Uganda: Real Rural Uganda

From Uganda 2012

Yesterday we visited two homes in Kumi, in a very rural setting. Today we visited a home in a village in the Katakwi District about 7 hours north east of Kampala. All of the houses were “dobe and wattle” (mud huts), roughly three metres in diameter, with thatched roofs. Sometimes the children sleep in a separate hut but in the home we visited today, the entire family, including 6 children, lived in one of these buildings. None of these homes had windows, lights, water, or plumbing of any kind. Cooking is always done outside, even in the local restaurant that we also visited today. The extent of the poverty is seen in the fact that less than one in ten children wore shoes during today’s distribution.

It is difficult for our SCAW team to appreciate the lack of facilities, but we got a taste of it last night as we had no power all night or first thing this morning. Reading and report-writing were done by candlelight or kerosene lantern. This inconvenience totally changed our life for one night yet these people live with this on a daily basis.

This is close to a border so another burden that many of the families have to deal with besides the loss of one or both parents to AIDS, has been warfare and a large number of orphans. Often these orphans are adopted by the remaining family members. This adds to the already substantial burden of raising their own family.

All of the children get up and dressed in their school uniforms each morning, walk to school, bring home their homework, and make sure it is done in daylight. Uganda is on the equator so the sun comes up at six o’clock and goes down at six o’clock.

The saving grace for these people is the incredibly fertile land, fine family agricultural practices, and a year round growing season. Most of the farming is back-breaking labour done with a hoe, mainly by women. We have yet to see any plowing done by horses or tractors. We did see a few cattle-powered plows.

This area has to be the most rural and the poorest that we have visited so far.

Bob and Peter
for Team Uganda 2012

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