uganda and back

stunning sunset over lake victoria

we are currently staying in a cave in the truly stunning drakensberg mountains, the border between south africa and lesotho, this has become a space for us to chill out and rest after what has been another busy week sharing with the team at cherish in uganda.

before we go too far we really want to thank rachel parsons, a young lady whom i met through trevor waldock (more of whom later) last year for inspiring the vision for the wonderful work that cherish are doing via their projects near entebbe on the shores of lake victoria. rachel is no longer leading the project but the passion, skill and dedication that has enabled her to step down has similar hallmarks of our journey with the village of hope and to be hosted by the incredibility welcoming larissa who worked with rachel since the start of the project in 2007 was a real joy.

we came to know of rachel and this awesome project from our friend trevor waldock who served on the board of cherish and helped them through some tougher times with his skills on leadership. trevor is now in south africa where he is setting up and extending his ‘emerging leaders’ charity and we thank him for connecting us with the team at cherish.

after driving from cape town to durban we jumped on a plane, firstly to johannesburg and then onto entebbe in uganda, the international airport that serves the ugandan capital kampala, although the flights were quite short, 45 minutes from durban to joburg and just under four hours from joburg to entebbe we arrived in the dark although it was only seven o’clock in the evening. entebbe not only sits on the huge lake victoria but almost straddles the equator so the sun was very consistent in its rising and setting, seven in the morning and seven at night.

fishermen trying their luck at what the birds do so well..

we had joined larissa and her team to discuss community development and the pitfalls and highlights of setting up a project from scratch and although we had the amazing benefit of coming under the already well-established thembalitsha foundation our experiences were pretty similar. unfortunately for us the new project managers, brent phillips and his wife leah, were called away to the united states on some family business so were unable to join us but we had the pleasure of meeting chris and rebecca viola who are heading up the 'driven international ministries', chris and rebecca hail from dallas and are currently in the process of selling up and moving to zambia to start their own project in the slum areas around kobe, it was interesting to work through a well ordered programme of topics which allowed us to share our experiences with these guys.

chris and rebecca were also joined by their friends ben and liz boutin couple of prayer warriors who were seeking God as to their involvement with the driven ministries, ben and liz had very interesting stories and also bought along their youngest son, Jeremiah, who at 15 months was into everything

moses and sam

although cherish has some volunteer accommodation we were hosted at a country lake resort on the shores of lake victoria, the sights and sounds were incredible, fish eagles soared overhead swooping to catch fresh water fish that were lying beneath the surface of this incredible lake. hundreds of pide king kishers joined in the fun and with the local fishermen casting their nets into the still and clear waters it was hard to pull oneself away from the beauty of it all.

with temperatures in the high thirties during the day and never dropping below twenty at night there seemed to be little use for our hoody’s and long trousers which we had bought along for those colder evenings, however these garments came to the fore as we donned them with glee to fight off the Lake Flies and mosquitos which literally swarmed in during the early evening.

our days were spent at the huge plot that serves as a base for all the cherish projects, a school for over 250 children from the local village, homes for around 40 children infected by HIV and their house moms who live with the eight children to a home, plantations of banana’s, potatoes and tomatoes, complimented the newly built chicken runs where over 500 layer hens produce eggs that are sold to the very lodges where we and other tourists stay during their time on and around the lake.

two new projects were also just taking shape, a massive piggery, pork is very big in Uganda and the project is looking to cash in on this, and secondly the highlight for us was the newly built clinic which will mainly focus on HIV, which is an incredible problem for the area, this will serve the local community some of whom live on the islands on the lake and who have great distances to travel to get medical support.

we met the new doctor and heard of the team that she is building around her as she seeks to open the new facility on the first of april, there are bigger plans a foot as a separate maternity ward and then an inpatient unit are to be built to compliment the day clinic, this was inspiring as the need is so great but the workers are few.

the doctor waiting for her patient outside the new clinic

it was great to chew some ideas around and some of the key topics that we discussed during the week were- 'ministry verses organisation (what’s the difference)', - 'spiritual development, hiring, evaluation, salaries and firing', - 'why do we educate and how do we do it?', - 'social work, intake, care plans, resettlement, empowering families'. all of these were great to focus on, the passion and professionalism shown by cherish towards its mission was to be complimented and as we look back over our time with the village of hope we held similar ideals and models which gave both myself and maz a great sense of work well done and which we hope will be continued well after we have gone.

the team in discussion

we met up with some of the key leadership staff of the organisation, the accounts manager and a very passionate social worker who heads up a team of five, soon to be extended with the opening of the clinic, it was great to hear a man so passionate about the well-being of the community, the effects that cherish will have on it and it’s children. we also met up with the operations team, and with over 100 employees (teachers, grounds workers, drivers, social workers, house moms, kitchen staff etc.) their commitment to running a tight ship was fantastic.

maz at the community meal time!

we could go on and on about this trip but just wanted to say that there was a real sense of family and a united front on what was to be achieved and how that was going to be done, this came through from the farm hands right through to the teachers and leadership team.

egg production cherish style'

a particular highlight for me was the shared lunchtime meal, where all the staff came together to eat a communal meal, cooked under a simple outside lean to and mainly consisting of simple pap and beans, following the food some of the guys played cards (no money involved) and there was a great sense of fun and family.

the only down side to the trip was the time we could have spent with brent and leah, but we are sure that we will visit again to see first-hand the opened clinic and to chat more about the future.