You're doing what!?

Milly with the first few pads
in the tailor's shop.

About a month ago I was sitting at a dining table in Kampala with a hospitable English family I have got to know. I explained what I had come back to  Uganda to do and the daughter of the house, a grown woman who had been in aerospace recruitment, asked me a question that went something like this:

"What made you give up a job as an engineer in the UK aerospace industry so that you could distribute sanitary pads to rural schoolgirls in Northern Uganda?"

It is an excellent question and I laughed loud and long when I heard it. It does seem to be a remarkable change of career. But it also seems to contain an assumption that somehow the aerospace industry is sophisticated, modern and exciting, whilst distributing sanitary pads somehow sounds like a job for a janitor. Be that as it may, that is what I am doing!

After 3 months or so of home leave, including the birth of my third grandchild, Mary Anna, I am living  in the Northern Uganda town of Pader again. The Northern Region is generally poorly developed, has poor communication links and is in recovery from decades of deadly cattle raiding, a brutal rebel insurgency and brutal military responses. 

Not to speak of a 10% HIV rate and a (Uganda wide) median age of 15 years; there are more children than adults. Thankfully there is peace now but the regional 'post traumatic stress' will take a generation or more to recover from.

I wrote in "Sowing Pads" last December about the problems girls face in education and our small scale and local solution to it. Well now that I am back my task is to continue that work, make it better and if possible inspire a larger NGO to take on and expand it.

The school notice board at the main road.

Last Wednesday, 23rd April, Milly and I visited our first school this year. Pagwari Primary School, which is maybe 10 minutes from town but 5 of these minutes are on a bush track. Milly gave them the talk, I gave them my story of the 4 generations of women and girls who are deeply important to me, moving on to God viewing each girl as important and unique (from Psalm 139). We distributed 4 washable pads, 4 pairs of knickers and one black plastic bag to each of the 64 girls present. 14 were away at an athletics competition and we left things for them too. There were time when the classroom looked like a bazaar but in fact order was never far away.

Distribution time.

4 and 4

It had taken some hard work to get the 280 pads marked, cut and sewn in time (see title picture). Also a day's trip to Lira by Milly (on 'local transpot' i.e. a truck) to buy 94 dozen knickers (enough for 4 schools if we are careful). We now have a 2 week school holiday to prepare for the next few schools.

If you are supporting the project, thanks and well done. Our target this year is 12 schools. But there are more than 12 within easy reach of Pader and it looks like our production rate is satisfactory, so with more support we can extend to reach more schools (at around £2.90 per girl or £200/school). 

If you want to challenge us to extend then please contact the EI UK office, details at www.eiuk.org.uk. Please earmark any donations for 'Northern Uganda, Pads'.

Homeward Bound

It is a month short of two years since I left the UK for Uganda and it is time I came home for a visit. My ship (sorry, flight) gets in on the 10th December, rather early in the morning and I plan to stay until the first few weeks of March.

In the time I have been away, I have been blessed to become a grandfather twice, so I am really looking forward to getting to know my new family members.

The few things I have written about in this blog have all been real life experiences that I would not have missed for the world. I have been very blessed in getting to meet many and get to know some excellent people in an around Pader, Northern Uganda and I hope to get back there in March 2014. They all send their greetings to you folk in the UK!

If you want to contact me in the UK, start with email to me at tom.g.edom(at)gmail.com because I can't be sure of my UK phone number yet. I'd be glad to meet up with friends old and new and share as many or few of my stories as you have interest to listen to.

I have other stories to share from my time in Northern Uganda (and maybe home) so I hope to continue blogging while in the UK. Watch this space.

Sowing pads

No Desks? No problem! Girls sewing washable pads.

Way back at the start of my blogging I promised to talk to you about menstruation. That piqued the interest of some at the time but it really is high time I came good on my promise. So.....

What is an old white man (with no medical heritage) doing concerning himself with such things? Good question, long story; that I hesitate to bore you with but here goes!

