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January 14, 2007 - Jinja - Uganda

by Bill Stumbaugh

This is Sunday the 14th. We had a great breakfast at the Gately on the Nile hotel. And the local Rotarians from the Jinja Rotary Club took us by bus into Jinja to purchase crafts--shirts, basketry, wood carvings, and jewelry. I really wanted to purchase an African shirt, but was unable to find one with a sufficiently large enough neck opening for my big heard to fit through. Oh well. I did find some wonderful batik paintings instead. While waiting for my teammates, I watched some men play a national board game called ludo on the sidewalk. It was similar to Parchessi. They played very fast and it was difficult to follow.

A Ugandan member of our travel group included a 19 year old man named Bosco Okello. Okello (Ugandans list their family name first) was abducted when he was 12 years old by men from the Lord's Liberation Army (LRA) who are fighting against the Ugandan government. The LRA is notorious for forcing children to fight. Okello told me how he was forced to carry huge packs (60 kilos) for ten to twelve hours, or face death. He saw the LRA men cut the feet from fellow youth who resisted. They were eventually shot or left in the bush to die from infection and starvation. He said abducted girls his age were raped and kept as concubines.

During one fight with the Ugandan army, Okello was shot in the lower left leg and left by the LRA to fend for himself. He said that he survived about two weeks in the forest eating local plants. Eventually, some hunters from the Acholi tribe rescued him and took him to their village. They eventually took him to the Ugandan army post (Uganda gives amnesty to fighters who give themselves-up.) The army took him to a hospital and later his lower leg was amputated due to gangrene. Eventually, Okello was taken to another hospital where he received a prosthesis. It was at this time that Rotarian John Kirkwood from the Rotary Club of Jinja met him and took him to the Lords Meade Vocational School where he now lives and studies.

During the day our group traveled to the Bujagali Falls on the Nile River and then later to the "source of the Nile" where it begins, flowing out of Lake Victoria for its 4,000 mile journey north through Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. I was surprised to see that the Nile at its beginning was as wide as the Colorado River near Yuma. It definitely was fast flowing with a large volume of water. At this place, many people were riding rafts and kayaks across the strong rapids. We took a boat trip on the Nile and saw monkeys, cormorants, egrets, storks and iguanas along the shore line. Along the banks also were dancers and musicians performing traditional Ugandan songs and dances in ethnic costumes.

Next, we left the river and went to the Parvatiben Madhvani Girls School in Jinja. While the students were on "holiday," and we were unable to visit classes, we entered a building where almost 240 boxes of new wheelchairs were stored as part of Rotary projects. A local Rotarian explained to us that local Rotary Clubs will work with disabled individuals of all ages to complete an application and take a photograph which are then submitted to the Jinja Club to request a wheelchair. The chairs are then transported to the appropriate Rotary Club for delivery to the needy person. Being in a country where little is wasted, the cardboard boxes will be sold for 50 cents to people who often use it for flooring or covering in their homes.

At lunch time, our team was hosted by many Jinja Rotarians for a good bye luncheon at the Ling Ling Chinese Restaurant; the owner is a Rotarian. Many Chinese dishes familiar to Americans were on the menu. Uganda and American Rotarians shared their gratitude for our continuing partnership and its promising future on behalf of service to the needy in Uganda.

We returned by mini-van to Kampala via a more inland route, stopping for a few minutes at a Nile River access point down river near Kanganhumera village.

In the evening, our group was honored at party sponsored by District Governor Tusu in his home. About 50 people attended including James Tugume and Michael Ipiima who had been members of the Group Study Exchange team from District 9200 to D5340 in 2006. Tusu and our DG Philippe shared warm words of regard for our districts’ continuing collaboration and service.

Note: On January 17, the New Vision national newspaper had a short article about our visit to Jinja.