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January 13, 2007 - Jinja - Uganda

by Kate DuVivier

Off to Jinja

We woke to a gentle rain that ended as we finished breakfast and then headed off to Jinja, a small city about 70 miles east of Kampala. There were several past and proposed matching grant projects that we wanted to see. We were accompanied by Rotarians Martin Kiyaga and Ben, and Ben's wife Florence, so the time passed pleasantly as we drove on what they claimed was the best road in Uganda.

The Road Trip

As we left Kampala, the streets were bustling. Lots of traffic, especially vans and motorbikes and pedestrians. Lots of activity, people opening up their small shops, piling up chest-high stacks of green matooke (bananas), hanging fresh meat up in their open air butcheries, and getting their day off to a busy start. Soon we were in the countryside. The whole area looks like a gently rolling garden. Rich soil, and fruit-bearing plants growing everywhere. Bananas, maize, sorghum, Jack fruit trees, cassava, sweet potatoes were scattered thickly and lushly along the roadside. We drove through a section of jungle which gave a flavor of what things used to be like before the old trees were cut for lumber and firewood and we drove an area with very large sugarcane fields and tea fields, but otherwise it was mainly subsistence farms an gardens surrounding the small houses along the roadside. Uganda is called the Pearl of Africa and along this drive we could see how it got it's nickname.

Lord Meade Vocational College

Our first stop in Jinja was at a secondary school founded by Rotarian John Kirkwood where we were greeted by Rotary Club of Jinja President, William Okello, and Headmaster, Kiganga Godfrey. The school started with a handful of students in 2002 and has already grown to 650 students. They would like to continue expanding up to 850 students, but need additional facilities to do so. It is an innovative co-educational boarding school for grades 7 to 12, which serves impoverished students from Jinja and its surrounding villages. Academics are taught in the morning and technical skills in the afternoon.

We had an interesting walk through their 20 acre site and were shown the results of four matching grants done with with our district and the Jinja Rotary Club, including a borehole and reservoir (Escondido, Santee Lakeside and Valley Center Clubs), the equipment in the chemistry lab (San Diego Club), books in the library (Poway Club), and the furniture for the medical clinic which was just being built in the school workshop by students as we visited (District Governor Philippe's Special Grant of $1,000 purchased the materials). It's an exciting place. The buildings were not fancy, but were pleasant and well cared for.

Of particular interest to me was a demonstration of some new sustainable technologies the students are learning. We saw a stabilized-adobe block-making machine which was developed by Professor Moses Musazi at Makerere University which presses a mixture of clay and portland cement into a block creating an inexpensive substitute for the local bricks which are usually used for Ugandan home-building but which require a great deal of firewood to fire hard enough to last through the rainy seasons. A crew of three men can make up to 300 bricks a day with one machine costing $1100. These bricks are used for the school buildings. Some older students were working on building a classroom building during their vacation, gaining money for tuition as well as experience. We also saw the campus "cookshed" where they had several large energy efficient fire-burning stoves, a few of which were in use preparing our delicious lunch.

Q&A’s & Lunch

After our tour we had a brief Q&A session in one of the classrooms. Philippe credited school founder John Kirkwood as his inspiration for the www.MatchingGrants.org website he has developed. John has also created the Tofta Educational Trust which provides scholarships, but they receive hundred’s of applications, far more than they can fund. Some interesting facts: they really appreciated the fact that the Poway Club let them buy the books the teachers wanted, rather than choosing for them, while all secondary schools in Uganda "teach" science, few have the laboratory equipment which enables students to actually "learn" science. The school has a volunteer club which built a mud home for a grandmother and her grandchildren in need, only to have it nearly collapse after heavy rains, so they did fundraising and went back and built her a brick home with windows. A very big project for students who can barely pay the $115 per semester it costs for room and board and tuition! We then had a delicious lunch cooked by students including Headmaster Kiganga’s two daughters.

Other Projects Around Jinja

Members of the Rotary Club of Jinja took us in their cars to see some of the other projects they are involved in. We went out into the countryside and visited the Odondo School. Started by villagers 3 years ago, it was made of mud (wattle & daub) but Rotarians had built them permanent enclosed latrines, as a way to keep the girls from dropping out once they reach puberty. The Rotarians said they try to provide one latrine for every 30 students.

We drove farther and farther down dirt lanes through groupings of small homes with lots of children everywhere until we seemed to be driving right through someone's backyard into a abandoned coffee plantation and downhill into a low-lying swampy area when we suddenly arrived at quite a beautiful setting with a protected spring project. The Jinja Rotary Club has now completed over 200 protected spring projects at a cost of $650 to $700 each, converting a local water hole into a much safer, less contaminated water source. While it seemed we were in the middle of nowhere we must have had at least 50 children following us around as we viewed the project. There was a lovely statue erected to mark the site because it was the 100th spring they had worked on.

Continuing along more dirt roads, we came to Wamsimba Primary School which was recently re-roofed with a Rotary Matching Grant. It serves 1594 students in 15 classrooms, although 600 kids have to sit on the floor. They have 5 latrines, one of which is collapsing. So the Jinja Rotarians are interested in doing a project to help this school. The students attend school from 8 to 12:45 and then from 2 to 4:45, going home for lunch. A lot of children appeared to see what we were doing including some that were obviously orphans, thin with barely any clothes. Overwhelming to me, but the kids were friendly and playful and we soldiered on.

When you see the villages and the level of need, you really have to admire the local Rotarians for all they do and for their willingness to keep on doing more, just pecking away at what needs to be done, child by child, toilet by toilet, mosquito net by mosquito net, project by project. Next we went to the Rotary Club office, on a quiet street in Jinja with a desk and a big pile of mosquito nets and posters about AIDS, How to Report Sexual Abuse of Children, Vaccination and Help Wanted Notices. Just a few blocks away was a dormitory for nearly-blind primary school children, an ongoing Rotary Project which they have been supporting since 1988 with proceeds from their "Rotary Mayor’s Ball." Back then a few blind children and adults lived together in a bamboo shed. Now thirty-three children live there with a small staff when school is in session. It’s basically two bedrooms, a dining room and a living room. They’d like to pave the area outside the two buildings. They’d also like to get a container of 500 braille machines for these students and others in the region. Blindness is a big problem in the area due to a fly-borne infection.

After a big day of viewing great projects and hearing about our host Rotarians hopes to do even more, we went to our beautiful hotel, Gately-On-Nile which was near the shore of Lake Victoria. It was a bird paradise with big storks roosting on the tree tops and expanses of lawn. We relaxed on the veranda until dark when we had a lovely outdoor buffet with our fellow Rotarians from Kampala and Jinja. It was a wonderful evening of international fellowship where each American team member had a chance to spend time talking at length with our new Ugandan friends.