The weather changes and the land greens up at an incredible rate. With new rains mosquitos breed in the nooks and crannys. Its malaria time.

Source: Steve Cran, Global Sustainability Corps. Content created by Steve Cran and Global Sustainability Corps is licensed under Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

I meet Villy the Indian tractor driver. He’s in the cafe placing a lengthy order to a woman who is staring at him blankly. I tell him forget it mate, just ask what she’s got because there is only that. No menu’s here. He smile a big Indian smile and waggles his head. His ears stick out of the side of his head like beer mug handles. I can sense he is a pretty good guy. Villy tells me he is plowing all the poor peoples land for a government project, (there’s an election coming up). He is sad because the people have no seed. I tell him he can have some of the seed I have but the people must save their seed from this crop for the next one. He waggles his head and thanks me.

A week later I see Villy in the cafe. He looks like hell. He is sweating and his usual smile is fading. He tells me he has “bad toilet problems” and his joint aches. I ask him what he has been drinking. Maybe he has dysentery. He tells me he has been drinking 15 bottles of coke a day. What?….Bloody hell, Villy, that crap will kill you, I tell him. No more coke!

Next day I hear Villy is in Hallaleyah Hospital with malaria. I go the hospital which is a brick building looking like a warehouse. In the backroom is a stained mattress with Villy laying on it covered in sweat. He has a drip attached to his arm. I ask him how he is doing. “I’m very much vomiting” he rasps and still tries to waggle his head. “Are you drinking water mate?” I ask him. He shakes his head. You gotta drink or you’ll die, I tell him. I sit with him for a while remembering my first time with malaria. It’s the worst feeling, like being savaged by demons awake or asleep.

Its getting dark. Mosquitoes are biting me. There are other patients laying on beds in the other room. I wonder if the mosquitoes have bitten them first. Villy has no bed net. Time to get Villy outta here. I force him up and disconnect his drip. The nurse comes in and protests. She gives in when she looks into my eyes and takes out the drip connection from his arm. “Gimme your wallet Villey” I tell him. I pay the nurse for the treatment with Villys money and drag him down the road to a hotel and check him in. The soccer’s on and everybody is cheering as I help Villy to his room.

His brother is coming to pick him up tomorrow. Goodnight Villy and don’t even think about a coke for 6 months. He falls asleep while I’m looking at him. Villy’s lucky somebody was watching out for him. Plenty people die here from malaria. Somebody saved me once and it was my turn to return the favour.

I jump into the landcruiser. My bags are packed. Its an 8 hour ride from hell to Kampala. We go a different way there than before so I get to see the country. There are so many NGO’s with offices in every town. We always make jokes about their names like “War Child” and another called “Peace Child.” What happens when they meet? Do they cancel each other out? There’s “Save the Children” and I’d joke who’s going to save the rest of the people? I saw one NGO called “Invisible Children.”

It must be hard to round up those children if they’re invisible. Many of the local NGO’s have the christian cross on their logo. One has the cross, the bible and some cows. It could be cows for Jesus. There’s doctors without borders, engineers without borders and veterinarians without borders.

I may start one up called “Save the Borders!”

The best one I reckon was in Moroto. There we spotted a vehicle with DED on the side. I said to Santos Hey how would you inspire people in the field if your NGO was called DED. Later we nicknamed Matius, the bloke driving the car , “the DED guy.” We had plenty of DED jokes especially when we found out he was doing a peace building project with the K’jong warriors.

Let’s hope he doesn’t live up to his nickname! I’m pretty cynical about all these charities and Non Government Organizations. All that money pumped into this place with little to show after 40 years. Some organizations get some good projects going but mostly its the usual stuff. I call em “stop and flop” projects because they fail as soon as the NGO leaves or finishes the funding. You know your project is good if it continues to grow after you go. That’s a “go and grow project.”

