a birthday text message from friends in Doncaster, UK – a lightly surreal but delightful reminder of home.

At the foot of the Falls, out of the sunshine, it was very wet, muddy, slippery, and a little scary., but as we ascended back out of the valley into the sunshine again, we encountered a girl and young boy. Both were carrying great loads of bananas on their heads from the banana groves growing on the valley side. Being unable to balance anything much on our heads we were much impressed by their amazing ability to scale rock-face ladders with such a burden.

We stopped to talk to them as they, and we, rested on the way. The girl’s name was Emma. “It means ‘God is with us,’” she explained. “Of course, from Emmanuel,” I said, “Jesus’ name.” “You’re a Christian!” she responded with a bright smile, and told us she was a singer in her local church. She then sang us a song about heaven and the truth that if we trust in Jesus we will all be there together one day – ‘every nation, tribe, people and language’.

Our best wishes for a very happy Christmas and joy-filled New Year.

Health care delivery on the edge

2008-12-08T13:48:00.011Z

Health care in rural Uganda is a million miles away from anything you might imagine if you have been brought up in UK since 1948. Yes, the NHS has plenty of faults and will never have enough resources, but it has an impressive way of swinging into action when anything life-threatening occurs.

Not so in Uganda. There are hospitals, yes, but they rarely have many, if any, doctors in them, and the nursing staff can be hard to find. When you do find them they may not be very quick to respond to patients’ needs, and the care is all done by ‘attendants’ – long-suffering relatives who volunteer to feed, wash, toilet and accompany the patient through 24 hours, sleeping on a mat beside the bed. Such is the tradition of extended family responsibility here.
There is nothing equivalent to a GP, unless you count the private medical practitioners who keep shop in the town and charge high prices for dubious investigations and treatments. And then there are the witchdoctors of course......

But on the ground in the rural areas are the health centres. These small buildings, often in remote locations in the bush, are the mainstay of healthcare for most. Of the five health centres run by the Church of Uganda in this Diocese, none has running water or mains electricity. A small solar panel might run a satellite phone and emergency lighting. Their equipment is old and battered, and they don’t have nearly enough of anything. They are staffed by a couple of nurses, midwives and nursing assistants, with perhaps a laboratory technician, a guard/groundsman and a cleaner. The staff live in at the centre in grass thatched houses like those of the community around. They provide out-patient consultations for everything from malaria to worms, from attempted suicide to HIV testing. They cater for a range of maternal and child health services including deliveries, family planning and immunizations. Some include in-patient facilities, and even those that don’t will put a mattress on the floor to keep a dehydrated cholera case under observation until he or she is well enough to move. None has a doctor or clinical officer.

Visiting Kei health centre for a meeting with staff and community members, I was reminded of the constraints under which they work. Kei is the most remote of the five health centres I help to supervise, but it is also one of the biggest and busiest. It serves an area of rural poverty very close to the Sudan border in the far north of the Diocese, and is reached by a terrible road that is regularly impassable in the rainy season. The health centre, like the region it serves, has seen its share of disturbance in recent years. But at present it is well run by Mary, a nurse In-charge who has a sweet but strong character, and is a very committed Christian.

After the meeting, while we were drinking tea and eating cassava and biscuits, Mary approached me to ask if we could take a seriously ill patient to the nearest government hospital on our way home. There are no ambulances here. She wanted to refer him because he had been an in-patient at Kei for two weeks, was deteriorating, and she felt he needed more specialist care. He has AIDS, and had a serious infection in one leg that was causing much swelling and pain. There were already five of us squashed in a ‘double cabin’ pick-up, which left only the open back of the truck available. But that was what was wanted. The staff and relatives spread blankets on the floor of the pick-up, then lifted the thin, frail man onto the back. One of his sons sat upright against the cab, cradling his father’s head on his lap so that the patient was as comfortable as possible on the rough road. We set off for the 20km journey with five of the family in attendance, together with bedding, cooking pots and personal belongings.

