Uganda Perspective

Back in Action after Data Disaster

Sorry, y'all, have been off the air for awhile dealing with a hard drive crash.  Data surgeons successfully dissected the drive and recovered all files, however and new backup systems are in place.  Duh, why didn't I think of that before?

The posts are backing with much to report.  I will be in UG from 12/8 to 12/22 & will report from there.  More later. 

The National Motto: “We Are Not Organized"

I need to take a break from The Reality of AIDS for a moment to get something off my chest. Why is it, with Uganda's tremendous oversupply of highly educated people, all those engineers, consultants, architects and scientists – and access to the world’s expertise just for the asking - why can’t they build a road?

Take a look at the photo included here. This is a brand new road in Mbarara that collapsed earlier this month. There is a “bypass” in Kampala that was supposed to be completed for the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting in Uganda a year ago and is not finished yet. A 60-mile road from Kabale to Kisoro, under construction for over a year, a very very expensive and very needed project, has been graded and smoothed but is not yet paved – and is washing away while it waits for macadam. The main roads in Kampala are paved while all others – thousands of miles of them connecting neighborhoods and back streets are dirt, eroded with ruts up to three feet deep.  Dodging potholes, people die on the Kampala-Mbarara Road every week. Here is a typical wreck.

Yet, the President vows major new road projects in the next two years. “It will help our economy,” he says. He’s said it before and he is right. But it’s all for naught if the roads don’t last more than a month.

“We are not organized” could be the nation’s motto. The chaos of society here is part of its charm for visitors, but it wears thin for people who live here. Nothing is maintained – half the solar/wind gizmos attached to light poles to impress CHOGM attendees are broken. The Nile River dam in Jinja that supplies most of the nation’s electricity is not “wukking” due to lack of maintenance so another dam is being built. To a nation desperately trying to build its economy, this one seems to be trying to fly with porous wings.

Traveling the only route from Mbarara to Kamwenge and getting a “road massage” as the car tackled the ruts, I saw a – wonder of wonders – a yellow Caterpillar grader parked alongside the road. I asked the driver why the machine was sitting idle when clearly the road needed grading. He said, “Oh, that is just the government responding to the local council. They want the road fixed.” He shrugged. “The government sends a machine and a man. The man grades just enough to show he has done something. Then he siphons the diesel out of the tank, sells it and spends the rest of his day in the bar. The next day there is no fuel so he cannot continue. What is he to do?”

Well, I thought, while he’s sitting in the bar, he could revise the national anthem to something like, “O, Uganda, We Are Not Organized.” There. I feel much better now.

A Conversation with Teenagers

After speaking at a boy’s secondary school in Kabale, I was surrounded by young men anxious to ask questions. “Mzee, why is everyone in America homosexual?” Somewhat stunned, I replied, “Why does everyone in Africa have AIDS?” It was the young man’s turn to be stunned. “We don’t,” he said. “We aren’t,” I replied, but then I queried, “Why do you ask?”

“Your church just elected a homosexual Bishop to lead people in their faith.” He was referring to the recent appointment of Gene Robinson, a self-avowed homosexual to the position of Bishop overseeing the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. The news had astounded Anglican Church leadership here and resulted in headlines in the largest daily newspaper that read: “Anglican Church of Uganda Severs All Ties with American Episcopal Church.”

 “Ah, Bishop Robinson,” I replied. “That was for one city. Personally, I’m glad it was not my church or my city and, as far as I know, this is the only homosexual man in such a leadership in our country.”

Their next question? “Why does your George Bush want to take over Iraq?” “I don’t believe he does,” I replied. “Would your President send Ugandans to fight there if he did?”

 “Is everyone rich in America?” one asked.  “No. Many of us who visit here need to work a long time to be able to afford the airplane ticket. We are not all movie stars or rock stars. And no, I don’t know any.”

 “You are from Chicago. Do you know Michael Jordan?” another asked.  “No but I have seen him play. Do you know Oprah? She is also from Chicago.” “No. Who is she? But I have a friend, Anne, who lives in America. Do you know her?” another chimed in. “Can you tell me her last name?”  I asked. “No. But she lives in America.” “Well,” I queried.  “Do you know where she lives?”  “Yes. In America,” she replied.  “I’m sorry. I don’t know her.”

 A young man named Daniel pops in: “I like Arra Kelly. And Eminem and Beyonce and Akon and Rhianna and Fifty Cents and Bobby Brown and Ciarra. I want to be a record producer in America.” “You could do that here,” I reply.  “I would like to do that in America,” he said.

