The highs and lows of my life in Uganda

Highs – I have just chosen a few, but my list could have gone on and on!

1. Living in another culture and having genuine Ugandan friends here is such a privilege. Ugandan culture is warm, welcoming, full of colour and hustle and bustle and I feel honoured to be accepted into life here. I have formed some really special friendships. One friend I want to name is Harriet. We have shared life together ever since I moved here, walking through the highs and lows of life together. Even though we are from such different backgrounds and have such a diverse experience of life there is a deep love, respect and care for each other. It has been wonderful to share Birthdays, Christmas and other events with our 2 families. I love watching the friendship develop between her girls and my girls. Such different experiences of life but true friends.

2. International Education for my kids. I love it that my kids can run around barefoot at school and then go into class and be with kids from all over the world – China, America, South Sudan, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Australia.

3. My next high follows on from the previous one. For my kids, being part of such an international group of kids lowers the peer pressure and “fitting in” culture that can be so apparent in the West. When all the kids are so different from each other and have such different cultural backgrounds, there is no norm. Most trends and crazes reach Uganda eventually, but to a much lesser degree so the kids can opt in or out. Yes frozen and loom bands made it here but were both very short lived and NO – one direction has not made it here – yet!

4. The weather. Uganda is on the equator so it is pretty much summer all year round. We have dry season and rainy season which seem to be changeable as to when they happen but pretty much all year the temperature is between 18 and 28 Degrees Celsius. This makes for a great outdoor lifestyle. I love being outside so this suits me!

5. Community. As well as having some great Ugandan friends, we are part of the ex pat community in Kampala. Since living here, I have met so many really interesting people from all over the world who do so many great, inspiring and sometimes unusual work. I have felt privileged to be part of this community.

6. Revelation Life. Being part of a work where beautiful people full of potential (who happen to have been dealt a very challenging card in life) are being empowered, trained, loved and equipped is so special. It is such an honour to be part of an amazing team, serving people in the slum communities.

Lows – Challenges of my life here

Often the lows we experience are the flip side of the highs!

1. Traffic and Commuting. We live in Bweyogerere which is on the outskirts of Kampala. This means a commute to school and pretty much anywhere else we want to go. On a good day, school takes 30 minutes to get to. On a bad day, I think my record is 4 hours to get home – sitting pretty much not moving for 2 hours. When I asked the traffic police why – they responded with “there is a jam, too many cars!” The traffic in kampala is notoriously bad! Some days I just feel proud of myself for reaching my destination - negotiating the lorries overtaking on the wrong side of the road, boda bodas (taxi motorbikes) weaving in and out with their huge and often unusual loads and other simply crazy drivers! Lack of air con in our car is also a huge low!

2. Muzungu! Muzungu! Everywhere we go, especially in more local areas kids shout at us – Muzungo muzungo (white person) or simply ‘bye, bye’. I have also encountered terrified children being forced to greet the muzungo as we walk by as if we are royalty. It gets a bit tiring. I don’t want to be treated like royalty, as an equal is fine by me!

3. Living between worlds. Living in the city gives us opportunity to live a Western lifestyle if we wish. Although our lives are simpler here in many ways, we do still shop in a supermarket, visit malls and on the odd occasion go to the cinema. This is great but also confusing. It is not easy living between 2 worlds. Visiting families in slum conditions and shopping in the supermarket on the same day can be confusing and emotionally draining for me to get my head around.

4. No seasons. Although having summer all year is great in many ways, there is something special about moving through the seasons. There is a sense of the passing of time and the comfort of colder, shorter days and the excitement and anticipation of longer, warmer days. Summer is great but I do miss Autumn, Winter and Spring.

5. Some days are just not simple. All the little challenges of African living are manageable until they all happen at the same time! Power cuts, no water, fleas, mosquitos, traffic jams, beaurocracy, loud music bellowing in from a local church, a constant stream of visitors at the door etc etc Some days are normal and others are just a challenge!

I hope this gives you a little insight into my life here. I love living here but there are definitely highs and lows!

Family Centre construction

Some of you may be aware that we've both been really involved in spearheading the development of a 'Family Centre' on nine acres of land owned by Revelation Life about an hour's drive out of Kampala.

In a nutshell, the centre is a place for vulnerable families to stay for about six months to get back on their feet and is on the lines of the 'Alternative Care' movement in Uganda - essentially saying that children belong in families, not orphanages or institutions. So, we should be doing all we can to support families and extended families to care for children at home or with relatives (on this note, HUGE news this week - Watoto, famous for its Children's Villages have committed to a complete turnaround in policy towards alternative care).

To get it up and running has been quite a task, but a really fun and creative one and it feels like we've been on Grand Designs or something, but with a lot less knowledge but more back-of-a-fag-packet sketches. So, here are pictures of the bare bones of the new structures on the site that we will be adding to and developing. It's been a steep learning curve and we're still on our way, but we're pleased with how much we've got done so far and excited to see the first families stay in a few month's time.

The five family homes on the hilltop

The Hall for training families and the local community

Shipping container office and overnight space 

We've tried to keep the materials local, use natural materials like rock and mud and recycled materials where possible and plan for interesting developments that inspire. But more on that another time.

Although it's been great to see rough sketches turn into real buildings in just a few months, the main excitement and reward will come as we see families on the site, re-building their lives.

To find out what that might look like,  read my 'Letter from the future' post about a fictional family who stay on the land.