It wasn’t an ambulance journey I would have chosen for myself, but it was the only one available and the family were grateful. We left them at the hospital in Yumbe – the patient might get some medical attention there, eventually, but I doubt he will receive as much care and concern as he did whilst at Kei.

Prayer Mountain

2008-11-22T12:37:00.007Z

A visit to the Murchison Falls just a week ago saw them at their most dramatic. Now, at the end of the rainy season, the Victoria Nile, wide and languid for much of its course, was full as the white water cascaded towards the narrow cleft in the rocks before plunging 140 feet to the river below and on to Lake Albert. In the brilliant sunshine it was truly awesome with clouds of spray and rainbows in profusion.

That experience was in marked contrast to aggressive and objectionable baboons, one of which decided to leap through the open window of our Land Cruiser whilst we were waiting for the ferry at Paraa. No one was in the car at the time but the intruder was chased out empty handed, and without causing any damage.

Some 10 minutes later, however, we managed to suffer a 3 inch gash in our tyre as a result of a torn piece of metal on the ramp on to the ferry. But even that had its upside as three South African employees of British American Tobacco who were making the same crossing executed an impressive Formula One style wheel change, completing the whole operation in the time it took to cross the river – around 7 minutes! The Parable of the Good Samaritan came to mind!

We had gone to Murchison Park with Emma and Pete, and Laura, British expatriate doctors and a midwife, also living and working at Kuluva Hospital. It was a brief weekend’s break from work, and en route to Murchison Park we decided to visit the Nebbi Prayer Mountain some 20 km beyond the town of the same name. We had heard a great deal about the Prayer Mountain as a place to pray, praise, and find peace and space to gain a renewed and God-centred perspective on life.

The Prayer Mountain is a Retreat Centre built on the Korean pattern and belonging to Nebbi Diocese, Madi/West Nile’s southern neighbour. The foundation stone on the main chapel was laid in 1996 and the whole site was funded and built by a retired Korean Business Executive at a time when the present Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, was Bishop of Nebbi.

Prayer Mountain is set in a stunningly beautiful countryside, close to the Congo border, and is made up of nine Prayer Points marked by small stone ‘chapels’ located at various places on the mountainside. Each Prayer Point has its own unique and powerfully symbolic design, giving a particular focus which individuals can use to direct their prayer.

The focuses for prayer reflect a global concern, but naturally with a particular emphasis on the needs of Africa. There is also an emphasis on young people, families, and the worldwide need for revival and spiritual renewal. Different arrangements and numbers of windows feature strongly in the design of the small Prayer Points buildings symbolising, amongst other things, the 10 Commandments, the 9 Fruits of the Spirit, the 66 Books of the Bible, the 12 disciples, and so on. Through the windows you can see out to the hills beyond in every direction which gives everything a sense of space, freedom. But the often very strenuous walks between the various Prayer Points prevent any possibility of prayer becoming simply a form of self-indulgence and escapism. Prayer involves work.

On this occasion, ours was simply a fleeting visit; an opportunity to visit somewhere of which we had heard but had never visited. Places to stop and reflect, places to retreat to in order to regroup and move forward again, are few and far between in NW Uganda. Life is full of people and busy-ness, although often not very productive. But even in our brief time at Prayer Mountain we were able to gain some new insights into our work here. Perhaps especially that, whilst living in Uganda, God has not simply called us to work for him with and alongside others. He also wants to work with us and to continue his work of transformation in us.

Murchison Falls has always had the capacity to impress with its power and grandeur, and Prayer Mountain is also about power - the power to transform and change individuals, and so the world. It is just 90 minutes from Kuluva, and God-willing we will return to Prayer Mountain to be empowered for the work God has sent us here to do, and to be transformed a little more ourselves.

Hey Jude.....

2008-10-29T19:00:00.007Z

We met Jude a couple of months ago. He popped into our office at Mvara one morning, “just to say hello”, but he was also very keen that we should visit him at his school just over the way from our office.

