The flight from Zambia to Uganda on
Thursday was via Lilongwe in Malawi, and Nairobi in Kenya. As we flew over
Malawi on the approach to Lilongwe, I had a brilliant birds eye view of the
country, and one of the things that was very apparent was the organized set up
of rural life.
By this I mean that rather than having
random homes scattered throughout the countryside, there would be clusters of
homes, all appearing to be focused around a central space, and with some sort
of boundary hedge around the village. Presumably in that central space there
would be the borehole, and in some of the bigger groupings of buildings there
would be a larger building or two – maybe the school and the church? Roads
connected the villages, and between the villages there were fields, and green
space, but no real evidence of isolated houses.
Now I realize that this is just my
interpretation of what I saw, and it might be very different at ground level,
but it certainly came across as a rural lifestyle that had some organisation to
it, and a system that allowed people to live in community, with access to
transport, water, and neighbours.
Contrast that to the view of rural life I
got yesterday when I went to visit a project that I had been put in touch with
through one of the team members on our 360 Portsmouth team.
The project is called Seeta Nazigwa Aids
Project (SNAP) and is about 26 miles outside of Kampala, the final 4 miles of
which are along dirt roads going further and further into the countryside. The
project was set up by Pastor David, a man of God who has lived all his life in
the area, but unlike many of his neighbours who just live a day to day
existence, David looked around him at the poverty and determined to do
something about it.
The
purpose of my visit was to find out more about SNAP, and establish if the 360
team can get involved in any of the work, and to that end it was a successful
visit.
SNAP has set up a school providing
education for about 350 local children who would otherwise have to walk an hour
or so to the next nearest school, and be educated in classes of 100+ pupils.
There is also a community centre under
construction, which will eventually function as church, health clinic, adult
literacy centre and more.
The SNAP project helps orphans and vulnerable
children with school fees, and has also helped to build homes for some widows
in the area who were left destitute when their husbands died.
Plans for the future include a small shop
that will sell general goods, tailoring workshops to help local women gain a
skill, computer literacy workshops, and more homes for more widows.
All these plans, plus the completion of the
community centre and the finishing of the school buildings, all require funds –
and that is where SNAP struggles. With so little money in the community, and
being fairly remote and unconnected, accessing funds is not easy. But, they
keep going, and they pray, and they rejoice in what God provides, and I am
looking forward to going back in November with the team to see what progress has
been made.
But getting back to the contrast in rural
life – the thing that struck me anew whilst driving to SNAP was the
haphazardness of rural Ugandan life. Homes scattered all over the place, and
all facing different directions; hovels and shacks clinging to bits of land in
the shadow of bigger houses, random trees still standing amidst many tree
stumps as people seek firewood in a very unsustainable way.
Trying to get pumped water to these homes
would be nigh on impossible, as they are not grouped together, and so people
end up spending valuable time walking considerable distances to get water from
any borehole that has been set up, or from a river or trickle of a stream.
Similarly, providing electricity or
sanitation to the homes is equally unlikely, and again the result is people
continue to live in the same impoverished way that they have for so many years,
and the opportunities for development pass them by.
I don’t know what the solution is. Indeed
where does the fault lie for allowing such a haphazard and disjointed approach
to rural habitation? Is it the government who didn’t set up good systems in the
first place, or is it the church who, in Uganda, is a very well-respected and
trusted establishment that can be found in every level of society? Should the
church have been teaching more about how to care for the land and for each
other through practical ways? Certainly my previous experience of life in
Uganda, and in particular the response to HIV and AIDS, is that the church is
listened to more than the politicians, and so it was only when the church
started speaking out about HIV that changes started happening.
I guess the danger however, is that people
get distracted by trying to work out who got it wrong in the past, rather than
focusing on how to get it right going forward. I’m not in a position to
influence that in any way, but chatting to John yesterday, and hearing once
again his passion for sustainable ways of living, and using that as a way to
eradicate poverty, and meeting Pastor David, I know there are people out there
who do want to see the change, and are doing what they can to bring it about.
I pray that for all the John’s and Pastor
David’s in this country - such faithful
servants, seeking the best for the people and the land, in self-less, inspiring
ways. May they have many opportunities to grow their ministries, and to bring
others on board so that their works can reach out and impact more families and
communities who so need to have that positive direction inputted into their lives.
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