Under the Shade of a Mango Tree

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home...but in Uganda, the Mango Tree is the heart of the compound.

After a long drive in the hot, dusty African sun to visit one of the many families on our World Vision DLC trip, we would always look forward to sitting under the cool shade of a mango tree. As we would drive up to the family's compound we could see handmade wooden chairs already waiting for us under the tree. Sometimes the women would be gathered under the mango tree chopping cassava or just socializing, dogs would be napping, and kids would be running around everywhere in the compound, always ready to have their picture taken.

Chairs waiting for us under a mango tree

Meeting under a mango tree

Chopping Cassava under a mango tree

One of the many beautiful faces we saw...always ready to have their picture taken!

Almost every family that we visited had the same setup for their compound. There would be a mango tree (or sometimes a neem tree) in the middle, encircled by several huts. One hut would be used for cooking, and then the rest were for sleeping. The walls were made of red mud bricks while the roofs consisted of branches covered with dried grass. There would be one or several granaries used for storing dried food, and a latrine hidden in a far corner of the compound. Some families might have modified "barns" for keeping their goats (also known as the Ugandan Savings Account.)

A typical Eastern Ugandan Compound

A sleeping hut

The cooking hut

An unfinished hut

Granaries to store dried food

Photo by Norah

During our first week in Eastern Uganda, we ran a photography workshop with 10 of the sponsor children. Each of us volunteers were paired up with one or 2 of these children. My photography student was Norah. At the end of the week, we held a photography exhibit to showcase the best photos that the students took. Family and friends came to 'ooh' and 'ahh' over the photos.

When I asked Norah which of the photos she took was her favourite, she chose the photo of a hand reaching up to pluck a mango from a tree. Why was that her favourite? "Because the fruit is free, available for everyone to eat."

Mango trees are so plentiful in Uganda. It does not matter whose land the mango tree is on, the fruit is "free for all".

Mango is an excellent source of vitamin A. Ugandans will eat them raw, peels and all.

“The king of the fruits”, mango fruit is one of the most popular, nutritionally rich fruit with unique flavor, fragrance, taste, and health promoting qualities. Mango fruit is rich in pre-biotic dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and poly-phenolic flavonoid antioxidant compounds. Mango fruit is an excellent source of Vitamin-A and flavonoids like beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, and beta-cryptoxanthin. 100 g of fresh fruit provides 765 mg or 25% of recommended daily levels of vitamin A. Together; these compounds are known to have antioxidant properties and are essential for vision. Vitamin A is also required for maintaining healthy mucus membranes and skin. Consumption of natural fruits rich in carotenes is known to protect body from lung and oral cavity cancers. Fresh mango is a very rich source of potassium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids that helps controlling heart rate and blood pressure. It is also a very good source of vitamin-B6 (pyridoxine), vitamin-C and vitamin-E. Consumption of foods rich in vitamin C helps body develop resistance against infectious agents and scavenge harmful oxygen free radicals. Vitamin B-6 or pyridoxine is required for GABA hormone production in the brain. It also controls homocystiene levels in the blood, which may otherwise be harmful to blood vessels resulting in CAD and stroke. Copper is a co-factor for many vital enzymes, including cytochrome c-oxidase and superoxide dismutase (other minerals function as co-factors for this enzyme are manganese and zinc). Copper is also required for the production of red blood cells.Mango peels are also rich in phytonutrients, such as the pigment antioxidants like carotenoids and polyphenols.

(http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/mango-fruit.html)

No wonder mango is call a "Super Fruit"!

Week 1 is almost over!

I have been in Uganda for 5 days now, but unfortunately I have not been able to find time to blog. Our hotel in Soroti does not have Internet, in fact the whole town appears to be without Internet at the moment.

Thankfully the World Vision Soroti office has a large satellite dish that their Internet is connected to. Every morning and evening we drop by the office for 15 minutes or so to quickly check our emails, etc.

As I am writing this (on my iPhone) we are on our way to another project. We will be meeting a former child soldier and then visiting an OVC centre (Orphans & Vulnerable Children), a woman who is raising 10 orphans. Hopefully I'll be able to upload this toy site this evening when we are back at the WV office.

Today is also the last day of our photography workshop. We have been teaching 10 wonderful children how to use cameras and take photos. On Sunday we'll be have an exhibit to share some of their photos withe rest of the community.

My main role on this trip has been to organize everything for the photo workshops which is why I haven't had any time to blog. But next week should be a different story.

LIVE from Uganda!

Join a World Vision Uganda Staff person and 2 of our volunteers for an online "Live Uganda Chat" event on March 24th from the field. The purpose of the chat is to help our existing Uganda sponsors gain deeper understanding of the work that World Vision is doing to benefit their sponsored children.

The call will primarily feature the ADP manager: Dinah Okono. Dinah has spent the past 10 years working in communities for World Vision. She currently assists more than 25,000 people across the four communities in Uganda that she manages. Dinah will share her insights about the work while our two volunteer representatives (Megan & Heather) will have a chance to comment on what they've seen in the field primarily as a way to "witness" or testify to the work that is being accomplished.

During the online chat, you will have the opportunity to participate in the conversation by typing your questions. You will receive a typed answer.

Even if you are not currently a World Vision sponsor but are interested in knowing more about what World Vision is doing in Uganda, you are more than welcome to register for the call.

CLICK HERE to register now!

Don't miss this unique opportunity to learn more about where your sponsored child lives and the work that World Vision does.

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day and I can't help but think about women that I've met in Bangladesh and Malawi and especially those that I will meet when I go to Uganda.