Jude, I guess, is in his early 40s, but quite youthful in appearance and manner, as seems to be the case with many Ugandans. He is a teacher, and by all accounts a good one; indeed, a few years ago he won an award as the Best Teacher in Uganda. Drama and music are passions for him, and over the years he has been responsible for a number of singing and dance groups which have performed at weddings and other events in the area. But his particular specialism is as a teacher of special needs students.

It was about three weeks later that we visited Jude in his classroom/workshop. We met some of his students, one of whom who had no use of his hands, played the odungu with his feet! Unusually for a Ugandan classroom, the walls were adorned with posters, many concerned with health issues, and it was full of all sorts of equipment, much of which looked as though it had come out of the ark. In particular, there were many broken Braille machines. Jude explained they were all second-hand and waiting for him to repair them. He took in other pieces of equipment from other institutions in Arua for repair and used the additional income to supplement his rather small government teacher’s salary.

But there were other things Jude wanted to share with us. Resources for Special Needs Education are as scarce, if not more so, than other resources in Uganda. But Jude is not one to be put off, and with some pride he produced some of his own creations – modifications of the abacus and other calculating machines for use by visually impaired students, and many other ideas to aid the learning and mobility of his students.

One piece he was particularly proud of was a model solar system with an assortment of spherical objects attached at varying distances by wires to a central spindle. These rotated around a light bulb suspended in the middle of them, and representing the Sun. The model was driven by battery power and he used it to teach the principles of planetary motion, seasons, and so on to students with different special educational needs – they are all kept together in one group. It was remarkably inventive and did actually work.

Talking to Jude, he had a real passion for his work and at one time had been employed as a lecturer in SEN at the Teacher Training College next door to the school. Despite having worked there for some time, he was bitterly disappointed when told he could no longer teach there because he didn’t have the required qualifications. If he wanted to teach there again he would have to go and gain further certificates.

Sadly, the educational system here in Uganda, has hardly heard of part-time or distance learning, and the only way you can gain an academic qualification is by becoming a full-time student. This is a very expensive option and taking professionals out of the workplace for a number of years whilst they study – not the best economic option either for the student or the workplace – although I suppose it’s not so bad for the training institution!

Jude clearly hopes we can help him in some way – and he probably deserves help – but so do so many other people here. That’s one of the challenges it’s hard to come to terms with.

Another is, how to make sense of the fact that since Jude lost his job at the Teacher Training College, they now have no one to teach about Special Educational Needs.

A Week In The Life Of......... (Part 2)

2008-10-09T09:31:00.008Z

True to his word, during the Sunday I spent in Omoo (see A week in the life of.....) Robert planned with me a programme for my week ‘shadowing’ him in his work. He was concerned that I should be able to visit each of the eight churches in Mingoro Parish and get to know something about the challenges they face.

Robert and his family face their own personal challenges. He is married to a teacher and was ordained just three years ago. They have two sons, the eldest of whom (7-year old Godwin) has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This would be hard for any family, but for Robert it also involves travelling 500 km to Kampala for treatment and a significant bill once he gets there. On top of the 25,000 UGX fare to get to Kampala, he has been told the treatment will cost around 1,200,000 UGX. Robert gets paid just 50,000 UGX per month (c.£16), but earns some more by growing onions, ground nuts and cassava. It’s a hard life for him, not least because this means he often starts the day at 6.00 am with 3 hours of digging. But he remains amazingly cheerful and leads a busy life running a large parish of eight churches.

One major issue in Uganda is the issue of land rights. In a country where most of the title to land is hereditary and not formally established, land without title deeds can be very vulnerable. This applies as much to churches as to private individuals and several of the churches in Robert’s care have neighbours who are trying to encroach on their land. One church I visited has a major project growing thousands of eucalyptus tree seedlings which they will eventually plant out as boundary markers.