The background is that in Uganda 'universal education' was introduced back in 1997, giving all children equal assess to free Primary Education. Good stuff. But not simple. First build accessible local schools; everywhere. And train many many more teachers. And then find that girls are not actually equal to boys in the culture and in biology, especially from puberty. The simple and 'normal' way to deal with a girl's period is for her to stay at home. That means missing about 4 days of school every 28 days. Unless they are bright and determined it is no wonder they fall behind in the class rankings, get hassle from teachers and diminishing enthusiasm from parents who have to find money for them (only tuition is free) and they drop out of school. Often to be married, for which the parents get a bride price. One study in Uganda reckoned that 20% of school girl drop outs are due to menstruation related causes.

Our washable pads. Hand sown L and experimental machine sown R.

Now obviously, disposable pads are the answer; they are cheap and available. Except they are not cheap to a girl who has no money. Nor to a family which only sometimes has money and to whom this is a new and 'unnecessary' expense. Mother has never used them! And they are not available in rural areas because there is no demand.

What to do? Well, before I came to Uganda, Emmanuel International staff initiated a program where schools were visited, materials were given and washable pads were sown by the girls. The program was on hold, waiting for a fresh start. A bit of research, some 'chance' encounters and some hard work came up with an improved washable pad design, a bit of money, a concept note, budget and permission from the District Education Officer to start visiting schools.  That was around May this year.  I teamed up with one of our National Staff, Milly, and off we went. We have now visited 10 schools, taught just over 700 girls, marked and cut nearly 4,000 pieces of cloth (for 1390 pads). Each girl gets 2 pads to sew themselves and 2 pairs of knickers. (Pads are no use without them).

Milly is a natural teacher.

What we found was that in a typical class of 60 girls (we select the most mature in the school), around 40 have already started their periods, around 9 are wearing knickers and maybe 1 or 2 have access to disposable pads. Those on their periods manage them by missing school.

Milly teaches in the local language about the biology and practicalities of menstruation and how to sew and use the pads. Then I talk (translated by Milly) about the women that are important in my life who have achieved a good education. Then I talk from Psalm 139v13 & 14 about how we are each wonderfully made by God, unique individuals, known and valued by Him. i.e. God thinks you are important too.

Would it be better if a woman gave this talk? Maybe, but women affirming women has its limitations. A man affirming women can be unexpected and more likely to be noted? Or maybe an old white guy can do what a Ugandan man could not or would not do?

Feedback from teachers following the visits has been strongly positive.

There are problems to solve and questions to ask:

2 pads and 2 knickers is really not enough. It should be 4. But 4 pads is too many for a girl to sew in an afternoon and anyway the quality of the finished items is 'variable'. And it is twice as expensive for purchasing and takes twice as long for marking and cutting.

Milly translates as I talk.

In the larger schools our cap of 60 is simply too low and we have to return a second time to teach 20 or 30 more. It would be better to do one school with one visit.

School terms of around 12 weeks are surprisingly short when you take into account 1^st and last weeks, football, athletics and music competitions, termly tests and final examinations, all of which are bad times to try and muster all the older girls.

There are over 100 Primary Schools in Pader District. Agago District is in easy reach of us in Pader Town and there may be another 100 there. Even if we limit ourselves to a reasonable travelling radius from Pader there would be about 50 schools. This year we managed to reach 10 in two terms. Should we upscale the project?

What is her name?

A Ugandan butterfly. 

As I have said before, I have some good friends here in Pader, Uganda, who are profoundly deaf.

Some while ago I was with one of my deaf friends in a clinic. She has a lovely personality, almost always sunny, is a skilful and hard working farmer, can braid hair in many different styles, is always smartly dressed, expresses herself with freedom in sign but has almost no formal education.

She needed to see a doctor and wanted someone to interpret for her. Her treatment needed daily attendance for 3 more days so the next day she came and found me. This time she came with her mother and baby sister and off we went to the clinic. I asked her the name of her sister. Her answer rocked me. 'I don't know'.

Various thoughts raced through my brain. 'But you're 18 and responsible, how can you not know your own sister's name?' and 'How come you have never asked?'

Then I began to think more clearly. My friend can 'write her own name' in sign alphabet and on paper but she is very far from being able to write or read fluently. She names herself by her sign name, two fingers together stroked across her forehead. But of course she knows perfectly well who her baby sister is and could doubtless pick her from a crowd of 10,000. Names that we are so used to are labels that we put on people. We use them for all sorts of things from birth certificates to love songs. But they are names in spoken language.

