Mark Mwesiga's Blog: Lockdown - the good, the bad and living life full ...

Mark Mwesiga's Blog: Lockdown - the good, the bad and living life full ...: Let me tell you something about this Lockdown. I should have written some days ago but I have been a bit busy. I have been into so many...

Mark Mwesiga's Blog: Lockdown - the good, the bad and living life full ...

Mark Mwesiga's Blog: Lockdown - the good, the bad and living life full ...: Let me tell you something about this Lockdown. I should have written some days ago but I have been a bit busy. I have been into so many...

Lockdown - the good, the bad and living life full of uncertainty

Let me tell you something about this Lockdown.

I should have written some days ago but I have been a bit busy. I have been into so many meetings and engagements about COVID-19, the response and all sorts of things. Of course, some of the meetings were as basic as what should we have in stock at home. I mean, I had to meet with Omukyara and plan this out. We couldn't afford to take any chances. We did google search and read about how people in China, Italy, Spain, and the UK prepared for the lockdown. 

Then I had numerous meetings with a team of staff that I lead at PCAU. By the way, some of them were interesting, they thought I was very fearful by asking them to prepare. Some of them thought it was a joke etc. I have realized that being a leader requires a lot of patience. There are people who will not look beyond today. They don't want to think about next month, next year, etc. 

But maybe before telling you more, I should inform you that I was supposed to travel a lot in the month of March and April 2020. You should have seen some posts on my social media platforms about my process of renewing my passport etc.  On the 7th of March 2020, I was supposed to leave Entebbe to Belgiam Austria, via Amsterdam then Vienna. I had planned my trip in such a way that I would take a 2.5hrs train from Vienna to Salzburg. I love this journey, while a colleague that I was going to travel with preferred to fly straight to Salzburg, I had opted to use the train from Vienna. I have done this twice before. That train is so comfortable, it has swift WiFi and all that. It is lovely to see the developed world from the windows of the train etc. 

Message received from Brussels Airlines about the cancelation of flights. I had sent them the reason that I was pulling out of the travel given the threats of the Corona Virus. They had indicated that tickets were none refundable. I was fine with losing money other than travel in the circumstances. Good news they came to me and all their customers that we could reschedule flights using the tickets paid. I have rescheduled my travel plans for October and December 2020. Hoping we will have defeated Corona Virus then. We are in this together.

Then after one week in Salzburg, I was supposed to leave on March 13th for Chicago USA, I would take a bus from there to South Bend Indiana. I was supposed to stay in Mishawaka somewhere on Confort lane near Centre for Hospice Care for one week before heading to Washington DC for a week's conference. I would leave the USA after many meetings on April 4th. Back to Entebbe.

All that did not happen. Some bad disease which had started in Wuhan city in China stopped everything.  It started with lots of stories including that people who eat wild animals ate the virus from some meat. Anyway, anyone who will be born from now will learn about this Corona Virus. It has ravaged the world. Airlines have canceled flights, airports have been shut down and public transport  and driving private cars are burned etc. 

Pretty leading Praise and Worship at Church today. It was Palm Sunday remember! April 5th 2020.

Today is the 3rd Sunday that we had to be on TV to attend church. It is amazing. Its Palm Sunday! I had to catch up with our friend Pretty Kiconco Patience leading praise and worship on Twitter live.  I and my people go to St. Francis Chaple Makerere. This is the place we call home church. We also go to Watoto Church (especially those Sundays when I wake up late). Watoto is also a bit convenient in dress etc. Actually, you can get on your jeans and canvas or flat shows and go praise God at church. You may appear funny if you did so at St. Francis Chapel. Much as this is a university chapel, it tends to maintain an Anglican tradition. People are always some kind of formally dressed. We have lots of friends there. We just cannot imagine church for many Sundays away from St. Francis Chapel. 

So we are actually in a Lockdown. That's why we didn't drive to church today. It is the 5th day in the lockdown in Uganda. For the past 3 days, I have been walking along the road with Omukyara. We leave around 4:00PM and take a walk. We return to the house at about 6:45PM. The roads have other couples and children walking or jogging. It is as if, the Lockdown has reminded all of us that we should exercise.  If we're out until 7:00PM, the LDUs would beat us. The President has called them pigs. Some of LDUs are really bad-mannered. One of them beat up a dog at someone's home. The man was holding a baby, his wife was near him, they were talking. Just like you know families do at the end of the day. Then the LDU came. They asked them to lock themselves inhouse. As they prepared to move, one of the LDUs beat up the dog badly. With too much force. The video has been going rounds.