This project has a further benefit as well. Eucalyptus trees are very fast growing, and the timber will in a short time provide a good source of income for the church. Some of the churches in Robert’s parish are also growing other ideas to develop the local community or generate some badly needed income. These include building technical schools, dispensaries, or establishing bee and honey projects. It’s a far cry from parish life in Britain.

Of course day-to-day parish life also continues amidst these other activities. Coming from Britain I have been used to being able to manage my diary. Weddings, for example, are arranged often years ahead. But in particular it is unusual not to have several days’ notice of a funeral. Here, however, things are very different.

The Tuesday programme for my visit to Mingoro Parish had read: Visit of Church of Uganda Kubo – Visitation of the sick Kerekere. Robert had warned me on Monday that the programme would have to be extended because a 12-year old girl had died and her funeral had been arranged for Tuesday afternoon. Arriving at Omoo on Tuesday morning, however, I discovered that a man had died there suddenly on Monday evening, and his funeral was also taking place on Tuesday afternoon – well within 24 hours of the death (and without the body ever having been seen by a doctor).

Robert was very glad to have me around that day because my car would make his life a whole lot easier than having to travel the heavily rutted roads on his bicycle. We travelled first to Kubo to visit the church to collect a Church Teacher and to have a meal. It was there I discovered I had a flat tyre and had to change the wheel in the rain – with a number of fascinated spectators who had never seen anything like this before. We then proceeded to Kerekere for a sick communion (followed by a small meal), before driving to a village some distance away for the first funeral (preceded by a meal of enya and beans, and concluded by a similar meal), before finally returning to Omoo for the second funeral (also accompanied by food).

These were the first funerals I had attended, and sadly I forgot to take my camera. I had been assured there would be no problem taking photographs. But at least I was able to concentrate on what was going on – the open coffin for the young girl (no coffin at all for the man), the relatives speaking about the deceased, the sermon, the procession to the graveside in the village near the home of the deceased, the burial and the scattering of petals. I declined Robert’s offer the day before that I should preach at the girl’s funeral, but this didn’t stop him asking me to say a few words at each of the funerals, and to pray for the deceased man’s wives and family at the second.

I left Omoo as darkness was falling.

My week with Robert was interrupted and we weren’t able to complete all Robert had planned. But it was concluded by a very joyful wedding at Olevu Parish accompanied by two udungu bands and children’s choirs. I was able to take a full part in the service and even able to eat the meal preceding it. Unfortunately I had a chest infection for most of the week but was able to use this as a good reason to avoid the second meal of enya, meat, rice, beans and cabbage.

PS. Two days ago Robert appeared at my office in Mvara. Three of the churches in his parish had complained. Because of the interrupted programme I hadn’t been to visit them. Robert is going to Kampala next week but when he returns we will resume where we left off. I look forward to that and think that Mingoro Parish, its Pastor and Church Teachers will be a useful place to develop some of my ideas about ministry in the future.

Water, water.........not necessarily everywhere

2008-09-21T10:39:00.010Z

Thunderstorms here usually seem to happen in the middle of the night heralding a period of sleeplessness maintained by crashing thunder and torrential rain. Today it waited until 6.30 when we awoke to the sound of distant thunder, and the skies which had promised dawn, darkening again as heavy spots of rain began to fall. Soon the heavens were open, with forks of lightning striking terrifyingly close to our house. The claps of thunder were awesome.

Sheltering in the porch we found our local mat and basket maker. He was delighted to be offered a cup of tea, a banana and refuge from the storm. We hope he also enjoyed Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony which we were playing in celebration of the thunder storm.

Anne and I arrived in Uganda last year in this same season of dramatic thunder storms and heavy rain. But the irony today is that, whilst we are experiencing frequent deluges, the UN is warning of drought in the Horn of Africa, including Karamoja in NE Uganda.

