An African Experience

A sermon given at Lancaster Priory by
Tim & Gill Jenkinson
on 27th January 2002
plus news updates

As you know Gill and I have just returned after five months work in Uganda, near the Nile, with Rotary Doctor Bank. You probably know as little about this organisation as I did two years ago, when I was first nobbled at church by Stephen Harding who is District-Governor Elect of Rotary. The aim is to fund voluntary doctors to work as locums in underdeveloped countries. Gill found herself teaching at the local high school, the first white teacher ever to visit, let alone to work there. We had never been to Africa before, and, I have to confess, were totally ignorant of the geography of the area and couldn't even have pointed to Uganda on a map. We were about a hundred miles from the capital Kampala, directly north of Jinja, on Lake Victoria, which is where Roger Garside (PCC secretary) was brought up. Kamuli is a small town, at the end of the tarmac road and closely resembles a frontier town in a John Wayne western, but for us was an ideal compromise between mud-hut existence and civilisation. It is certainly far removed from the city life of Kampala.

We actually had a very pleasant bungalow with running water and flush loo, if not always with electricity. It would have been even more idyllic if we had not had to share it with numerous insect, reptilian and rodent friends! On one occasion we found the resident rat in Gill's handbag and on another in the cushions of the settee: it's just as well my wife is a biologist. Our good facilities were in contrast to our African next-door neighbours who cooked, washed, ate etc. outside and shared a communal outside loo. Kamuli Mission Hospital is run by the Little Sisters of Saint Francis, who certainly are not all little, but they are lovely people and made us very welcome. The hospital has 160 beds, often containing over 200 patients in those 160 beds, with two children to each cot and the rest on the concrete floor. Each patient is cared for by family attendants who live outside under the trees (together with the pigs and chickens) and who cook in a communal kitchen, which is a dark barn where they each light a small fire of charcoal on the floor. However, at night and in the rain, they all come in to the wards and sleep under the beds and in the corridors. This produces mayhem when the wards are busy, and night calls involve picking your way through bodies to the patient. We assumed that the rise in numbers of malaria at certain times in the year was due to the breeding season of the mosquito, but one of the young doctors thinks that it has more to do with the wet season also being the crop growing season, giving the subsistence farmers enough money to afford hospital fees. At other times of the year, sick children remain untreated at home. At first, I found the experience of babies dying (5 in one afternoon in my first week) hard to cope with. By the end, I had learned to accept that some cases were beyond help and that I couldn't save the whole of Africa. However, there were still plenty of patients who could be helped, and it became apparent that I was doing some good and many went home.

We often hear about the poverty of African countries, but we found in the remote villages people are quite content with their simple existence. They grow all the bananas and maize they require, helped by the perfect climate, supplemented by the occasional chicken, live almost entirely outside in the sunshine and build their own mud huts to sleep in. However, as soon as they want to better themselves, either medically or educationally, they need money, which they do not have. We were continually receiving requests for help with school fees and hospital costs. I wasn't supposed to take out all the stitches after an operation until the fees had been paid because otherwise the patient was likely to do a runner! On one occasion, Gill was distressed to find a large crowd of pupils outside the gates of the school being refused entry because they hadn't paid their school fees. Sometimes, these pupils have to leave and return to school when they have saved enough money, which means that the ages in one class may range from 11 to 25. We came to feel that sponsoring education is one of the most valuable contributions that people in the West can make.

We were able to experience life in mud huts in near and far-flung villages because everyone wanted us to visit their own home village. A village consists of many homesteads, each of which has a square building for the man, often made of brick with a corrugated iron roof. This is surrounded by numerous round, thatched mud huts, one for each of his wives (of which he is allowed four) and one for each male child over 14, which they have to build for themselves. We made Julius a loan to set up a business and his first acquisition was a bicycle, his transport to market. The business involved making handmade mud bricks, building and keeping livestock. Unfortunately, he bought his first two pigs before he had built their pen and one of them was bitten by a snake and died, but he is learning fast.

Village visits always included a feast, which, at times, involved eating fried white ants and fried locusts or grasshoppers, like John the Baptist, and these were surprisingly edible. We enjoyed many social occasions and both Gill and I had to dress up in traditional dress, much to the amusement of all concerned. The Ugandans are very generous and we were showered with presents, including two live cockerels which fought all the way home in the back of the car, and a duck which the owner insisted on plucking while it was still alive. When thanked for the duck and told how delicious it had been, he immediately offered another, plus a turkey, to bring home, alive, in the aeroplane!

We were almost on the equator so we were woken every morning at 6 am by the sun, plus cockerels, convent bells, and birds and it got dark exactly 12 hours later. Gill, particularly, enjoyed life without television, telephone, car etc., although she did get a bit tired of washing clothes by hand, until we were helped out by a young lady called Nolena. Everything has to be pressed carefully, using an electric iron, because the Tumbu fly lays its eggs on the washing as it dries and its larvae then hatch as you wear the clothes and burrow into the skin causing nasty blisters.