Now the deaf can and do learn to read and write but with varying degrees of success. Which is not surprising when you consider that (most) writing is spoken word coded on to paper (or screen). If you do not know how the spoken word sounds then reading the code gets a lot more challenging. To tell you the truth I have not yet worked out the mental process they use to understand the written code, because they can't 'say it' in their heads like we do (unless post lingually deaf, see below).

Going back to my friend, why should she know the 'hearing name' of her baby sister? When the baby gets older she will probably give her a sign name and that will be I.D enough. If my friend really needs to know (maybe take responsibility for the baby) she will learn the spoken name in written form. But she will never hear it spoken and never speak it herself.

Above, I said that most writing is coded speech. However it struck me that pictographic writing, as used in various forms in and around China, may have parallels to sign language in that it does not spell out a spoken word but conveys a meaning or idea in itself. In our thorough education systems we learn spelling among other esoteric disciplines. But words are not just things that you spell, they are units of meaning that we compile into ideas or descriptions that are conveyed to another person. So it is with sign language. Complex ideas and narratives can be conveyed using the hands, body and face to make words and phrases, strung together into language. That is both a beauty and problem of sign language. It cannot easily be rendered into a written form without translating it through a spoken language on to the page.

What has that to do with a butterfly? If you look carefully at the picture, you may find it.

• For completeness I should say that those who are born deaf (or acquired deafness very young) really have very little idea what speech is meant to be; they have never heard it or they became deaf before language had any meaning for them. These are termed Pre-Lingually Deaf.
• There are plenty of deaf people here in Uganda and throughout the world who became deaf as children, mainly through childhood illnesses. Then there are a lesser number who become deaf as teens or adults through sickness, accident, assault and such like. All these are termed Post-Lingually Deaf. Obviously, the post lingually deaf have a distinct advantage when it comes to lip-reading, vocalising, even reading and writing, because to varying extents they remember what speech feels like to hear and to speak.

Now Wash Your Hands!

If you have not got running water from a tap, how do you wash your hands? In the kitchen, after using the toilet, in a medical setting, the problem remains largely unanswered.

Quite a long time ago a Jim Watt of the Salvation Army in Zimbabwe thought out a way to do it, and it is now known as a Tippy Tap. It is basically a tipping jug that is operated by the foot, so dirty hands do not contaminate it.

When we can, we promote these in the community but things here are seldom straightforward. Children play and empty the water out and others do not get round to refilling it; goats and cows eat the soap or it gets 'borrowed'. Or it just does not last the rigours of African life. Here is a picture of a community workshop showing two different container options. But the good thing is that a few people like them, stick with them and may eventually persuade their neighbours of the health benefits.

Recently I was asked to install two tippy taps in a new health centre here, one in the clinical officer's consulting room and the other in the nurses treatment room. They are expecting running water 'soon' but need to maintain hygiene standards now. The title picture is the nurse's tippy tap made from a commercial plastic watering can, a plastic cup, a soda bottle cap, 2 nails, some string and a wooden stick.

Football, Football, Football!

Football has never been my favourite game. When I was at school I was always in the 2^nd eleven, the so called 'All Stars'. I can remember one moment of near glory in a home match one time. I was getting so irritated by our collective incompetence that I decided to take matters in to my own hands (feet). The ball came to me and I dribbled up the field towards the goal with focussed determination; tackled a few times I refused to give up the ball. Within range of the back line I gave the ball a mighty boot and found that I had misjudged the position of the goal by a good five yards. My effort was mentioned by the teacher at the end of the game; you can judge from that how bad our collective performance was.

But I am happy to admit that many people love football. As a substitute for international, interracial, inter-tribal or even inter village blood-letting it certainly has its plus points. Here in Uganda, the English premier league is followed with proper seriousness (most people support Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea). The National Team (go Uganda Cranes) is followed with pride but can not be said to be dominant.

At a grass roots level boys play it pretty much anywhere and girls can be encouraged to play it in Primary School. In Secondary School, girl's football is growing and the boys are, of course, highly competitive.