Here in Africa, water is king. Of course, that is true everywhere, but here it is much more obvious. Too much water, as in West Nile at the moment, and crops are ruined; too little, as in Karamoja, and the land remains arid and unproductive - both result in hunger and/or increased food costs.

Then there is the question of water quality. Water spells the difference between sickness and health, life and death. Here in NW Uganda many people still have to walk to the local river or spring to collect water where quality is far from certain. A spring or borehole protected by a concrete enclosure is best, but even this can be a source of disease. The college at Ringili has its own protected borehole, but there have been suspicions that this water-source may be responsible for cases of typhoid.

In Kuluva we are just over the hill from Ringili. Here we are blessed with a ready supply of water pumped from the hospital borehole to a tank in our house. Sometimes, though, even this runs out. Then we have to rely on 25 litre jerry cans. Lucy is a great asset as she transports these heavy yellow cans on her head from an alternative borehole on the site.

Having to decant water from jerry cans for every use is very tiring and annoying. It makes you think twice about having a shower (or a ‘pour’ as it actually is), or even flushing the loo. Water shortages can go on for days, and it is a great cause for celebration when we hear water beginning to pour into the tank in our roof once again. The only downside to this is that it tends to start in the middle of the night and wakes us up. It’s a bit like a thunder storm and torrential rain really.

We’ll see what the next 24 hours has in store for us.

A Week In The Life Of.........

2008-09-06T14:45:00.008Z

It was about 7.45 am on Saturday morning when my phone rang. Normally we set the alarm for 6.45 but on Saturday Anne and I can have a lie-in. Sometimes one of us will get up to make a cup of tea, but otherwise we enjoy the chance to come to slowly - as slowly as possible. The sound of the phone was unwelcome. Who would ring at this time on a Saturday morning? I contemplated ignoring it, but reluctantly I negotiated the mosquito net to retrieve my phone from the living room. I’d left my glasses in the bedroom, so with some difficulty focussed on the screen to identify my anti-social caller – Robert Arua 2, it said.

I’d met Robert in December on our tour of the archdeaconries. He was a young pastor in a rural parish in the Arua Archdeaconry and a tutor at the Archdeaconry Training Centre. Robert had impressed both Anne and myself as a bright, enthusiastic and thoughtful pastor, so when someone suggested I should spend some time ‘shadowing’ a pastor in his parish for a few days, Robert came to mind and when I approached him he readily agreed. But that had been in May, four months before this phone call.

I answered the phone and heard a cheerful African voice at the other end. “Hello. I’ll meet you at Jaiko at 9.30 tomorrow morning. There’s a communion service at Omoo church at 11.00 and we’ll sort out the programme from there. Sorry not to be in touch earlier. I’ve been in Kampala. By the way, you are preaching.” My brain was only half in gear, but in the dim recesses of my memory I recalled my conversation with Robert and our agreement to get together at the end of August.

At 7.45 that Saturday morning I regretted the arrangement, but in the event, the week that followed was an experience I shall not quickly forget.

I met Robert at the Arua Archdeaconry HQ at Jaiko the following morning, and drove some 8 km along one of the worst roads I've encountered in Uganda, finally arriving at Omoo, one of the eight churches which make up Robert’s parish of Mingoro. Each church is in the charge of a Lay Reader, and this Sunday it was Omoo’s turn to have their pastor present to lead a communion service.

It transpired that the whole parish had been looking forward to my arrival because Robert had announced that I was coming some three months earlier. All eight Readers with their Churchwardens and other senior laity were present, and before the service began – summoned by the beating of a drum – we met together in a rondavel for a meal of beans, meat, rice, enya, a boiled egg and sweet tea.

With the exception of my sermon, the service was conducted entirely in Lugbara (the local language), but one of the chief wardens – a former policeman – had good English and was able to translate for me. Robert translated my sermon to the congregation which had steadily grown in number from about 50 to 250 during the first part of the service. Members of the congregation have to travel considerable distances by foot or bicycle to get to the church, so it’s not too surprising if they’re not all there at the beginning

I sat down after the sermon, to some extent relieved that my rather hastily-prepared offering was over. But towards the end of the service (about two hours later), I was surprised to be asked if I had another message for the church.......Ugandan Christians seem to have an insatiable appetite for listening to speakers and sermons, with absolutely no time limit on worship.

