We hit the road and wave goodbye for now to Queen Elizabeth Park.Our route takes us once again through the Park and we enjoy a final glimpse of elephant, Uganda Kob, buffalo and kudu.It’s a beautiful trip and Agy enjoys snapping pictures of local life on the way.
have a banana
kazinga channel
speaks for itself
Reading a very amusing story in the paper of a journalist who not only accidentally marries a village chief and but also inadvertently eats monkey in Sierra Leone.
We arrive back in Kampala where CHOGM is getting into its stride.Today they have a Business Forum attended by several neighbouring heads of state – a great opportunity for development but not for driving.
Home at the Link International Centre – a lovely, relaxing place on the outskirts of the city.We spend a quiet evening with John and company, discussing cultural differences in food.They can’t imagine why we would eat snails or crab whilst we can’t “stomach” intestines.
21 November
Before bidding goodbye to John, we’re going over to a slum area, home to many women and children who are refuges of the conflict in the North of Uganda.This war lasted for about twenty years and has now, hopefully, finally ended.Thousands of children were abducted for recruitment as child soldiers by the Lord’s Resistance Army.Many women lost their menfolk and were left with no home, no support and in terrifyingly vulnerable.
Some now inhabit a squalid patch of wasteland in Kampala.Arriving there it really is shocking.We pass a quarry where women are sitting breaking rocks into small stones for gravel.
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The odour is obviously non too pleasing and if you want to know my feelings I want to weep for the misery of these people.
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I was about to say “vulnerable” but that wouldn’t be fair.They’re incredibly resilient, cheerful women and children who offer us a very warm welcome.
happy kids from the acholi slum
The women have formed a cooperative where they manufacture beads by hand.
acholi beadmakers
If you check the Link website you will see how Amelia Barber has organised for this beautiful jewellery to be retailed in the UK.
Revenue earned has so far enabled these women to decide for themselves how the money would be most useful for their community.So far they have sent twelve of their children to school.
acholi bead maker with her baby
The fact that refugees are becoming business women affords them dignity and a certain degree of independence.
We enter one of the hovels and the beads are placed before us.It’s an incredibly array of colour against the drab background.
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Choosing a selection to take back to Brussels for a small sale of our own is proving very difficult.
jayne choosing beads to sell in europe for the women of the acholi tribe
We emerge from the village elated, optimistic and more than a little humbled.
Bidding a fond farewell to John, we return to Gunna and Tony’s for our final couple of days.
agy with john of link international
We’d like to thank John for the marvellous work he’s doing in Uganda with Link International, for all the time he spent with us, his patience (particularly when we made him sit there in terror as an elephant was about to charge us in QENP!) and for showing us the many aspects of his duties here.
But Tony, Gunna, Kristjan and Sean, thank you so much for putting up with us, for ferrying us around all over the place and for nothing being too much trouble for you.We really appreciate your kindness and hope that one day we’ll be able to reciprocate – please come and see us next year!
