And in the darkness, we read the most imperishable pages ...

AS students around the world drag home squashed sandwiches and roll their eyes at being nagged to do their homework, Mayiku Hamuzah turns on a kerosene lantern and squints at the pages of his books.

Straight away, you know, this is no ordinary teenager. And when you realise many of his friends are doing the same, you know this is no ordinary school.

Each day, Hamuzah tries to learn as much as he can before dark. Kerosene fuel is expensive, is as bad for his lungs as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, is not good for his eyes and isn’t very bright anyway. But without electricity, it’s the best lighting source he has once the sun goes down.

In fact, in his tiny village of Kitoola, hidden amongst the butterflies of Uganda’s emerald green Mabira Forest, the only signs of a western education are the coloured paper posters on the walls, the English words written in chalk, and some vintage school desks donated by an American Rotary Club.

There’s no lights, no internet, no fridges, no computers, no play equipment, no library, no running water.

Despite this, the 35 final year primary school children at Hopeland have been ranked 13 out of 185 schools in the district. And the astonishing results don’t end there. Scoring distinctions and high distinctions in all of his subjects, Hamuzah was one of the best performing students in the country.

But Hamuzah is just so thankful he can go to school at all. It hasn’t always been the case for the children of Kitoola. In fact, he is so excited about learning he jogs 50 minutes to and from YOFAFO’s Hopeland Primary School just so he can arrive on time.

And it is now starting to pay off. Despite his challenges, Hamuzah recently scored some of the highest marks in the country in Uganda’s national exams, with distinctions and high distinctions in every subject.

“Hopeland Junior School has lovely and devoted teachers who have made it possible for me to make it and my life has been transformed from zero to hero,” Hamuzah said.

“I want to become an electrical engineer so that I can support my family and I will continue to work hard, even in high school, so that I can achieve my dream.”

But it wasn’t just YOFAFO, his teachers and his mother who he thanked. It was a young girl called Maddy Burns from Boone in North Carolina.

Hamuzah and Maddy met in 2012 when her university organised a volunteer trip to Uganda.

“We were sitting on the front steps of his primary school and he asked me about American foreign policy with Libya and my jaw dropped,” she said.

Their friendship grew over the next week as they played football together and Maddy sat in on his classes. She called her family at the end of the week and they agreed to sponsor him.

A year later, she paid him a surprise visit.

“I will never forget that day, as I walked around the corner with Innocent and we came upon Hamuzah’s house. He was outside studying,” she said.

“When he looked up from his books, he saw me and dropped them on the ground and we ran to each other and were both in tears.

“I am so proud of him and though I’m a bit older than him, I admire and look up to him for inspiration and hope.

“Sponsoring Hamuzah has been by far the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

“I believe in him and know that he will do whatever he wants in life, especially because he has people like Valence, Innocent, and the teachers at Hopeland guiding him to success.”

To sponsor a child with YOFAFO or make a donation to the organisation, visit www.yofafo.org or email Valence Lutaisire at info@yofafo.org

#AfricaTime

You know those moments when people keep saying "You should write a blog"... and you think about it, and then you don't, and then it's too late. Well I'm in Africa. And you're never too late for anything in Africa.


I'm not sure why I booked a ticket to Uganda. I'm not sure why Valence's email stood out to me from all the others. But as soon as I signed up to become the social media coordinator for the Youth Focus Africa Foundation, something pretty phenomenal happened. A man called Joseph Kony became a household name, people suddenly had a clue where Uganda was, and the relationship between social media and non-government organisations in developing nations was scrutinised as much as the relationship between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. 


So, I promise I looked for Kony. I peeked under at least one banana leaf. But I couldn't find him. 


Instead, I found a nation full of gratitude. Of hope. Of beauty. Of exploitation. Of inequality. Of corruption. Of smiles. And of generosity.


These are the letters I have written to my grandmothers.