At about 2.00 pm the service finally ended and I was steered back to the little rondavel (via a large group of children from the service who wanted their photograph taken) for yet another meal of beans, meat, rice, enya, a boiled egg and sweet tea accompanied by much good humoured conversation in a mixture of Lugbara and English.

Towards the end of the meal I could hear people again gathering and the sound of drumming and singing coming from the church about 100 yards away. It was the start of the Fellowship Meeting. We made our way back to the church and took our places at the front. Singing and dancing were in full swing. From time to time the singing would give way to one of the church leaders speaking (or shouting) to the congregation. This would then be interrupted some few minutes later by someone else starting to sing – and more dancing into which one was propelled, like it or not. And at the end I was invited to come and deliver another message to the church.........

I left Omoo at around 5.30 pm, arriving home with much to think about and wondering what else the week might hold.

Laceys (not) in Arua

2008-08-17T11:53:00.007Z

Back home now after our holiday in UK we have been received with enthusiastic welcomes by so many of our friends and colleagues at Kuluva Hospital, the Diocesan HQ in Mvara and staff at Ringili. It has been hugely encouraging, and we are glad to be able to settle down for the next two years in what we are pleased to be able to call home.

Of course, we do have another home which we were able to enjoy during our holiday. It was so good to see our little house in Leicester again, and to be able to visit family and friends all over the UK. All in all we can look back on a busy, but very successful and enjoyable trip.

It began with a trip to Sheffield with Jo, where we stayed with our son, Ben and daughter-in-law, Bethan in their new home. Joining them in a cold and windy walk up Mam Tor reminded us of one of the things we missed about Britain. We were reminded of other things too as we, first, joined with the congregation accompanied by the splendid organ in Sheffield Cathedral, spiritedly singing “And can it be”, and later visited The Strines Inn (real ale!) in Derbyshire.

St Mary’s, Andover was a late link church for us before we came to Uganda, so we took the opportunity of a trip to the West Country for a short holiday in Exeter and Lynmouth to visit them en route. It was good to be able to put some faces to names and to have a chance to thank them for their support of us and the ATC Library Project in Madi/West Nile. We also managed to sell the Vicar some stoles made by one of the pastors at Ringili – anyone else interested in buying some? They’re excellent value and much cheaper than anything you’ll find in the UK!

We had a great welcome in our home church at St Denys in Leicester. It was wonderful to be made to feel so much at home there, after all we’d only had a few weeks at the church before we left for Uganda. We were encouraged by their enthusiasm and prayers for us, and their desire to establish a link with our home church here in Kuluva Parish.

London next, staying with Allan's brother David and his wife Muriel, and meeting up with Anne's sister Cathy. Two Promenade Concerts provided some cultural nourishment for us, as well as providing an excuse to spend a day in London with the myriad tourists. We walked around Westminster, past the Abbey and Houses of Parliament, over the Thames and along the South Bank, later having an hour in Hyde Park. After a year in Africa all of this, and in particular the extraordinary Albert Memorial provide a bit of a contrast!

But of course, the great highlight was Jo’s graduation back in Leicester – the result of five years’ hard work. It was a splendid day of celebration with Jo together with her friends and their families, enhanced by a short, pithy and very amusing speech by Bill Bryson in response to the honorary DLitt he received at the graduation ceremony.

A short time in North Wales (cold and damp weather, but warm welcome from Allan's other brother, Keith), made us ready for the journey back to Uganda where we engaged in our first exercise as travel guides, accompanying our friends David and Di in Kampala, Murchison Park and Arua. David is Head of the secondary school in Allan’s last parish and whilst in the UK we had been able to see the progress on their new school building. It was a good way to return to Arua and we enjoyed their visit immensely.

