The little girl who stole my heart and the boy I gave mine to - How Uganda became a home away from home

It’s almost coming to 5 years since the first time I stepped off the plane and found myself in Uganda. I keep getting asked why I always seem to come back here. There are so many other places to explore in Africa, but every time I’ve planned a trip here it’s never really crossed my mind to go anywhere else. Uganda is home to me, well my African home that is. So I figured I would share how and why I feel so at home here.

When I first came to Uganda I knew absolutely nothing about the country. I was 20 years old and honestly looking for some sort of adventure to distract myself as I had been going through a difficult time at home. I decided to jump at the opportunity to spend some months working in Kampala for Tumaini Aids Prevention Program. Again I had no previous experience working with HIV/AIDS, or any idea what Kampala would be like, but it would be a change, and that was all I needed. So after watching the movie ‘The Last King of Scotland’ I found myself boarding a flight to Uganda.

I landed in Entebbe early in the morning in 2010 and was amazed by how green and beautiful the scenery around me was. I was picked up at the airport by the ‘dad’ of the family whom I would be staying with. He was very welcoming, but I think even from the first conversation I had with him I realized our way of looking at the world was completely different. I remember sitting in the car on the way to Kampala thinking I just made a big mistake. Here I was in a country I know nothing about in Africa, with a very religious guy who has already told me off for not going to church, heading to what would be my home for the next months.

First I should probably say I have nothing against religion as such, but I am not overly enthusiastic about people who try to convince me their religion is the correct and the best one from the first second I meet them, and that they look down upon me and think I will eventually go to hell if I don’t go to church. So not the best of introductions to Uganda.

Anyways after a long hour in the car we made it to my new ‘home’ in Kampala, I would be living in Busega and commuting to work in Nakulabye. The family I was staying with minus the dad were all extremely friendly, and the youngest boy of the family was a beautiful little baby who I would spend hours playing with every day.

The work I did with TAPP in Kampala was some of the most difficult and frustrating I have and ever 

will do. I had never seen poverty at the level which I experienced it in the slum areas of Kampala. I spent my days going on home visits to women who were HIV positive or had developed AIDS. I would listen to their stories, try to offer some sort of comfort, and teach their kids some basic English and math. I remember walking into one woman’s home (a little shed) and finding her there in tears with a high fever and 6 small children around her, all sitting there not saying or doing anything, just staring at their mom. The youngest of her children was just a little baby and she was crying cause she didn’t have any more milk for the baby, and no food for the older ones. 5 of her kids were also HIV positive. The woman had been kicked out of her husband’s house after he found out she had HIV a couple of years back, which she most likely contracted from him. She had no money, no family that would take her in, so she turned to prostitution to be able to feed her children. She told me she tried to make the guys use a condom, but they refused and said if that was the case then she would have to lower the price, and lowering the price meant some of her children would not have food the next day, so she couldn’t do that.  At TAPP we worked with her to find alternative ways for her to support herself, she learned how to use the sowing machine at the centre and was able to make some money making and selling clothes from fabric that was provided for her. She lived for a year after that, her kids became orphans, the AIDS orphans you always hear about in fundraising campaigns. Often orphans here are not really orphans in the sense that there is always some family member that will step in, but these kids had no one. 5 of the kids were sick, one of them would always come to see me in the mornings and walk around with me all day holding my hand tight, no matter how high her fever was or how little she had to eat that day. Most days I just carried her around with me. She died before her mom, she was 4 years old. A little face I will never forget. The last time I saw her she wasn’t strong enough to walk, I picked her up and held on to her the whole day, she would always fall asleep clutching on to my hand, that day she didn’t even have the strength to hold on to my hand. Letting go of her that night was the hardest thing I have and hopefully ever will do. She will always be Uganda to me, a part I will always carry with me.

So that was the life I had in Kampala. I had days I just wanted to run away. After all, this wasn’t my home, I didn’t have to stay. But the people I worked with, they became my family. My boss would take me to his house for lunch every day and I would spend time with his young daughters, helping them to read and playing with the youngest one who still has more energy than any kid I have ever met. They made Kampala home for me.

Away from this life I also met many people travelling through Uganda, as I eventually had to move out of the house I was staying in because I couldn’t get along with the family there and so I lived at a hostel for the remainder of my time in Kampala. I liked the family I lived with first, but there was always tension, not just with the religious aspect, but other things as well. When I first moved in the little baby boy had no diaper on and they kept asking me for money so they could buy him diapers, as I was working every day with kids who had absolutely nothing I refused saying there was no need. After I clearly refused the baby had diapers again every day, so obviously they just wanted the money. A month later another girl came to stay for a couple of weeks and again the baby was there with no diapers, they asked the girl for money for diapers and the girl gave it to them. I know it’s a little thing, but I just don’t think using your baby in such a way is okay, and I did not want to stay there anymore so I moved out.

At the hostel I met a lot of great people who were either doing internships in Kampala, or travelling around Africa. We formed a little group and travelled to different parts of the country together on the weekends, and I got to go on safari and see some amazing parts of Uganda. I relied on them to get my nightly escapes from the work I was doing during the day, and it sort of created a balance for me that I could live with without becoming too upset about all the horrible things I was seeing around me.

So that was my first time in Uganda. After that I have come back several times and stayed for a month or two each time, usually staying with the little family from work in Kampala who have now moved to Jinja. They have taken me to their home villages in Eastern Uganda, where I’ve gotten to stay for a while, and with them I do have a proper family and home here, and I will always keep coming back to that.

A couple of years back when I was staying with this family in their home village of Mawanga in Eastern Uganda I met a little boy called Ryan. He was only four months old when I first met him, and he stole my heart from the second I saw him. He was sick, he had been born with excess fluid in his brain and the fluid was steadily increasing. I have seen many sick babies and adults here, but there was something about Ryan and I just couldn’t let it go. So within a week we managed to raise money so that Ryan could have the surgery he needed to relieve the pressure on his brain. Now Ryan is 2 years old, and thanks to my family who gave me the best birthday present last year of paying for a surgery to get his eye sight repaired, he is now a healthy little boy.

Baby Ryan

So these are the little things that have made it hard for me to let go of Uganda, and now as I’ve found friends and awesome co-workers here in Karamoja, Uganda feels even more like a home away from home. So my answer to why I keep coming back here; Uganda will always be to me the home of the little girl in Kampala who held on to me so tightly but who I couldn’t save, and the little boy in Mawanga who gave me the chance to do the right thing when I could.

My little family in Jinja