** For more photos from my trip and to connect with the Youth Focus Africa Foundation, please visit:


My Facebook site: www.facebook.com/amyjoanne.marshall
YOFAFO's Facebook site: www.facebook.com/YOFAFO

Booty and the Bomb: Part #1

“You look nice and fat”

Interesting times at the YOFAFO Chalet. Thirteen volunteers been and gone, my butt grew to a more acceptable size, there’s been a terrorist threat, Doreen washed my hair, Beth (18 months) has learnt to ask if she can drive the car, and there are 30,000 refugees just over the border in South Sudan who don’t have any water.

I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Kampala, checking out the African version of Big Brother. Biggest brotherist difference seems to be the allowance of drinking and smoking in the house. My attention span for that lasted about five minutes, at which point I flicked the channel to find a documentary about Africans teaching some white guy to use a bow and arrow. Interestingly, the guard at the house I live in has a bow and arrow. I thought he had killed someone with it the other day. It was night time and we heard a flurry of thumping and banging and came running out to try and see the robber. Turns out the guard had picked up a giant log and was bashing a snake! Erin was very happy it didn’t slither into her room. Jo was giggling hysterically and a little too excitedly (he killed a lizard recently. But we can't really blame him, because whenever he refuses to wear pants, Doreen tells him a lizard his going to eat his "pushu". I don't think I need to translate. This will also explain why Beth has a fear of frogs...)

So do you want to hear about the terrorists or my backside first? Since this is a blog and I can't actually hear your response, I'll make the call this time.

I’ll stick to wear priorities lie in Uganda.

The downside to putting on weight as a female, is Westerners give more respect to women who look malnourished. Even if men don’t find it instinctively more attractive, and if magazines say they want to support a healthier size… they do not. Waifishness has become a symbol of grace, beauty and brains. If you are skinny then you must be working hard, you must have a sense of self control, and self respect. Confusion of internal and external perceptions are things we all struggle with.

In Uganda, if you are skinny, you are just scrawny. It’s a symbol of poverty and illness. How will you carry the children, the jerry cans of water, the matooke on your head with a bottom that size?!

Dickson says my arms look “fatter” and Valence says I am looking “healthy”. So even if my weight gain is a result of bloating and fatigue in response to my body not being able to process the food it is trying to make sense of, somehow it is more attractive. Normally, I would either go into a jogging frenzy or hide in my room for a couple of days after being told “you look healthy” or “you are looking nice and fat”. Because at home, this is supposedly literally translated to “you’ve gotten fat and lazy”. Yes, I understand this warped interpretation of a compliment may in fact just be my own screwed-up-body-issue-sense-media-influenced-disordered-view-of-myself. But I don’t think I’m alone.

I may have felt a twang of illness at these comments, and perhaps text a “frown face” or two to a friend. But there came a point when I was relieved for the added padding. I am still undecided on whether the extra attention from Ugandan men (ie. “Whoah!”, “Madame, madame, I love you, you are beautiful”, “Madame, pllleaaasee, give me your number”, “Wooooowwwww”, “Madame, what is your name. Please, I love you. Where are you going? Let me come with you”) is such a good thing. But as I have recently discovered, there’s no way you can dance properly in Uganda with a bony bum. (**NOTE: This goes for men too.)

It began with the arrival of 13 volunteers from the United States. The group of girls, aged between 19 and 22, were led by university lecturer Tiffany Hammond Christian. Tiffany first met Valence about five years ago. He had been invited to visit the United States by a university professor and was due to speak at the Appachalian State University. Tiffany was lecturing in development, saw Valence’s name on the list of available invited speakers and agreed to have him present to her class. When the class was finished and Valence left the room, Tiffany started to continue the next part of her lecture. But her class was silent. And then hands went up in the air.

“We want to go,” the students said.

“Go where??,” asked a baffled Tiffany.

“We want to go where he is going. We want to go to Africa.”

Tiffany made her first trip to Africa with 10 students in tow, no one to meet her at the airport (the group was going on safari before they were going to meet with YOFAFO) and no idea if the driver she had wired money to was even going to pick them up. She was as nervous and scared as any other traveller arriving at a very foreign airport for the first time. Except she was also answerable to a university, and the parents of 10 young people. Brave move.

Tiffany brings bubbles and glitter paint and becomes the star attraction at Kitoola.