Answering these questions and a thousand others, hearing their reality and expressing ours, being able to talk face to face is why we go. We may be people separated by great distances, by different histories, cultures, behaviors and vastly differing living conditions, but it doesn’t take long before we realize we are really very much the same. Our values, our desire for family, love, safety and meaning in our lives are universal. We learn that here. These are the things that change us. 

Juna Amagara – Funny Words - One Great NGO

As you may have read in my profile, I am deeply involved with an organization called Juna Amagara Ministries.  It’s an odd name for ministry, but the words mean “Saving Life” in the local Bantu dialect of our Executive Director, Ben Tumuheirwe. We used an African name because the organization is run by Ugandans for Ugandans, the result of one man’s desire to leave his rural village, get an education, and then return to give innocent victims of AIDS a chance at life. 

The ministry began with a mission trip when some Americans were invited by Ben to “come home” with him to Uganda in 2003. Over ten days in country, we stretched the limits of our emotions – wincing at the depths of poverty and despair – and marveling at the joy of people who have few material goods but an unshakable relationship with God.  We were blown away at the beauty of the country and humbled at the hospitality of its people. We saw mothers dying of AIDS. We saw the “ghost children” with filthy clothes and runny noses standing on street corners, staring blankly into space. We wept at the scrumptious harmony of choirs accompanied only by a drum.

One day Ben shared his vision of what a ministry might look like and so, when we returned, we presented that dream to a small group of people at a Presbyterian church near Chicago. At the end, people wrote checks. And six weeks later, the Ugandans opened the first Amagara Children’s Home in a rented house, fully equipped and staffed, a safe haven for 14 children whose parents had died. To my American view of “we will need to do it for them,” this was an eye-opener. I learned the Africans can carry on very well themselves – they are skilled, intelligent and motivated to help their children – all we need to do is assist, encourage, enable and get out of the way. 

It has been nearly five years since that mission trip. Thanks to generous donations, the ministry has over 300 kids in the program.  We’ve built a permanent children’s home for 65 of them along with three schools, and a community learning center.  The magic ingredients of a loving, Christ-based home and education are creating magnificent people who will be the leaders of their society not so many years from now.  One of the original kids in the program has finished her first year at University on a full scholarship, learning skills that will take her far and wide as a disciple for Christ.  Over the years, 150 people have traveled from America to Uganda to work with the ministry.  One young couple met on a Juna Amagara mission trip, fell in love, married in Texas and moved to Uganda as full-time missionaries for the ministry. And there are still 880,000 orphans without care.

Uganda is a long airplane ride away, but when I am there, I realize these children are our children who need our love and attention. Today they are kids, but soon they will be instrumental in shaping the heart and soul of Africa.  They will magnify themselves as servant-leaders.  It is happening already. Saving these lives gives me hope.

This Blog is Long Overdue

This is a blog about one country in Africa. There are 48 others situated on or near the continent. Each has its own story, but this one is exceptional, a surprise.

If you count from the day the government was wrested from the control of idiot dictators in 1986, the Republic of Uganda is only slightly more than two decades old. As a region, however, people have lived in this part of the Great Rift Valley since the beginning of mankind, developing an orderly society of tribes and villages, culture and skills, trade and warfare. Its story is one of a people who, over the last 125 years, have endured Colonialism, corrupt leadership, famine, disorganization, rebellion, disease, the Sexual Revolution, the Cold War, the UN and warring neighbors, to become a productive nation of faith and enterprise. It is the story of how this one nation has become the world’s shining example of how to deal with the AIDS pandemic. It is also my story, a personal journey, one man’s intimate venture into another culture and an unexpected safari into faith.

I confess I went to Uganda not as an evangelist or a missionary but as a traveler curious to see the place. I wanted to discover the truth about AIDS in Africa firsthand. I wanted to see the Sally Struthers children with fly-blown faces, babies with bloated bellies, the emaciated dead lying in the gutters. I wanted to duck the bullets of wild-eyed rebels and walk among the throngs of withering refugees. I wanted to taste the anti-American venom of Mogadishu, see the blood-stained streets of Idi Amin, touch the squalor of apartheid, smell the fear of brutal tribal war of Rwanda, feel the blind, government-fueled hatred of white citizens by the impoverished blacks of Zimbabwe and witness the ostentatious results of blatant thievery of public funds by President Monarchs driving Rolls Royces.

Imagine my surprise when I found none of these things. 

Come with me over the next days and months as I share my experiences and insights of this exceptional country.  Together we will roam the President's palace, the slums, the schools; we will see children transformed from hopeless despair to immense joy, we will witness the people of the abundant West as they attempt to help their neighbors in the impoverished South and we will marvel at the overwhelming beauty of the land. We will watch as it evolves.  Though most Americans hardly know where Africa is, over time, you will come to see this country as no tourist ever will.