Hello again from Northern Uganda. A lot has happened since my last blog and its hard to believe its been just over a week.

Im driving the ute at speed through the bush. There’s 4 of us in the cab. Its getting dark and we’re late. We should have been in camp hours ago. We were delayed by a series of comical events but now it’s not so funny. The guys with me start telling local horror stories. “If the warriors catch you you will surely perish” one guy says. The other guy adds “This is the area they operate.” I press harder on the accelerator! We make it home without incident.

It’s easy to get complacent about security because the people seem so friendly and always give me a wave.

The Karamojong have a fearsome reputation. They are cattle people.

They love cattle because it is a symbol of wealth, prestige and they cant get a wife unless they have at least 200 head. A “Kjong” as they’re nicknamed can give a description of a particular cow to another Kjong who can walk 100 kilometers and pick that exact cow out of a herd of a few thousand.

They live and breath cattle. Each Kjong male has a cow whacking stick and a small wooden seat which he carries everywhere. The guys and the girls have the same haircut and both wear a king of striped robe. The women wear a neck full of colored beads and the guys wear a colorful top hat and earrings, sometimes with colored feathers.

The youth are bored. They stand for hours watching their cattle, or somebody else’s cattle. Their life is worth nothing until they have cattle. Where do you get cattle from if you want a wife? You get an AK47 and go on an organized raid and steel them from “the enemy”. There’s nothing to lose except a dull life. They even take on the army, a thousand young warriors itching to get free cattle.

One of my roles here is to come up with a solution to the “warriors”.

I go to a Manyatta, a stick fort surrounding a few huts. This is were the women live permanently while the warriors roam the land looking for fodder and water with their prize cattle.

They’ve built the manyattas for defense high on the slope of the valley but away from water. The land is drying up from over grazing, charcoal making, fence building and drying winds. The soil is starting to blow away. The women have to carry water a kilometer from the hand pump in the valley. I crawl through the entrance on my hands and knees. No fat people allowed! they wouldn’t fit.

There’s a narrow hallway of sticks and another crawl hole. Very clever for defence. Any intruder would be very vulnerable to attack. I make it through the maze to the cooking hut. I swallow hard. These people are starving. This place reeks of extreme poverty. There’s no maize in the granary. The kids are slow and have distended bellies (worms).

An old woman is sitting on a dirty cow hide. I shake her rough hand. Her skin is dusty and looks like leather. I smell rotting flesh. On a stick rack next to me are 2 giant bush rats , each the size of a corgi. They have been gutted and are covered in blue assed flies. They have been dead a while.

My translator Catherine wrinkles her nose and I point to the carcasses. “You hungry?” I ask. She moves away rapidly. We get the hell out of there and make our way to the vehicle down in the valley. How can I help these people? Their village is too far from water. They want to grow food but they can barely carry the water they need for survival.

The bore pump in the valley has a strong hand pump sticking out of a cement circle. The girls place the gerry can under the spout and jump up and down holding the handle. A group of thirsty cows jostle each other to get at the flow. One cows tounge snakes out and slurps at the water going into the gerry. Slap! A girl whacks the cow on the face. It doesnt care. There’s a puddle below the cement ring with cow shit, flies and mud all squashed up into a foul soup.

I see a design in my head. Animal trough at the outflow. Steel pickets with barbed wire surrounding a community vegetable garden with a lockable steel gate. I see the outflow from the trough running into the garden and fruit trees with heavy duty guards planted around the garden. OK I’ll try that. Saves the women from carrying more water.

Im in Moroto. It has paved roads! Ugandas third highest mountain looms over the dusty town. I see a prison. My driver says there is a farm in there. “Can we go in?” I ask. I thinking of a story I read about Idi Amin’s prison system where inmates were given sledgehammers to execute each other. The driver nods and we turn in.

A guard is sitting under a tree. Lazily he puts the barrel of his rifle in the dirt and pushes himself to his feet. He calls over a tall guy who takes us on a tour. The prisoners are dressed in yellow shorts and tee shirts. They look like a soccer team.

Their gardens are pathetic. Only four varieties of hybrids. The same story everywhere. No diversity. I see these squalid huts and feel sorry for the prisoners. “that’s where the wardens live” says my guide. Oh dear! I meet the head warden. I tell him what I want.

I want to improve their gardens in exchange for them becoming a seed bank. He agrees.

Most of the 90 men prisoners and Kjong warriors caught in the field. I want to work with them so I can understand their culture. I cant find them in the bush and its too dangerous to look. Here they are a captive audience.

I can train them and expand the non-hybrid open polinated seeds I am collecting. The prisoners can make a business of it. The warden is overjoyed. He takes me to meet the governor who gives me the thumbs up.

I’ve always wanted to make a permaculture prison and now its in my lap. The inmates smile and laugh when my translator “Ram” (short for Ramadan) tells them what the Mazoonga will do.

Im driving all over Karamoja looking for strategies that are working so I can put them in the manual I’m writing. Sometimes I have a military escort which is a ute with 4 armed soldiers hanging off the back. I’m slowly coming up with a plan.

These cattle are killing this place. I hear of a farm where ex-warriors are growing casava and loving it. I’m headed there next week.

My garden at the compound is growing. An 11 year old boy “Achilla” who I call Atilla waters it for me. He’s going to be a doctor when he grows up. This place is growing on me.

Source: Steve Cran, Uganda

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