In 2012, Tiffany brought her fifth group to Uganda. Each year, the group of students has spent time working with YOFAFO on a project in the village of Kitoola, connected with the community, and also found time to take in Uganda’s “Africa condensed” wildlife and scenery. White water rafting, hand drum lessons, horse riding in the rainforest, giraffe spotting, booty shaking and chimpanzee tracking.

They built the foundations of a four-room classroom block, and built on the foundations Tiffany has set for a long-term relationship with the community of Kitoola. And I was privileged enough to be a small part of their experience.***

It was challenging to begin with. So often our images of volunteering in Africa are of white girls in their 20s, hugging black children. This is not as easy as it looks! It wasn’t until I spent the day with the group, on their first day of brick laying, that I realised I had not had the level of interaction with children in the community as most volunteers experience. I was completely overwhelmed. And feeling unwell did not help the experience. There were so many children, and they were so desperate to engage. They kept jumping right in front of the camera lens, so I couldn’t actually take a photo of anything. As I tried to capture the volunteers in action, all I had was a blur of hands reaching and waving at me. Their giant smiles even became angry as they fought for a position in front of the camera, scolding each other and slapping each other’s hands away. No matter how many times I yelled “Extend! Extend! Daio!” (move back), they smothered me. They wanted to see the photo I took, and groped at my phone, losing the pictures as they squeezed the touch-screen. Even when I sat down, they crowded around me, waiting for some kind of performance. “You bring for me what?”. I had no crayons. No face paint. Just a pair of blue eyes, staring back at a still frame of a field of big brown eyes. I tried to make the photo in front of me fade away, as nausea set in and my palms became sweaty.

The fight to have your photo taken is not easy!

 And then I heard her bright voice beside me: “Are you sick?”

Mutesi Robinah

She looked about as close to a pixie as you could find in a human being.

“Yes, I’m not feeling very well.”

She shooed the other children away, telling them I was sick.

Her name was Mutesi Robinah. She wrote her name in my red journal.

“Do you have grandmothers? There is mine over there. And that one there is my mother, and that one there is my sister. Sister, come here! She is shy, she won’t come”

Her grandmother was small and shining in a golden yellow traditional dress, and her mother was laughing with the other women, cooking our lunch.

“What is your favourite colour?”

When I came back a week later, the surprise in her voice couldn’t cover up her smile, which looked like she had been expecting me to arrive that very moment.

“You are back.”

She was tiny and her feet were bare, her school dress too big. When the rest of the children were playing soccer during a match between the teachers and volunteers, and the students, she lay down to rest. When she wasn’t resting, she was by my side. One hand held mine, and she insisted on carrying my 1.5 litre bottle of water on her head for me. She showed me how she could dance a little, at the same time as carrying it. And just let an amused smile creep from her mouth when I tried to do the same.

 

I noticed her friend and her looked very similar. I asked if they were sisters.

“We are twins.”

In fact the girls were triplets, but the third girl had died. Their mother couldn’t afford shoes for them, or school fees. But Valence is allowing the girls to attend school for free, because they are such good students and because their mother and grandmother are YOFAFO community leaders. The girls are on his list of children needing child sponsorship.

Three of the girls from Tiffany’s group are going to sponsor a child. I am going to sponsor Robinah.

When there are so many vulnerable children in the world, the advertisements about child sponsorship start to lose their impact. We become overwhelmed at how much needs to be done, how many people need help. We wonder if international development has outgrown child sponsorship programs, and know something more drastic needs to be done to address human rights and wealth inequalities. But in the meantime, Roinah still needs to go to school. And when you look at Valence and see how much difference one sponsorship can make for a community, and see the excitement on Robinah’s face at the prospect of owning a pen that works so she can do her school work, it’s a little easier to see the truth in the power of small things.

I promised Robinah I would go back to visit her before I leave, and bring her, her sister and her friend a pen. So if I haven’t written about going back to visit her in the next fortnight, please write me an email and hold me to it. *****

Now, back to bottoms. My friend Erin Burn, a girl from the UK who has been volunteering in Uganda for four months and is developing a health promotion program for YOFAFO, has been attracting a bit of attention around Lugazi for her rear-end. As it has grown steadily rounder on Doreen’s cooking, and her love for Rolex’s (prounced like Roll-eggs. Quite literally, it is fried egg rolled up in a chapatti), Erin has been hearing the words: “Kabina Kanene!”.

