The Elephants Who Came for Tea

We've spent the last day and a half in a Super Custom minivan driving around the hills and valleys of Rukungiri district. Yesterday was cold and wet – I very much regretted ‘losing’ my fleece jacket during the chaos at Dar es Salaam Port. Today was very hot and sunny – Tom regretted the vest he wore to compensate for being cold yesterday! Our team consists of Charles, our driver, and Moses and Penelop the local Global Care staff.  The day starts with a trip to buy snacks for the journey - consisting of a variety of crispy vegetables, the bananas left over from our breakfast, and today cake. I was a bit miffed in the supermarket when Moses put 3 cakes in the trolley ‘for the Ugandans’.
I said, ‘What about me?’
He said, ‘You only eat small snacks.’
I said, ‘Give me cake.’  He did. 

Today we also stopped for lunch in a village café … They said we needed lunch because we needed to build our strength for the next visit…. I will explain.

We’re here to help the team with an action research project exploring ways Global Care might support children with disability (CWD) to access education.  They’ve identified 19 children to take part in the study and visited them all at home. I collated the data back in the UK and Tom summarised the findings. The UK management team looked at the results and we are starting the next phase. The team need to visit schools and put together an action plan – a proposal with options and costings.  We left the UK with open minds – you never quite know what you’ll find ‘on the ground.’ Yesterday we spent a couple of hours reviewing the work so far and deciding what to do next. The Ugandan team wanted us to visit some homes to meet the children and understand a bit about the location of their homes, and visit schools to discuss their approaches to CWD.

We quickly realised that most of the 19 children live miles apart - and several Km from the nearest school. Yesterday we visited 3 children and 2 schools – we left the office at 11.30am and arrived back at 6pm! We drove for miles and when paths became too small, we walked. Because of the rain it was muddy and slippery. We had a sad visit to a very disabled child and happy visits to children we’re sure could get to school with help with transport. We even found a school with a section for disability.

Today we left town at 9.30 and took the main track towards Queen Elizabeth Game Park, North West of Rukungiri. The dusty rough road goes for many miles, climbing up and up through a forest. The mass of vegetation includes eucalyptus trees, pampas grass, pine trees, spear grass, mango trees and many others we don’t recognise. Small children run or walk along the road alone, often barefoot.  As we continue, we see fields of coffee, matoke, sweet potato and the bright orange flowers of flame trees vividly breaking the monotony of the greens and browns of earth and homes. After 1 hour we arrive at a small town, Bwambara. People are everywhere as it is market day. Coming out of town the road narrows and we can see the Savannah of the Game Park in the distance. After another 10 minutes we turn off again onto a narrow track. If it rains this ‘road’ is impassable. The track becomes a path, just wide enough for the van, and we have arrived.

The boy we have come to see (we’ll call him John), comes running over as he sees us. He’s limping and holding his arm awkwardly. He has hemiparesis. He goes to the local school which is on the next field.  People come over to talk to us. We learn that the Game Park plays a huge part in the lives of families in this community.  They are afraid of the elephants which eat their crops and trample farms and buildings. John’s family live in a very simple house. The area is incredibly poor – it is so far from towns that it is neglected – the health clinic has no supplies, the school expected government teachers but they have not arrived so the parents have to pay the teachers which makes school fees expensive -£6/ term. The nearest government school fees are £1/term but is too far away for John to reach without transport – which no-one can afford. Most of the adults in the village are uneducated beyond a very basic level – their grandparents didn’t go to school at all. Education is not a priority. Families depend on agriculture. The area is the hottest and poorest in the district – but during last year’s severe drought they had no government support. Children didn’t go to school because there was no money.  The villagers have always followed the ways of their grandparents who lived in the bush – education is a new concept.  Moses said, ‘They haven’t worked out a relationship with schools.’

John has 8 siblings (4 others died). His father has 2 other wives, one wife has 15 children, the other has 12. There is very little money to go around so education will not be a priority. The village school only takes children up to Primary 3 – what will happen to John after that? He won’t complete village education unless there is help with fees – his father can’t afford £6/ term when he has 35 other children to think about, and he can’t afford transport to send John to the cheaper school. It is fantastic that John can go to school now – but he often runs away and goes home if there is no-one there to send him back.  The lovely young Deputy Head told us they are working with John and his family to improve the situation and his behaviour has improved, he is learning well and his hygiene is improving.

After we’d seen John, we spent half an hour in the van travelling to meet a 4-year-old who was completely terrified of our white skins and wouldn’t stop screaming… In these remote villages many people have never seen a Mzungu. A Head Teacher told us he’d never talked to a Mzungu! This child had paraplegia and lived in a village on a hill with vey rough terrain. After another 40 minutes in the van we visited a CWD at school – a huge rambling school on a hillside. We’ll call him Stephen. Stephen has been at school for a year and is doing very well – he’s ahead of others in his class. But… he’s always late because it takes him so long to walk to school (3.5Km) on his deformed leg. And after 40minutes drive we walked up an incredibly steep narrow path to meet a lovely little girl with Spina Bifida. She was sitting happily eating lunch when we arrived – but she has medical and physical problems that need resolving before we can even think about how she’d get to school.

We stood outside this last house and looked out over the distant hills and mountains. The lush hillside forest beneath rustled in the slight breeze. It was truly beautiful.  But for these children, the outlook is harsh.  Once again, this time in the context of children living with disability in incredibly remote and difficult environments, we can only refer to the Global Care ‘motto’, ‘We can’t do everything, we can’t do nothing, we must do something.’