My home in Bunia

This is the Medair team house, where I live with David, Matty and Rachel. There is an office in the house and to the right of the picture there is another building which is 4 offices, one of them for me. The main office is 10 minutes walk away, I have spent time there everyday so far. I have not included photos of the town because the army and police do not like cameras being used in public places

My office is in the building to the right of the picture. Other NGO and mission staff come on Friday afternoons for volleyball, a good way of meeting some other national and international staff

The verandah opens into a living room, dining area and kitchen beyond.

I have a large ensuite room which has traditionally been the Country Director's room. I might have to move out if a couple come to work in Bunia because all the other rooms (5) are singles

Plenty of bugs at night so mosquito net definitely required

Holiday in Rwanda and Uganda

The Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali commemorates not just the Rwanda genocide of 1994 but other 20th Century genocides. After the Jewish holocaust it was said never again but the UN failed to intervene effectively in Bosnia and Rwanda. In Rwanda the UN reduced its strength immediately before the genocide and then sent enough troops in the aftermath that would have been able to stop the genocide.

Nytama church, where 10,000 met their death. Clothes are piled on the pews, the altar cloth is stained with blood.
Ntarama church where 5000 people died. Skulls and bones are on racks at the back of the church.
Sunset over Lake Kivu, Gisenyi, Rwanda. The fishing boats are rigged together in threes with long poles for and aft.
Just after a swim in Lake Bunyonyi at Christmas. The water is beautifully still and quite clear but not warm enough for a long swim.
Bushara Island and Lake Bunyonyi are known for the abundance of birds. Here 7 speckled mouse birds huddle together.
Mt Mahavura, Virunga national park, near Kisoro, Uganda, the highest of the 3 volcanoes in Uganda, the highest in the range is in Congo. This is the final rest before the peak which has a 20m diameter crater lake at 4135m. Unfortunately we spent most of the day in cloud.
Ishasha's tree climbing lions. Some lions learn to climb where they can sleep undisturbed and spy their prey for evening hunting. The females do the hunting.
The lions all have collars and transmitters so a US university can track them but the rangers don't have access to the tracking signal so have to go looking for them in the huge national park
This buffalo had just emerged from a mud bath.

Karamoja and health centres

I have spent the past week in our project locations in the north of Uganda.

Our main project in Pader District is supporting the health system. Support means on the job training of health centre staff, training of community volunteer health workers and ensuring that health centres have access to clean water, a latrine, a bathing shelter, an incinerator for medical waste and a placenta pit for health centres with a maternity unit. The problem is that the health centres are poorly staffed, staff may not turn up for work. A parish health centre (HC11) may have only a nursing assistant with 3 months training, a sub county health centre (HC111) should have a clinical officer (3 years training), a midwife and a comprehensive nurse but often may have just a nurse. Partly the District cannot afford the staff, partly the staff employed do not turn up to work.

This is a bathing shelter, designed so that a door is not necessary.
In the foreground a placenta pit, with an incinerator behind.
This is Alop HC11, about 12 km of the main road in Adilang. People may come 20km deeper in the bush to the health centre. In the background the latrine, in the foreground the new drilled bore hole and hand pump.

This is the health centre at Ongalo: it's on high land with no chance of a borehole. The nearest borehole is about 2km away. So in the absence of a borehole, we have installed a rain water harvesting system which means they will have water during perhaps 8 months of the year when there is a reasonable prospect of rain. The dry season is about to start and typically lasts until mid March.

We were walking from the team house in Kaabong to the office and came across this snake. It was about 30cm long, probably not dangerous.

Karamoja is the north eastern part of Uganda. Kaabong is on the northern part of Karamoja and we have projects on the western part of Kaabong district. Some of the scenery is amazing, huge granite outcrops, volcanic plugs and huge open spaces.

There are big open spaces because the land is arid or semi arid, incapable of supporting agriculture, suitable only for livestock. But because of lack of water, it isn't good for livestock or the herders.

The clouds and skies really were that colour, no photoshop improvements.
The cattle are kept in kraals, protected by the army overnight from raiding warriors from other parts of Karamoja or from across the border in Kenya. As we were leaving Karenga, we came across thousands of cattle being driven back from their pasture to the protected kraals which can contain tens of thousands cattle. Daily movement of cattle from kraal to pasture and back causes significant over grazing and soil erosion.

In a very poor area with hungry people, you can give out food (as the World Food Program has done for 40 years in Karamoja) or you can find projects to employ local people who then earn some money with which to buy foodstuffs. Typical projects are road rehabilitation and construction so there is something enduring to show for their effort. Labourers typically earn USD1.5 per day for 5 hours work and we will employ them for 10 days at a time. It doesn't sound much, but USD15 can make a big difference to poor families. We have no problem in finding willing workers who also get lunch of posho and beans. A road project often involves placing culverts under the road surface so that rain water can be directed away from the road rather than washing it away. Improved roads means improved access to markets, schools, health centres.