It means “big bum”, and is a compliment. **NOTE: Erin's bum is NOT big. Just more grabbable than when she arrived.

I am still not Ugandanised enough to render myself ready to hear those words, but I was grateful for some extra cushioning on my last visit to Kitoola. It was Tiffany’s group’s last day in the village, and it was the evening following the teachers vs. students soccer tournament. I had learnt how to say “I don’t eat meat” so I didn’t have to chew down on a goat the community had especially killed and roasted for us, and was ready for the disapproving looks. I received them, but had my moment to make up for it….

I cannot explain to you how these bottoms shake. Mine does a pretty good job, but I have at least taken some dance classes in my life... and it still doesn't move the way it should! In this part of Uganda, it is something children must know from birth. I have seen girls as young as three or four getting their wriggle on. There are variations on the move and beat, but it basically involves pretending you are a duck, sticking your bum out and shaking the water off your back. All the while keeping perfect posture. And even if your bum is portly enough, everyone must have a special skirt thing, or a jumper tied around their waist to accentuate the visual impact of the booty-shaking. Generally, the women do the shaking, and the men have some other moves or are performing hand percussion. The hand drumming also seems to come freakishly naturally to people here. At lunch times, you won’t find children in a computer room or playing cricket. If they are not skipping, resting, running with a bicycle wheel or playing soccer, they are playing the drums. And when I say drums, I mean there are six children standing around playing plastic bins. As they get going, even the teachers ditch their yard duty and start leading a small schoolyard festival – the children in stitches of laughter as Mr So-and-so starts shaking it with Mrs So-and-so. And the dancing and drumming are never without vocal interjections which sound something like a cross between the Aussie “Coo-eee!”, a wolf whistle, and that Indian call done when one opens their mouth, lets out a soprano note and repeatedly hits their mouth with their hand. It goes something like this:

“YOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOYOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

The school had organised special dance performances for us from the children (with the school principal giving the students the “yoyoyoyoyoyoooooo!” cheer during the dancing) , which was just amazing. But it wasn’t until after the goat (which I DID try… but spat out) that we were asked to join in.  I was privileged enough to have the school principal as my butt-shaking teacher.

The goat.

Now, no matter how many films I make in Uganda, no matter how many volunteers I recruit, no matter how much I fundraise for YOFAFO in the future, my greatest achievement has to be this one.

“You dance like a Ugandan”

*** In 2013, Tiffany will open up the opportunity to join her group trips to Uganda to all members of the community, not just students from her university. To find out more, visit www.facebook.com/youth4uganda

***** If anyone would like to sponsor a child through YOFAFO's child sponsorship program, please contact myself via this page, or Valence via info@yofafo.org

Beanies on the Equator...

“Just do your best, it doesn’t matter. You won’t come last.”

Everyone had finished the race and I was still half way down the oval, readjusting my sports skirt so it wouldn’t fall off. Pushing my legs so fast, my five-year-old freckles nearly burst off my face. I wasn’t just last. I was dead last.

My mother will attest to the fact I was never much of a sprinter. I was no faster at the school sports than I was going through the shower or putting my tights on in the morning. But from the age of five, I was determined to find a way not to come last again.

By late high school, I had worked out that if I run for long enough, the others would eventually conk out.  That’s the only strategy I had then, and the only one I have now. Fast twitch muscles and leg length are not on my side. 

In 2008 I was going through a bit of a rough patch, and jogging wasn’t high on my priority list. But then I met two people who changed my attitude to running, and in essence, my outlook on life.