One of the the national staff here, Francis, is a keen footballer (and high scoring striker in the town team). When he can get the resources he likes to run football clinics to improve the technical skills and fitness of the local teams. This time it was with a lot of help from a soccer enthusiast, Curtis, who came (for the third time) with a visiting medical group from Canada, where they call it soccer. They took the opportunity to give a talk from the Bible, which is always listened to with great respect . And then to stage a couple of friendly tournaments. When the Canadians were here we had an all day tournament for four men's teams and then yesterday it was two secondary school girls teams that met at the town ground. The picture is from that match.

Almost everyone here says that getting the youth into football is a good thing. It gives them something else to do, think and talk about than the opposite sex, drinking, troublemaking and crime. It teaches personal self discipline and commitment, the ability to both win and to loose, depending on others (and forgiving their failures as they forgive yours) and much more. The grass-roots football here is mainly run by Christian people who have a heart for the youth, love the game and see it as a way of doing good in the community. They respond well to any effort to get teams together improve performance and compete. One of the reasons they are so keen to join in is that their own resources are so thin. Most players are barefoot. The club may only have one worn-out ball (soon to expire) and no team strip. They get a little out of joining in with a competition, especially if they win.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I just want to say that there are enormous possibilities in this 'Football ministry' for the right person or people to reach out to the youth here in Pader District. It does not have to be only football; volleyball is also keenly contested and (to a lesser extent) net ball. And if anyone has a source of new footballs, volleyballs, net-balls and/or team strips (even if they are second hand) then please let me know.

Preparing the ground

Getting to the point of growing anything useful always take a lot of work. This post is the first of two that fill you in on the background work.

It all kicked off in November when I employed a friend, Okot Ceasar (yes, correct spelling), to clear the bushy weeds that were invading the area outside my back door. Here you see Ceasar at work with a hoe, assisted in this picture by Odong Patel, one of our guards. A few days later the dried brush / weeds, seeds and all were burned.

I want to note here that I am generally dead against burning because among other things, it sends all the useful material into the sky and leaves behind nothing benefical. So at all other times I have insisted that organic material be left in the field to be ploughed in. This has not made the work any easier because cultivating through plants, dead or alive, is much harder work than for a bare, burned field.

After that it was a time of planning. Mechanical ploughing was required but a walk over the field showed that there were many tree stumps hiding there, buried but putting up shoots. Any one of them could break a plough or puncture a tractor tyre. In the first weeks of January my friend Okeny Tiberio (say Ocain) got to work. I think I can safely say that I have seldom met such a persistent and skilful worker. With only a hoe and an axe he located in the order of 60 stumps, exposed them by digging round them and then, below plough depth, chopped them free. It took around 2 weeks.

The dry season is over Christmas and in to March; whilst our land dries more slowly than other areas, when it does, it sets like concrete. With the field now clean of bush and stumps, the plan was to get a tractor in before our land dried. It was booked but there were delays, it was working in a different district, would come soon. When it eventually arrived on 22^nd Feb, the ground was too hard to plough and after a few furrows were laboriously turned the tractor retired, defeated.

Now we had to wait for the rain to come and soften the ground. When it did rain, the tractor was delayed again, in Gulu district, and then we were told it had broken down. Another tractor was located that was being prepared for the season by CCF, a friendly local NGO. We offered to test it for them, knowing that our ground was free of stumps.

When the tractor was ready for testing on the 24^th April, the tractor struggled but ploughed the land, more or less. It was really too dry and hard but the job was done. It left the field deeply rutted and not really ready for planting.

What next? A tractor again for a second ploughing? There was an availability problem; and would the field really be flat enough? An Ox plough? We booked an Ox team and they tried but gave up because the dried grass on the surface (that I refused to burn) was clogging the plough. This picture is not of the one that came but a different one in a neighbour's field.

Now what? Time was flying, it was time to plant! Bring in the diggers! Three casual labourers living in town but from a different region were contracted to dig and level the field. It took several weeks from around 13^th May; working from early morning to mid day and then, on a good day, from 4 till dusk, they dug away until it was done, skilfully burying green growth and levelling the plough ruts. As soon as the digging was complete on the first part of the field we started chasing them, planting first rice and then sunflower. But that is for another post.