Who keeps a cockerel indoors? The people who run this hotel
apparently. There must be about 30 rooms here, only four of them are occupied
by us so the place is practically abandoned. The cockerel, who is running a bit
fast to my watch and the Sun, started crowing at about 4.30am and it echoed
wonderfully down the long corridors of the hotel. It’s creepy in the dark and
with it being empty, I was continually worried about running in to twin girls
round the next corner when moving about the hotel.
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| The Overlook Hotel |
Made do with a basin full of cold water to wash the previous
days dirt off and set off on foot for the office at 7.15am. Hung around there
for 45 minutes before setting off in the shuttle for the villages with a brief stop
off at the Global Café for couple of deep fried bread cake things, they were
quite pleasant, sweet and salty washed down with a cool Coke. I also had some ‘fingers’
of cassava, fried and liberally sprinkled with salt, also not bad.
We went back to Kapelebyong to mobilise the researchers and
do some more hanging around. Whilst doing this I was greeted by a small
procession of school children who all wanted to shake my hand. Along with many
things, feminism hasn’t made it to this part of the world. The girls did a half
bow / curtsy whilst shaking my hand and every time I arrived somewhere where a
women was sitting they always tried to give up their seat for me and the other
men and went to sit on the floor. All quite embarrassing, but I always went
with my fall back response of smiling and nodding that has served me well so
far.
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| The field shuttle in Kapelebyong |
Eventually we all piled in to the shuttle and set off. When
we arrived at the first drop off point I was asked if I was OK doing some
surveys to which I duly agreed. I was partnered with Stephen (even in Uganda
you can’t escape the people called Stephen), who I had met yesterday. After
about half an hours walk through the fields we found a suitable respondent, and
after about another half an hour we had finished and set off again. Since we
were only looking for people who were part of farmers’ groups set up by VAD it
took a bit longer to find another lucky punter. It was compounded as many were
in the fields (gardens) working when we were around and we had to be sensitive
to their daily life e.g. we wouldn’t interview a women in the homestead before
she had prepared lunch as if this wasn’t done by the time her husband came back
from the ‘gardens’ he might beat her.
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| Heading to the first village |
Most of the questions about their farms, how much and what
they grow, whether they have any additional income above pure subsistence
farming, how many meals a day they have and whether their eating habit have
changed at all in the last 12 months e.g. fewer meals per day, smaller meals
per day, how often they eat different types of food e.g. meat 1 to 2 times a
month, etc., etc. Stephen did most of the talking in Teso, but some of the
villagers had a handful of English learnt at Primary School, none I saw had an
education above primary level, most had no formal education.
Some made a bit of extra income from selling some food
stuffs, charcoal or additional manual labour, but their average monthly income
was less than the cost of the notebook and pen I wrote my notes in; my
sunglasses two months, my boots 4 months, and my camera would be two years or
more income. All said that they had struggled with food at some point in the
last 12 months. Access to water seems OK though, I only noticed one defunct
pump, and I say OK relatively, as for some it may be a two to three hour walk
to the nearest pump so a trip with some jerry cans of water could easily take
half a day in the baking heat.
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| Following Stephen through the 'gardens' |
After a few more interviews we were struggling to find new
interviewees as there were 6 researchers in the general area, we set off for
another village only to bump into the shuttle on one of its many journeys. We
got a lift to a nearby borehole were the villagers were mobilised to come and
be interviewed. I was about to sit down and start when I was asked if I could
come to another primary school. On the trip there I munched on the glucose biscuits
all the researchers got and had a warm coke from a village trading post.
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| Group interviews by the borehole |
The second school visit we had coincided with a PTA meeting
of 50 or so parents and we were introduced by the Head Teacher and gave a brief
speech to introduce ourselves. Since I was supposed to be interviewing him, I’d
have to hang around for the meeting to finish. The secondary reason for the
visit was to engage with the PTA and discuss food security for the school
children, getting their early engagement and buy in to what we hope to do as
part of this project in the schools. The school aspect is a pilot program that
if it works out can be rolled out more widely.
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| Back of the PTA meeting |
After a good dialogue with the parents, the school wants a
contribution of 5000 UGX (£1.25) per pupil per term for food for the children
per day, we’d like support and labour from the parents to prevent this failing
like similar schemes they’ve tried in the past, in turn we will use the
donations to get two oxen and ploughs for the school’s exclusive use, labour
from our staff, hand tools, as much suitable seeds and stems for the amount of
land that the parents till and a secure granary, again as large as needed to
accommodate the amount of food they produce. The more the parents put in for
labour and support the more they get. The school has plenty of land, enough to
feasibly produce a surplus that could be sold for additional income. The key
for us is to get a successful scheme running for a few years with our support
so that it can be taken over by the school and the parents afterwards.
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| School exterior |
We also discussed the peace aspect and our intention to set
up a two tier peace dialog, firstly to get the school children interacted with
Karamoja through shared interests e.g. drama events, games (if they can get a
football), etc. and also to set up dialogs between respective village elders.
After the interviews we headed back on a longer route dropping people off at
more remote villages. During the trip I remembered a forgotten but useful bit
of information, don’t sit on the rear axle of a vehicle on rough and bumpy
roads.
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| Classroom interior. There were 4 of these for over 600 pupils |
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