I have never known anyone to be as excited about a drop of water on a tin roof as Mark Wilgar. Or sunshine. Or any incremental change in temperature. So when there is a dust storm brewing, or an impending minor flood event, this weatherman is positively peaking. And don’t even start me on long-range records and weather pattern statistics. Mark is a husband, father and all-round enthusiast. He and his wife Karen take their kids to the swimming pool, on treasure hunts through Vanuatu, outback orienteering, birdwatching or paddling kayaks in the jungle just like someone else takes eggs for breakfast. It’s hard to find Mark without a smile on his face and runners on his feet. I was reporting in Mildura, in the north-west corner of Victoria, when I went for a trip out to the weather station to interview Mark about the running event he was organising. Suddenly, I was signed up to the Mallee12. I’m not sure how he convinced me I could run 12 kilometres, but I suddenly believed it was possible.

I couldn’t walk so well the day the after the event.  But in my elated “I did it!” state, I signed up for another fun run. And then another…

In the course of chatting to people at the back end of the race, I also reconnected with an old friend of the family. Peter Mills competed for Australia in duathlon events and has been running a small gym which I think can safely boast being host to the funnest Spin classes in the world. How can you go wrong with 70-year-olds in lycra, Britney Spears tracks and a disco ball? He has trained many a group for Great Victorian Bike Rides and has managed to convince 60-somethings to take up cycling. The man is magic. He is not doing a lot of cycling at the moment as his battle with cancer is pushing him in the direction of a Harley, but that is not before he inspired me with his enthusiasm, his fun attitude to cycling and to just “having a go” and having a great time in life.

I never thought I'd be able to do a triathlon. I was not a fast runner, I could barely make it to the end of the swimming pool, and I was terrified of hopping on one of those skinny road bikes where you have to stick your feet in the pedals (let alone inflicting my lycra-clad physique on the world!).

But again, people like Mark Wilgar and Peter Mills seem to have this affect on me which finds me in an Australian representive tri-suit, trotting comfortably over the finish line!

Okay, so the Australia suit wasn’t mine – it was Millsy’s. And I was coming last in it. And he had also lent me his wetsuit, his favourite bike, and a spare tyre tube (which I still don't know what to do with)!

Since then, I have completed four triathlons, one Olympic distance triathlon, one half ironman and eight fun runs. I have run in the outback, cycled up mountains in Italy, jogged through the side-alleys of Tokyo, put sneaker to bitumen under a full moon on the Great Ocean Road, and been swimming in waters including the muddy Murray and the crystal blue northern Queensland.

And now I have my running shoes in Uganda.

You may remember me writing about the challenges of running here: boda drivers asking for your phone number, hundreds of people yelling out “Mzungu”, the mixture of confused / thoroughly amused / not at all amused faces of the women, and hoards of children running around your feet. Not to mention the fact that people don’t seem to like any form of dirt on your shoes… which means my sneakers are constantly wet as the women keep taking them to soak and scrub them after every use. Things started to become a little easier when Valence pulled out his joggers, even if we were a little slow. At least they started laughing at him more than they did me. I am told people only run in Uganda if they are trying to catch a taxi or run from the tax man. But when Valence’s “I really love walking” comments began to increase, I began to feel that perhaps this wasn’t his physical exertion of choice. He thinks it is giving him chest pains he insists is a heart strain, and other injuries. It has been pointed out to him that his heart is not actually in the centre of his chest and that the pains he is having may be indicative of anxiety. He assures me he has absolutely nothing to be anxious about in life.  I have also suggested the running could also be blamed for any eyelash losses he has had recently, but he assures me this is not the case.

Running is not for everyone, and some people will gain much more from walking.

But I found another victim. Doreen’s brother Dickson. And I think he is hooked on the crack of running endorphins. He still won’t run in shorts (always long pants), but his long legs have quickly started overtaking mine on our bi-weekly trots through the region’s tropical flowers and shady banana leaves. Thankfully for me, I have the pity of the locals on my side. They look at my skin colour, look at my gender, look at the length of my legs and just start waving their hoes about and cheering desperately for me from the sugar cane. It’s enough to ensure I can at least beat Dickson on the home run.

Merely registering for the Nile Marathon was an adventure in itself. First of all, there is no ‘marathon’. It is a half marathon. Then, when you go to the website to register online and find out more information, the website doesn’t actually exist. But at least if there is a website on the poster, then the whole event looks organised, right?