But now the work begins. There is much to do and as we settle here again we hope to be able to share with you more of our experiences here in NW Uganda, more of its sights and sounds, as well of its delights and frustrations. We look forward to the future whatever it holds.

Meet Kirit

2008-07-03T06:03:00.005Z

Kirit is a key person in our Ugandan lifestyle. He’s calm, efficient, knowledgeable and very reliable, and we’ve been depending on him for most of the time we’ve been in Uganda. The only problem is that Kirit is based in Kampala, and so on occasions we’ve had to find Aruan substitutes. Fedele and Enoch have filled that role in Kuluva, but there are some things that even they can’t do, and so we have to make an appointment with Kirit. For example, Fedele was excellent when it came to shock absorbers, but as far as the on-board computer was concerned neither Fedele nor Enoch could handle it.

Kirit (he's the one on the right) is our car mechanic/advisor. He gave our Land Cruiser the once-over before we bought it, and has done a service on it every time we’ve visited Kampala. We got his name from an AIM contact, and he’s been great – a God-send.

For some time before travelling to Kampala to collect Jo from Entebbe in April, the car had been misbehaving badly. It’s an automatic (not what we’d normally choose), but in Kampala traffic it’s ideal. But the gears had started changing somewhat idiosyncratically. The problem had begun on a trip back from Kampala on a very hot day when the car was packed with goods and people. For two months we nursed the poor beast about the place, not knowing whether it would survive. Both Enoch and Fedele shook their heads sagely, rather in the manner of a doctor with bad news to deliver. Ringing Kirit though, gave birth to some small rays of hope. “Bring her in when you’re in Kampala. But treat her gently on the way”, he advised. So, a short while later when we travelled to Kampala to meet Jo, we travelled gently – not the way Anne normally drives(!!) – Ouch!

We took the car straight to Kirit who diagnosed a computer fault and assured us that it should be easy to fix. Later that day, sure enough, the problem was solved. It had been the computer, and we felt confident driving to Entebbe a couple of days later for our rendezvous with Jo.

The same day we collected Jo, in the late afternoon (rush hour), we decided to go out for a meal. Travelling down a busy dual carriageway in Kampala, we hit a bit of a traffic jam, slowed down – and the engine died. Try as we might, the engine simply wouldn’t start again. The rest of the traffic moved – except us, and the traffic queued up behind us. But Ugandans are very forgiving people, not a single car horn was heard. Fortunately, where we had stopped the road went slightly downhill. We freewheeled a few hundred yards down the hill – struggling with the power steering which wasn’t, and finally having to stand on the power brakes which weren’t – and managed to steer into a sort of lay-by.

It was 6.05 pm. Five minutes after Kirit’s garage usually closed. We tried his number and held our breath – and much to our relief and delight he answered. Yes he was still there and would send out a low-loader to collect us. Fifteen minutes later we spotted the low-loader and enjoyed watching it having to manoeuvre the wrong way through voluminous traffic before reaching us to start the painstaking process of hauling us up on the vehicle. Sadly we had no camera to take pictures of either the process or the entertainment our predicament provided for passers-by!

We travelled to Kirit’s garage in the car on the back of the low-loader. It was a little like a royal progress, and many people waved as we passed. Kirit waited until we arrived. He couldn’t understand what was wrong, but promised to discover the problem and sort it for us.

The following lunchtime he rang. Problem solved. It was the fuel pump. Everything was now in order. We returned the car he'd kindly let us borrow (dodgy brakes, but otherwise functional), and collected ours. He felt so sorry for us he only charged for the pump – no labour. Since then our fuel consumption has reduced by about 20%. What a man!

We’re now returning to the UK for a month and giving the car a rest. It’s unlikely that we’ll post another blog until mid-August, but hope you’ll be patient. To all, thanks for being interested in what we’re doing. To those who pray – it works!