But there is this other one thing intriguing. Among the 48 people who have tested positive to have the coronavirus in Uganda, some of them are among Watoto Children’s Choirs. Some people and some of our leaders have come up to castigate Watoto for taking children around the world. Let me tell you something. Since I graduated from Makerere in 2007, I have been working with NGOs. If there were no NGOs paying school fees for children, some of the people would not have studied. Regardless of the faults therein, let's not castigate the leadership of Watoto at least during this time. Some of these children can look to a future with hope because of some generous people. I can put my hand, the government of Uganda cannot look after all these vulnerable children. The government would do so if corruption and all other bad vises were not as rampant as they are. let me pen off here.

For now, bye!
We are in this together. 

The day we brought them clothes, they all ran away naked - the mother and her children.

In my employment life, I have had the privilege of working with or for children. Precisely, the Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children (OVC). In Uganda, the Ministry of Labour, Gender and Social Development has a website that has statistics about OVC. One can go there to appreciate the magnitude of this issue.

My first job with children was just after University. I was young and energetic! I had worked a bit with the Scripture Union of Uganda (SU) and I was full of power. Those who have associated with SU, however remotely will understand what form of power I am talking about. But that is the story for another day. Let me write about children.

On the 2nd day at my 2nd workplace, I was handed a big motorcycle to traverse villages in the current Rubirizi District in South Western Uganda. The key features around my operation area were Queen Elizabeth National park and the beautiful tea farms of Kyamuhunga. I would ride through twice daily, in the morning and evening. I would ride to the villages, in slopes and valleys. This was in 2009. I will save you the details but the brief is that I met with an average of 15 families daily. Later on, I was promoted to supervise colleague social workers. We did amazing work. You can read about it. I still have an opportunity to work with Children in my current job.

In my work with children, I have come to appreciate that their mothers have diverse perspectives about the well being of their children. I can tell you about the 3 types of mothers. I will use a short story for each category:

The all-out to defend mother  

The woman I will never forget was one who cut off the genitals of a man that she caught red-handed in a sexual act with her daughter. She had received a tip-off by a friend that her daughter who had left to fetch firewood in the nearby forest was actually with a man. She grabbed a sharp panga, moved swiftly and found the naked fellow. The next thing, blood was all over.  We can talk about what happened next but the story is not far. Ask Google.

The other is one who is the 'childless' mother. That is if there is anything like that. This particular woman was first married for 18 years, she could not give birth. Her husband abandoned her for another wife. With the young wife, the man got 2 boys. But the young wife could not stand the 'poverty' at least that's what she said. She left the man. After some time, the man was bedridden with a certain ailment. The first wife came back to care. This woman would have nothing less than ensuring that the stepsons get a formal education. One of them ran out of school. He would leave home so early and return after midnight. He spent some nights in the neighborhood. The woman cried. She told me that she would arrest him and handover him to me. One night, she did not sleep, she waited. At 3:00am, she moved and sat at the doorway until morning. We took the boy back to school. He is doing well.

The accompanying mother  

One morning, a woman came to me. She cried out. A Primary School teacher had defiled her daughter.  She looked so touched. We both agreed to go to the police and report the matter. The police were swift. They picked the teacher. The doctor's report conformed defilement etc. We spent the whole day moving up and down. The next morning, the same woman came to me, this time with her daughter. They had one request, that I should accompany them to Police to ask that the teacher be released. I couldn't! I refused! In hindsight, I passed by Central Police Station in Mbarara. The teacher had been given a police bond. The investigation was going on. We did all we could and there is a story to tell.


The saboteur mother 

Her husband died, she married another younger man. She had eight children. the program I worked with supported her children to attend school. During holidays, she sent her children to work around farms, they brought her the money. At the beginning of the school term, she did not send her children back to school. When we visited, she and her younger children who were home ran and hid in the nearby bushes. She told us to leave her alone.

The other was blind, she had one son. She used to move around singing for some money and begging. The program supported her son to start school. She pulled him off school to continue begging even when the program provided her with some incentives. When the child was sick and admitted to a good facility, she pulled him off the ward before he was well. To proceed with begging. The child missed taking his medicine a lot. His health deteriorated, he got TB, Meningitis, etc and died. The woman now had no helper, she died a few months later.


let's talk about fathers next time!

But be not deceived, the stories of triumph are more than those of support in vein! Its joy all over. W

e can have a dance.

let's talk another day!






 

One step at a time on the Road to Hope

Julius (left) speaking to Mark in November 2019.

Julius Emukule, 17 is a tall, handsome, confident and brave ‘young man’. He is athletic and therefore a fast walker.  The distance from his home village of Morekebu in Kwapa sub country to Tororo Hospital is about 8 miles. This is the distance that he has walked many times back and forth during three harsh episodes of his young life. He recounts the episodes thoughtfully with 'stature' of an old man.