There were only a few locations we could register, and it meant a two hour return trip in a very squashy taxi bus. I dragged my poor friend Erin and her luggage around Jinja trying to find the registration point. Eventually, we found the event office at a service station. And were told the person who does the registrations was not around. After much coaxing, we were directed to another location. And then another, before we finally received some information. Registrations had closed. It was a week before the charity run, and even though their registration numbers were low, they apparently weren’t taking any more. I asked where on the poster there were details about the deadline for registration, and as it turns out… there weren’t any. “But didn’t you hear our announcements on the radio?”. No, no I did not. I do not even have a radio. Thankfully Ugandans are very friendly, and took my money and wrote our names on the back of a scrap piece of paper.

There were no ‘gear tents’ at the event, but there was an excellent stage and speakers. Music before Management in Uganda. Available pre-race nutrition was samosas, chapatti or cake. And even though it would have been a miracle if the race started on time, for some reason, we still all expected it.

First there was just a 10 minute delay for no apparent reason. Then they needed to call some kind of electrical specialist to come flying in on his white boda and save the day because the timing chip mat –belt thingy wasn’t working. Then it was “when we fire the gun, DO NOT RUN… I repeat DO NOT RUN, when we fire the gun. We need to test the gun is working”. Never mind the microphone is working and they could just say “run!”.

Every 21 kilometres of pleasure and pain was worth it. I was conscious of every breath as the sun came up over Lake Victoria down below. I was every part grateful for those Ugandans who were prepared to hold back their finishing time just for the opportunity to run with you for an hour or so, to connect and cross the finish line together. My heart was full of encouragement and hopeful momentum for the soccer player who had been training for just two weeks to give this event a go. My laughter was uncontrollable when at the half-way mark, a chapatti maker cheered me on with: “Go, go, go, faster, faster! You can finish! And then you come back and buy my chapatti!!”. I had my cheeky face on when young guys would come and run alongside me, and puff their chests out, have a casual chat, and then be left in the dust when I would sprint past them in front of everyone, leaving their audience rolling around in stitches of laughter at the mzungu girl who had left them behind. And my heart melted when I heard from the sideline: “Go my daughter, my daughter, go, go, go!”.

And when it really hurt, and when I wondered if I was going to have to walk it home, and if I could even do that….I thought of the beanie in my luggage at the hotel. It was my green Mallee12 beanie and it had arrived in Kampala two days before the race. It was the only mail I had received in Uganda thus far. Mark had gone to the trouble of sending me the M12 beanie so I could take a photo of myself in it and send back to him. It made me think of the people in his life who were facing challenges at the moment. And it made me think of Millsy. I know it is cliché, but I am not sure how else to describe what went through my mind. I know how much Millsy has fought, and I can’t even begin to imagine what pain his body has been through. But I know he is still here, inspiring every person he meets because he understands that even if you can’t control external influences - such as the way other people behave or what is happening to your body or the world around you – you can control yourself. And no matter how much pain he is in, this man always has a word of encouragement, a disco ball to Spin to, a laugh to share, or a daggy joke to contribute. He reminds me that even when it is hurting like hell, you can always laugh at yourself, and that it is just as much fun to come last, as it is first. 

One of my other favourite moments of the weekend was when I finished the half marathon and found Dickson. He had finished his 10km event and was on top of the world. I have been very blessed to have at least one special person slow down their training to run with me. And now I understand a little part of why that is. The reward of beating your time can never compare to the reward you receive from sharing something which makes you happy, with someone else. To watching someone else discover those endorphins. To learning about someone and from someone, and to building friendship.

I completed the 21 kilometre race and have these particular thanks to offer to four phenomenal human beings (not in order of appearance).

1. Mark Wilgar: For sucking me in in the first place.
2. Millsy: For being you, for laughing at me in your ‘Australia’ suit, and for taking photos of me on the finish line. 
3. Dickson: For waiting for me when I slept in. I still owe you that ice-cream truck... 
4. Arron: For running with me, for slowing down my jogs by making me laugh too much, and for teaching the importance of chatting while trotting. You are patient, inspiring and beautiful. x 
5. Scopes (who recently SMASHED her first marathon): For reminding me about the value of friendship and chocolate. Thankyou. Am so proud of you xox