As we didn't have a car, we used the "mutatus", the public minibuses, to get to Jinja, the nearest big town. Each minibus is supposed to hold 14 people but regularly over 20 were squashed in. Gill preferred to walk, or "foot it" as they would say, the 1.5 kilometres into Kamuli market. We discovered that the vegetables and the fish from the Nile were excellent, but we did have difficulties with the live poultry and the fly-blown meat. We attended many lively church services. They were always long and the record was a 9am. Service at a village church. We got there at 10.30 (as advised), the priest , who is also a Father Peter, arrived at 11.20, the service started at 11.30 and eventually finished at 1.25 pm. !  However, the services never seemed too long or boring, mainly because of the African-style music. The accompaniment was by drums instead of an organ, or even a brass band, although the junior band needed a bit more practice! About 16% of Ugandans are Moslem, a few are Hindu, but the vast majority are practising Christians, with a very high attendance at church both on Sundays and weekdays. In Kampala we went to a Catholic church which had masses at 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.15 am (with more in the afternoon) and yet we still had to queue to get a seat and there were always people standing at the back. All the different churches made us very welcome. In most we had to give an impromptu speech and they were disappointed if this was less than a full length sermon! Many of the church buildings are without a roof as they are still trying to raise the money for it; they saw we "muzungus" i.e. white people as an ever available source of money and we had to point out that our own Priory has problems with its roof as well, and that it also has large debts.

In conclusion, although there is a great shortage of qualified doctors and teachers and of resources, we did feel that conditions were changing for the better, even while we were there. There is an increasing confidence in political stability and money from the government, possibly from Debt Repayment Relief, is very slowly reaching the hospitals and schools. Having said that they need our help, we gained just as much from them. We have come to so appreciate the simple faith, way of life and tolerance of death and bereavement of the people we met, together with their cheerfulness and gratitude for friendship, and when we compare this with our materialism and selfishness, we feel that their quality of life is as good as, if not better, than that of many in this country. They recognise that they have a lot to offer us and are now sending Christian missionaries to the U.K. even from Kamuli!

On a personal note, we found the whole African experience extremely rewarding and worthwhile, as well as very enjoyable, and we are looking forward to returning for a third time at the end of February [2002].




The following update from Tim & Gill was printed in the July 2002 issue of 'Priory News'.

As some of you know, we returned [to Uganda] this time under very sad conditions, following a serious road accident in which the young acting hospital superintendent and the hospital driver were both killed. The hospital staff were still very shocked and were glad of Tim's support, both practically and emotionally.

The good news from the hospital was that Government subsidies have enabled the hospital to reduce its fees, so enabling more people to attend. We do not know whether this is a direct effect of Debt Relief by the West, or whether the President is keeping a pre-election pledge.

The news from the local schools is not so encouraging. Because of the present low prices of crops, children are leaving school in large numbers, despite a most generous gift from one of our parishioners, which provided scholarships for a large number. Four years ago, my senior school had over nine hundred pupils but, by March of this year, there were only five hundred names on the books, of which only a quarter had managed to pay their fees. This meant that the headmaster was having difficulties in paying the staff. His solution was to lower the price of fees for one term down to the equivalent of £17, hoping that this would enable many to return, but it is still beyond some families' means. If anyone would like to help, we have set up a fund with the headmaster, to help the most needy cases, and any contributions would be very gratefully received.

One of the highlights of our latest trip was the visit to the blind orphans, whom some of you are kindly helping. We spent an afternoon at their school, where they sang and danced for us and we heard the history of each one, which reduced Tim to tears. Many of them have been thrown out of the family and therefore stay at the school permanently. The money you gave helped to pay their school fees and to provide them with a uniform; next term they hope to be able to afford shoes for them!

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support.

Tim and Gill Jenkinson

The following update from Tim & Gill was printed in the October 2004 issue of 'Priory News'.

By the time you read this, we will be back in Uganda, but we thought that you might like a brief update on our work in Kamuli.
The hospital continues to thrive, with ever increasing numbers of patients. The fees for out-patients and for admission to the wards have been reduced, thanks to extra money coming from the government. The hospital has even been able to save enough money to finance a new operating theatre, together with the help of various Western friends. During last summer, there was only one doctor running the whole hospital but the number of doctors has now risen to three, although the most experienced of these is due to leave next week. Tim has continued to work mainly on the obstetrics ward and he has now done 91 Caesarian sections. Mothers seem to be learning to rely more on medical workers and less on local witch doctors and the ward is increasingly busy.

At St. John Bosco (Gill's senior school), we saw some exciting changes. After a year of teachers' strikes, students' riots, the dismissal of the headmaster and the imprisonment of the bursar for embezzling school funds, this year saw a new headmistress, a new deputy and a new bursar, together with a new sense of purpose. We also saw the opening of the newly refurbished and equipped science laboratory, thanks to the generosity of local Lancaster Rotary clubs. The school is very proud of the finest lab. in the district and the work proved very timely, as many schools have lost their registration for O level science examinations, due to poor facilities. We are hoping for some really good results, when they take their exams in November.

We again visited the blind children at St. Kizito Primary School and saw some of the wonderful work that they are doing. We were most impressed by the co-operation between the sighted and the non-sighted students, with the former reading out notes while the latter wrote them down in Braille for the use of the rest of the class.

Thank you to everyone who has given us donations, or has helped to raise money for Kamuli. It is very rewarding to see children whom we have helped, passing exams, graduating from university and now being in a position to help the rest of their families. Please remember them in your prayers.

Tim and Gill Jenkinson

Tim Jenkinson is a retired Doctor who was in General Practice in Lancaster.
The Jenkinson family has a long association with Lancaster Priory.
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