In one of the tribes in Uganda, there is a common proverb that can be paraphrased as ‘stories of tribulations are not only told by elders but even by children who have lived through trouble’. Of course, the norm is that it is the old who tell stories. All sorts of stories. In fact, for this particular tribe, many homesteads still have fireplaces where young children gather every evening to listen to the escapades of their grandparents. 

The life story of Julius is an adventurous one. He tells it brashly and with the confidence of a conqueror. He has seen and experienced what some adults are yet to. Julius doesn’t know his biological father. All he knows is that his father was from some distant district and that he was not a good man. Stories are told about the man mistreated his mother until she left the marriage. She traveled back to her parents with two boys.  So Julius and his elder brother have grown up at their maternal ancestry home. 

Julius remembers a few days of fun with his mother. The few days are memorable though short. For the larger part of her stay with her two boys, she was tormented by a ‘strange sickness’ as everybody in the village called it. Together with his two boys, she trenched 8 miles to collect her medicine refills from Tororo Hospital. Months before she dies, she was unable to walk that long for her medication. This was Julius’ first episode of walking the 8 miles to collect medicine for one he loved. He had to do this in turns with his brother. One had to remain home to care for the sick mother as the other walked. The journey would begin before sunrise and end at dark. Almost all the time, there was no meal between the hours of walking. Sometimes there was a piece of sugarcane as an ‘energy booster’. Later on, the mother succumbed to AIDS and was buried in front of the house they live in up to now. At least she had escaped the horrendous pain she endured. 

“She is resting peace… ” Julius says. 

After the death of their mother, Julius and his brother lived with their old grandparents. Soon, the grandmother’s health deteriorated. She had been sickly hitherto though not bedridden. They were in and out of Tororo Hospital. Soon the second episode of walking the 8 miles resurfaced. This time, the walking was not as often because a team from Hospice Tororo visited and delivered the medication regularly. But sometimes it would be investable to walk. On all occasions, Julius picked Oral Liquid Morphine. The lack of this medicine caused sleepless nights at their house. The availability of it meant peaceful rest to their dying grandmother and to everyone in the home. Later on, the grandmother died of liver disease and was buried near her daughter’s grave. 

The house was now left to three ‘men’, the young Julius and his brother and their sickly grandfather. The old man became weaker by day. His energy was giving away. But he often confided in every visitor that he was a happy man. He was happy because ‘good Samaritans’ had offered to support his grandson Julius through school. He had been assured that Julius would be supported to continue school even after the death of his parents and guardians.  A team from Hospice Tororo visited the old man regularly. Julius and his brother trekked the 8 miles for the 3^rd episode to pick medicine refills for another they loved. The old man died due to prostate cancer in April 2019 and was buried near the graves of his wife and daughter. 

The episodes above have an average of three years between each. Whereas Julius was on and off for his school days during that period, his elder brother dropped out of school completely. He got married and started another life of struggle with his young family.

The main reason for Julius’s stay in school was the Road to Hope Program by the Palliative Care Association of Uganda (PCAU). The program supports child CareGivers on a range of interventions including Health Care, Psychosocial Support and Education Support. This program is supported by PCAU’s partner the Center for Hospice Care in Indiana USA under the arrangement of the Global Partners in Care.  

Julius’s story is unique but every one of the 58 children being supported by PCAU has a profound story. Suffice to say, these stories are not exclusive to children on this program. There are many other children who are vulnerable in Uganda. Statistics by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics showed in 2014 that of the  17.1  million  children  below  18  years  (over  50.7%  of  the  population)  in  Uganda,  11.3%  were  orphans,  8%  were  critically  vulnerable  and  43%  are  moderately vulnerable. Of those who were orphaned, 46% (1,108,080) had lost their parents through AIDS.

 

The story of Julius is, therefore, the story on the lips of many children in our country. What is paramount to note is that each of these stories can be changed. This year (2019), Julius sat his Primary Leaving Exams (PLE). He is extremely excited that he has attained some level of education. To him and his entire community, this was never envisioned given the circumstances surrounding his upbringing. Julius is an influence on his peers in the community. When a team from PCAU visited Julius at his home recently, he had just returned from giving a talk at his former primary school. As he waits for his PLE results, he has decided to offer his time to counsel his peers on virtues of endurance up to the end. In his former school, he is famed for his confidence in public speaking and presentation. Julius is hopeful that he will pass his exams to join a secondary school in 2020.