The land-cruiser is flying down the bush roads leaving a dust tail 300 meters long. Finally we find a bitumen highway of sorts. Now we are really moving. 130kph passing all kinds of vehicles going both ways. Best not to look I tell myself. I’m still a bit jumpy after rolling the batmobile. We see baboons on the side of the road. Maybe they’re hitch-hiking. We don’t pick them up.

After a few hours we stop at a honey project run by an NGO. They have a workshop set up to make beehives made from cane and mud. I try the African honey. WOW! Very nice, like a perfumed honey. There is a little sign attached to the trees spouting messages about the environment. Under the sign is a pile of plastic garbage. Where do you put garbage when there is no dumps? Everywhere is the answer.

Back in the vehicle and continue to Kampala. Finally the villages become towns. We pull over at the side of the road behind a bus. All these dudes selling meat skewered on a stick shove them through the open window. I’m not hungry as I watch the driver make a selection. Something slaps against my window. Its a plastic bag full of pale yellow stuff with a wicked smell like…rancid butter! Its butter Santos tells me. Want some? My hygiene alarm is beeping. NO WAY I say.

Soon we are in the capital city of Uganda. So much food for sale on the side of the road. We get stuck in a traffic jam next to “Mother Darling’s comfortable furniture” factory. People with stuff to sell are trying to look through the vehicles tinted window. Some of the sellers are Karamajong women with tribal scars on their faces. Beggars, mostly children and women with babies scratch at the window. The traffic is weaving all over the place like a bunch of drunks. Its the massive potholes in the highway. Your car could seriously disappear in those. I’m visualizing a hot shower and some western food. All is possible in this crazy city.

I have finished up planning the next phase. We will train 50 Green warriors in a 3 week boot camp. We have tents, tarpaulins and a field kitchen. These warriors will have to dig their own toilets, set up their own showers and build several gardens around Abim in the 3 weeks we have them. After that the survivors will go to the field and build gardens in the villages, mainly around the bore pumps.

Every 4 weeks they return for “master classes” like earth oven building or nursery skills. At the end of 6 months whoever is left will be employable by any NGO or community. I even have 2 guys from the prison as staff.

The course is a modified permaculture design certificate course. Some of the participants cant read and write but the course covers that with hands-on skills. Half or more of the students will be women. I’ve already invited a few tough ones I’ve met in my travels. We also have a manual “The Five Rings of Sustainability” which I wrote with 3rd world trainers in mind.

This is my last blog for a few weeks. I’m taking a break and going back to Australia. I’m coming back with some goodies for the next phase. I’m dreaming of those 50 Green Warriors training 500 Green Warriors training 5000 Warriors…..

Source: Steve Cran, Global Sustainability Corps. Content created by Steve Cran and Global Sustainability Corps is licensed under Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

I’ve passed the one month test here in Uganda. I’m getting used to it and learning where to find the things I need and how to ask for those things.

My body is adapting too! I wake one morning with a gut pain like an alien is about to tear out my stomach. Oh God look out. After half an hour on the toilet I make my way to HQ. In the hot sun with a pack of hyenas in my guts, Uganda isn’t much fun any more. I get to HQ and get my driver to help me find a guava tree.

We drive to a house he knows and sure enough there’s a guava tree next to a mango tree. I go to the guava tree and all of a sudden all these white birds fly out just missing me. They’re not birds but cream colored bats! Weird! I get a hand full of the young leaves and take them back to HQ and boil them into a dark tea. Within a 10 minutes I begin to feel better. Guava leaves are the best medicine for dysentery. You can also mix avocado leaves in the tea for severe cases.

A week later I get it again. More guava leaves. This time I check out the water supply in the hotel/shack. The bore pump is near the septic tank. Its the dry season and the bore is low. The septic must be running back into the bore hole. Oh dear! Other people are getting crook. More guava leaves!

I’m walking out of the compound thinking about the plan I’m putting together to wean Karamoja off aid food and onto their own sustainable agriculture. Two little girls are in the shade near the gate. One is about 11 years old and the other is about 6. Its hard to tell because they are both malnourished. The bigger one is kneeling and the little one is struggling to help her get a 20 liter full jerry can onto her head. I grab the jerry with one hand and lift as she stands.