Uganda, Switzerland, Scotland

We have been working in Kaabong in the far north east of Uganda since 2006. It is arid and semi arid land (ASAL in the development lingo). I visited our team there at the end of August to seesome of our project locations. This borehole is in Karenga, the branches are too keep the livestock away- their hooves break the concrete apron and they foul the area. This is the only water supply for a few kilometres. In the background is a smooth rock which would be great for a water harvesting project - construct a tank at the bottom and funnel all the water from the rock to the tank. Kaabong is dry for much of the year but it does occasionally rain torrentially and almost none of it is captured. But we will be closing our base in June 2010, such work will be left to other development agencies.

I managed to take a couple of days leave, the first in the year, and travelled west to Fort Portal and then south 30km to the crater lakes area. The lakes are very steep sides and densely wooded but you can get down to one of them and it is bilharzia free so good for a swim. That's Mhoira, a friend from Kampala, with whom I travelled.

And then we went further south and west to the edge of the Rwenzori mountains which border Congo, the highest mountains in Uganda. we went to see a couple in the town of Kilempe who are working with youth leaders in churches in the region. Kilempe used to have a major copper mine but it fell into disuse in the 1970s. We walked into the Rwenzori foothills and looked back on mining town part of Kilempe.

I was in Europe for most of September, a week at the Medair Country Directors' conference in Switzerland, another week in the Medair HQ near Lausanne and then to the UK for a weeks leave.

The first night in Lausanne, I stayed with a colleague from whose apartment there is a view of the mountains above Montreux and the lake. The zonal pelargonium provides a colourful foreground. What a view to enjoy every day!

During the conference, we took a day out and went into the mountains above Montreux

and to Glacier 3000.

So someone decided that because Oliver and I had sunglasses and similar head gear we should be photographed together !

I had some time to visit Lausanne. The area around the cathedral is a medieval and makes for an attractive skyline. The topography is interesting - through part of the city is a deep valley called Le Flon, where the railway and metro arrive. There are steps or a lift to take you up about 50m to the main town level.

Below Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Geneva at Ouchy is the Olympic Museum. I thought it was a little disappointing but still worth the visit. You approach the museum along a winding footpath adorned with bronze sculptures. I liked this one.

This was taken just outside the museum looking east along the lake side
And then to the UK for a week which included a few days in Scotland visiting Mhoira who arrived a few days before I left for Uganda. Dinner on Loch Fyne was wonderful. Then to Glencoe for some walking. This is looking down in Loch Leven and Kinlochleven. Top right is a dam and another loch. The dam fed a power station that drove an aluminium smelting works. The old aluminium factory is now home to big climbing walls and the world largest indoor ice climbing wall. So if you want to practice ice climbing and ice axe technique in the summer, you know where to go now.
From the hill looking north east across Loch Leven to Ballahuish which is the next town along from Glencoe town. It was a cloudy day with occasional breaks in the cloud with sun beams showing up against the mist.
And then just as we were about to descend, we came across this stag at about 20m.
Back in Kampala now, in the field next week, so may have some more northern Uganda photos to post soon.

The road to Awach and Schools in Nyakwae

In the middle of June, I spent a week at our base in Abim in northern Uganda. I was there to write up projects but I also took time to visit the two projects that we were running.

The project that continues is a cash for work project, local people being employed to clear a road that had become impassable even to 4x4 vehicles and in parts had become over grown. In 5 weeks we have opened up 16km of road through the settlement of Awach up to the border with Pader District where a 1950s bridge built by the British crosses the river Agago. We will repair and rehaibiltate the bridge which will re-open a trading route and bring some economic activity to Awach.Some sections flood so culverts are required. Digging out this trench took 5 days, the ground is so hard.Up to 140 people work during the morning and finish with a lunch of posho (stiff maize porridge) and beans and get paid US$15 for 10 days work which is the normal unskilled labour rate.

Now the road is open, the World Food Programme could make their first food distribution in the settlement of Awach. But this 10T truck was loaded with 15T of food and this is what happens when an overloaded truck is driven badly over rough ground.


The other project I visited finished the week I was there. We have been helping the local government set up Child Protection Committees and building latrines and handwashing points in schools in the remote sub county of Nyakwae in Abim District. Very few other NGOs are working there, it is very poor and subject to raiding by Karamajong warriors. One primary school has been closed due to insecurity.


We designed the handwashing points so that they have adequate capacity and so that the local community cannot steal the tanks or the taps.

And we have built blocks of pit latrines at schools which either had no latrines or delapidated latrines.

This is a school, built by the community, two thatched mud brick structures.