About the Road to Hope Program

The Palliative CareAssociation of Uganda (PCAU) in partnership with the Center for Hospice Care (CHC) in Indiana USA, established the Road to Hope project in 2012 with an aim of supporting child caregivers for palliative care patients to enroll in or proceed with formal education. The program was in response to a serious call by health care workers that PCAU should support them to address one of the key psychosocial pain cause among palliative care patients. The pioneer child on the program was George Bazeire who took care of his sick father till death and was thereafter left alone and frightened in a dilapidated house. To date, the Road to Hope Program supports 58 children from various districts.  The children are identified in collaboration with palliative care practitioners especially in the rural districts of Uganda.

Resolve to Change Today!

Let me tell you something.

I belong to an investment group with some acquaintances. This came up as a friendly thought by one of us and I am glad that it is revolving into something. When we started, all of us were quite serious about the idea. We agreed to meet once in two months and to make some monthly deposits to a joint bank account. The first four months we superb! None of us defaulted on deposits and we all attended meetings. You could say we were on fire for the thing.

Six months down the road, things started changing, people gave excuses for not coming to meetings. We had one of two missing every time we met. The one who we had designated secretary would not write minutes. Instead, we would try to recall action points of the last meeting and go on. It became a little vague but we pushed on until the end of 2018. In all this time, one particular member was the most unserious (that is if there is something like that). She missed meetings or she reported late at the venue. Her excuses varied from "... I have a catch up with other friends... it is so and so's baby shower, I had booked pedicure at the saloon...etc.

At the beginning of 2019, one of the group members suggested that we all re-commit. To build confidence, she designed a commitment form and put down indicators. It was all sorts of hard things like a heavy cash fine for turning up late for meetings, writing an apology, submitting an early notification for missing a monthly, deposit, etc... She even suggested expulsion from the group for some 'sins'.

Then we converged for a meeting in January. The lady who was the habitual latecomer was the first to arrive. She announced to everyone. ".... I want to let you know that for 2019 I have decided to be different... I will be on time... I will keep to my appointments and I will influence my surroundings.." She went on and on... We all laughed at her new style of stunts. She really sounded funny. Knowing her past behavior, we thought that she was making it up just because she had arrived at the venue on time and before all of us for the first time. The lady who hitherto missed meetings volunteered to be the new group secretary. We agreed, after all, we no longer had anyone to write up our discussions. If for nothing, we had another person to blame for lucking minutes.

 

After our meeting on a Saturday evening, she sent the minutes on our emails and on the WhatsApp group. We thanked her. She followed up with Direct Messages (read DM) on action points for each one. She was on time for the next meeting and minutes came after a day. She did the same at the next (extraordinary meeting to expel one of the now 'unserious' members). She is still swift and on time. It is now towards August. Her monthly deposits are up to date. Even when she was transferred to an upcountry duty station, she is always on time for meetings. It is almost obvious that you will find her sipping her favorite orange juice if you are late by one minute.

With the resolve by one group member, things have changed completely. We have all been compelled to change by her influence.

My request is that you pray for us to keep the momentum. We have redefined our vision and goal. I always look forward to the on-time short and meaningful meetings.

Think about making a personal resolve too.

See you sometime soon!

What a Difficult Customer!

Just last evening, I took a chair to have some look warm tea with honey at the place near the road. Its a bit raised and one can see cars as they pass the busy Entebbe road. Actually, I think its a great business idea. A place for tea for people looking for an evening. It could be that they are a couple or just someone alone from work wanting to enjoy some tea and a cookie. How about that? Anyhow, as I had my tea, two ladies approached. They wanted to take a table near mine but preferred that the waitress arranges the chairs in some way.

The waitress had just picked my order and was heading to the machine. That kind of machine that they punch in orders. it looks like a small TV on the wall. I think it sends a message to the chef once it punched. I like the whole idea that the waitress doesn't have to shout Tea and cookies! The machine does that.

So one of the ladies spoke in a rather harsh tone..." can you get us a place to sit ?" Please nyabo (madam), we are customers here... I don't even know why you cannot welcome us.
I saw the waitress responding so calmly and with a smile asking for pardon. I felt like she acted cool. But the lady was not done..."The table mat here is placed poorly...I think some of you didn't even do any catering course, you are here to learning on the job..." The waitress kept quiet... Then she moved away, maybe to pick something...maybe the menu for the customer to look at... as she stepped off, the customer had another demand..." can you now add another chair, actually two, we expect our hubbys to join us..."

Let me tell something, the chairs were just so near... I felt for the waitress, I got up and fixed pushed the two chairs to the customer.. By doing so, I didn't know that I had committed a mistake, the customer had turned to me..."You, all a long your work here...you saw us coming in and remained seated...you didn't welcome us...what type of customer care is this ?"
I stepped back, waited for my tea and enjoyed it... Its was a cool evening. I eavesdropped to some of the stories before the men arrived... All I can tell you is..."chose your partner carefully my friend" some of these people have too much on their mind...