John's interview - what does 2015 hold for Rev Life?

Here's an interview that I did from BathCAN just before Christmas. It sums up what we are thinking about the future with Revelation Life.....

Please tell us about your new role and what it will mean to you and your family?

My new role as Uganda Director will essentially be to see even more people helped and leave poverty in the slum communities where we work. We obviously want to be as effective as possible in seeing families improve their lives and so part of my role is to help us as a team, gain new skills to make that happen.  That means prayer, strategy, partnering with the community groups we work with and expecting special things to start to take place!  Sue works a few days in an international school and outside of that is great at bouncing ideas off and she is particularly involved in our Family Centre project – a place where vulnerable families can start to rebuild their lives and most importantly, stay together.

Tell us about your heart for Uganda and Africa?  

I’ve travelled to various African countries as part of my previous role with Send a Cow and it’s hard not to fall in love with the continent.  That doesn’t mean that living here doesn’t present a few challenges and frustrations, but we really enjoy the Ugandan way of life.  My passion here is to see people work together and get new skills to get out of poverty and solve their own problems.  The most useful phrase is that we want to give people a hand-up and not a hand-out.

So, my heart’s desire is for the slums to be places of opportunity and dynamic change rather than hopelessness and struggle.  I think God can do that!

What do you hope to achieve in your first year or two in your new role?  

My first couple of years will be focussed on helping us to get a really effective way of working with community groups in the slums.  I see those groups as really key to seeing change happen as we carry out training with them.  As they become stronger, they will be in a better place to deal with the ongoing issues that are facing the communities such as floods, low incomes and childhood malnutrition.  So, if those groups are resilient and able to affect real change in their communities in the next couple of years, I will be a happy man!  We also want to expand into other slum communities in Kampala as we are currently working in just four and there are close to forty slums now, and counting.  Overall, expansion is a key objective alongside a continued professionalising of the organisation across the board.  I think that should keep me busy.

What will be the main challenges for you work-wise and personally for 2015?

Challenges come in all shapes and sizes when you live in Uganda.  Some are unforeseen, but I would think the biggest challenges will be: to get enough rest time for us all to pace ourselves; to generate enough support to see big changes in the slums and to stay focussed on the main ‘thing’ that we do as an organisation. 

On a personal level it’s about ensuring that Sue and the girls are happy at school and in their friendships, plus the commute for Sue can be pretty stressful – as anyone who has encountered Kampala’s traffic will understand.

Having read the latest news on Rev Life – Aisha’s story – it seems that malnutrition and infant mortality are huge issues in Uganda right now, how do you and Rev Life address these needs?

Well, both malnutrition and infant mortality are ongoing issues here and unfortunately, the figures in slums are much worse. We have a Nutrition Programme that we are just ramping up to support highly malnourished children, in addition to teaching the mothers about how to help provide nutritious meals.  We try to work in a joined up way wherever possible and with other organisations, so in nutrition we are also teaching families how to grow vegetables in recycled containers, as well as referring families to another NGO who specialise in critically malnourished children.  We are really blessed to have three highly skilled nurses on the team who are spear-heading our community healthcare work so that families have the knowledge to take care of their own health wherever possible.

What would you say are the main issues societally in Uganda now?  And how will you be addressing them?

That’s a huge question!  All the issues are so complex and interlinked, but there is also a huge amount to be grateful and hopeful about here. There is a strong sense of togetherness in the communities, even in difficult situations and in pain.  I think if I were to boil it all down, I’d say that when poverty and everyday needs fill people’s lives, they don’t get much chance to look up and to think outside of their current situations.  The more we can help them to see that things can be different in their families and communities, the more likely things are to change. We know that with God all things are possible, but we need to really believe that and then get practical.  So, the more new skills we can see people have in growing food, saving money, running a small-business, working as a group and staying healthy, the more we will see them building better futures together – hope on its own won’t do.

According to the Ugandan Ministry of Health 7 cases of Ebola have been reported in Uganda – have your friends/neighbours/community been affected by this? Do you have a strategy at Rev Life to deal with it?

The Marburg Virus did show up a few times, but has been contained really well.  At Revelation Life we have an emergency policy and strategy in place were things to become an issue, and it’s really encouraging to know that Uganda has the most experience in locking down Ebola in the past.  I think when you live here, you are very aware that Uganda is about as far away from the epicentre of infections as the UK is and so we are prepared for the worst, but expect to be fine.

How can we in the UK support you and Rev Life in 2015?

As we want to work with more slum communities here, we would really love to partner with more churches in the Bath area who can help make that happen.  So it would be great to talk with any leaders who could be interested in that, as I think we are going to see some really exciting things in the year ahead and it will be a fantastic thing to be a part of.  Maybe anyone reading could send an email to mail@revelationlife.org.uk or to the Neal’s or me.  Having such strong relationships in the slums also means that we are strong on feeding back to churches with stories, pictures and videos – especially now we have a really good internet connection in place!  Of course, we’d also love people to pray for us and our work, for success with the communities and for God to lead the way in all that we do.

We are just running our Christmas Appeal, which goes on into the start of January.  It’s all about the importance of good memories at Christmas time, as we have the power to help that happen for people in the slums next year.  We’ve had a good response so far, but we’d love it if anyone wanted to donate to support our vital work in 2015 through that.  It may be a good way for people to re-focus and keep Christmas about the poor and marginalised.