Historically, Ugandan women have been treated as subordinate to men (which is true in most cultures.) Women were taught to obey the wishes of the men in their lives (fathers, brothers, husbands, etc.) Women were expected to kneel when speaking with a man, and to demonstrate their subordination to men in all areas of their public life.

And yet it has always been the women who have shouldered the responsibility to make sure that their families survive. They were completely responsible for childcare, housework, and working outside the home in their sparse fields to make sure the family had food to eat and wood to keep the fire going. Whenever a woman succeeded not only in cultivating their crops to feed their family but also to have enough to sell, the man would take all the credit (and the money). Even today, in rural areas such as Katine, Uganda, "women need their husbands' permission to participate in development schemes, such as the village savings and loans associations".

But that is starting to change. Organizations such as World Vision,  UWEAL (Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited) and Caring Hands (among many others) are empowering women to have dignity and new hope for the future.

After the World Vision portion of my upcoming trip to Uganda, I will be staying with friends of mine who have been missionaries in Kampala, Uganda through Fida International since 1995. They are the founders of Caring Hands.

Caring hands is made up of volunteers who assist families living in poverty, giving them new hope for the future. Making jewelry out of recycled paper has become the most important income generating means for Caring Hands. About 50 women have been trained in making beads from recycled paper which is turned to beautiful jewelry. The jewelry is then sent around the world to market for these ladies and this is the main source of income for Caring Hands. This has given women self-esteem, put a smile on their faces and alleviated their struggles with poverty. The profits are used for various charitable activities. Over the years they have provided wheelchairs, sewing machines, dental care, funeral costs, clothing, food, medical assistance and much more.

Caring Hands Beads

Uganda March 2012

It has been almost 2 years since my last trip with World Vision (to Bangladesh in April 2010). I have been itching to go on another trip, but unfortunately finances have not allowed me to go. A few weeks ago I received a phone call from the World Vision head office in Mississauga asking me if I could join their DLC (Destination Life Change) trip to Uganda in March as a support worker. Of course I jumped at the chance to go and God provided the funding for the trip! PRAISE THE LORD!

We will be visiting 2 ADP's (Area Development Programs) near Soroti, Uganda. The purpose of the trip is to help other Canadians understand how they can make a difference by choosing to sponsor a child. DLC trips give volunteers the opportunity to experience first-hand how sponsorship impacts the lives of children, families and entire communities. When a Canadian sponsors a child, they become part of a dynamic partnership with World Vision and with the sponsored child's entire community.

World Vision helps provide long-term solutions to poverty that will enrich the life of the sponsored child. The best way to create lasting, transformative change in the life of any child is to address the core issues that keep that child, his or her family and the entire community trapped in poverty.

By combining the financial resources of child sponsors and working with the local staff in the communities they serve, World Vision maximizes the impact of every dollar given. This approach allows World Vision to run programs in the most cost-effective way and achieve lasting transformation for children, families and entire communities.

Through the child sponsorship program, children receive access to essentials like quality education, health, nutrition, agricultural training, clean water and income generation. Addressing the root causes of poverty also means challenging unfair social, economic and political systems and policies that prevent the world's poor from breaking free of the cycle of poverty. The ultimate goal is to help families and communities reach a point of greater self-sufficiency, so that they are one day able to further their own development work without the support of World Vision.

The World Vision portion of my trip will be 2 weeks. When the rest of the team leaves Uganda, I will be staying for another week to visit friends (Happonen's), missionaries who live in Kampala. 

You can join me on this trip by:

• Prayer Support - pray for the safety of the DLC team; the sponsor children, families and communities in Uganda; The World Vision staff at the ADP's as well as in Mississauga.
• Sponsor a Child - I have 3 children that need a Canadian sponsor. For $39 a month, you can change the life of a child, a family and an entire community! I will also have the opportunity to meet your sponsor child and bring them gifts and letters from you, as well as bring you videos and photos of my visit with your sponsor child.
• Read more about World Vision's work in Uganda here.
• Read about the work that Happonens are doing in Kampala by visiting the Caring Hands website.

(click to enlarge images)

 

 

Fordousy

Reading Amanda's blog about Rosina on the World Vision Website and all the comments about Fordousy brings a smile to my face. We all met Fordousy & the children the first time we arrived at the hotel. Prior to arriving in Bangladesh, we had been instructed not to give money to the beggars. My heart went out to them though and I really wanted to help them somehow. But we just shook their hands and greeted them whenever they came running up to us.

A day or two into our stay, several of us WV volunteers decided to do some shopping and wanted to check out some of the stores directly across the street from our hotel. We probably stood in front of the hotel for a good 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out how we were going to get to the other side of the street. The traffic in Bangladesh, and particularly Chittagong, is very chaotic to say the least. There are really no driving rules and definitely no crosswalks. Traffic lights are few and far between. We watched as several locals darted across the street, putting their trust in the drivers that they would stop, or at least slow down enough not to hit them. We realized that the only way to cross was to just step out into the traffic in faith.

Fordousy must have been watching us the whole time because all of a sudden she was beside us, stepping out into oncoming traffic, one had stretched out to the traffic to stop them, and the other hand motioning us to follow her. She became our guardian angel and personal crossing guard! After we had all safely crossed to the other side, I hired her on the spot! Whenever we needed to get across the street, she was there waiting, ready to escort us.

Even though we didn't speak the same language, I could tell by the huge smile on her face and the sparkle in her eyes, how proud she was that she was earning money instead of begging for it. For us it was just pocket change, but for her it was hope for the future.