She points to her sister and says “and”. I see the little girl has a 10 liter container and I put it on her head. They thank me in their soft little voices and trudge off down the dusty track. I see this scene repeated all over Karamoja every day. The women are enslaved from an early age humping water. If we could get water to their homes the same energy could be used for food production.

In my plan I put small diesel pumps in villages and build many 5000 lt brick tanks from locally made fired bricks. The tanks only go where there is a community garden. The pump fills the tanks each day. The people learn water conservation because they only get 5000 lt. No garden, no tank. If you stop gardening, you get no water to the tank.

Its harsh but it works. When people realize gardening is easier than carrying water, the food supply will increase. The community runs and maintains the pumps. I have to come up with projects that will employ people on “food for work” programs. I’ve included windmill irrigation schemes and many other projects the villages can choose from. I’m also building test models to trial the strategies in the field and photograph them for the manual I’m writing.

Refrigeration is also on the cards. An old lady is making 2 sizes of pots for me to make pot in pot refrigerators. One pot goes inside the other with sand filling the gap between them. water is poured into the sand and damp potato sack acts as a lid. Inside the pot we have 15 degrees celsius. Now we can sell greens at the markets. greens last 3 hours in the heat. Now they get 3 days. We increase the food security from a different angle.

It’s Valentines day. I get invited to a “goat roast”. First I have to survey a village where the chief wants to do organic agriculture big time. We follow the chief in his ute. He says its only 8km. 40 kms later we arrive at group of mud huts with pointy grass roofs. There’s a group of people waiting in the shade of a shea tree. I ask him why there are no windows in the huts. Is it because of wild animals? He laughs and pretends he is shooting a gun. “No its for wild people, the Kjong”, he says.

I get introduced to the group. they get excited and the women make the leeleelee noise. The oldest elder is 85. They are such gentle old people. They shake my hand but wont let it go. I’m hungry. No breakfast as usual here and its 1 pm. Im fantasising about roasted goat. We walk off into the scrub with the chief and a few others. I explain a few ways we can use this land. We walk miles and finally get back to the village.

I’m dreaming of goat meat. Wait, they want to show me a dam site. Ok I say, thinking of goat meat. We drive with 10 villagers hanging off the back of the pick -up truck. Yep, lovely dam site, goat time. Wait there is another over the ridge. GRRRR! We walk over the ridge. There’s a brand new bore capped off on the valley floor. The chief explains the government has put it in to supply a new school. A big tank is being built on the far hill. Great, irrigation potential. Used wisely, this water could transform this scrub into orchards. Its goat time! Lets go I tell the driver. Wave good bye to all the village, saliva dribbling from my mouth as I think of goat meat. Its 2 pm.

The driver is speeding. I told him if I didn’t get my goat meat I’m eating off one of his legs. He believes me. We get to town in record time. Im ambushed by some of my staff who have heard about the goat roast. The pick-up is full of people again. We get to the house where its all happening. I see chunks of raw meat. What? Its not even cooked yet.

We wait and wait. I drink a coke to kill the hunger. I have to give the small group who are organizing the event some cash. We just doubled the number of goat munchers. I am asked to get some beer. No worries. Finally at 6 pm we get the goat. It arrives on a platter. Im just about to grab a chunk when I’m asked to say grace. Oh! Eh?… “Great Spirit, thanks for this yummy animal, Amen”

They all stare for a second and then begin to chuckle. The normal prayers are much more complicated. I finally get a chunk of meat and gobble it down. A dog wanders over, I growl and it gets the message and runs off. Never try and take food off a hungry Steve, it’s dangerous. Because of all the extra people we get an entree’s worth of meat each. I go home hungry. It’s Ok though. Plenty of people in this land go to bed hungry. Im doing my best to sort that!