In November 2008 I returned to BUFUKHULA in Eastern Uganda as a one man team with Food for the Hungry (FH).   FH are doing a fantastic job of working with the local communities and the church to develop villages that have nothing. In five years Bufukhula has seen a church, clinic and thriving school rise up as well as building up relationships and a real sense of community. This village is everything you could hope, friendly people, sunny climate with rainfall that is a joy to experience and is now collected in tanks installed by the Exodus team from St Marks Church, Gillingham, in 2006. That same year the villages dug a trench to lay a water pipe which is available for times of emergency.

The reason for the visit was to give the staff in the Mbale office some basic computer training and to speak to the church leaders in the village. My host for the two weeks was Moses Mwalye who, along with his staff, became good friends of mine. Each day started with prayer and bible study but from there on anything could happen and often did.
The computer training was fun. There was a great sense of achievement as the team went from zilch to being able to do basic word processing and using excel. The reward for me was just a tremendous joy as I watched people like Banana Man (Paul) get to trips with a computer for the first time and then at the end of the visit to watch him teaching others.

My time with church leaders was a bit daunting but I soon relaxed when they welcomed me and patiently listened even though I was about an hour or more late starting, it is known as African time. The first half day was about church unity. The following day only about half the people returned, was I that bad......sadly one of the women of the village had died overnight and the people had gone to attend the funeral.
What was great was to see one group of villagers providing tea and peanuts for refreshments as a response to what I had said the previous day.

The third day with the leaders didn't happen. I was taken to a nearby village to witness a meeting concerning their clinic. Not a meeting I thought. Again we arrived at 10:30 for a 10:00 meeting which in fact started at 13:30. We sat under a tree, the traditional introductions were made, an agenda drawn up and then business started. It was great to see the villagers taking responsibility for their on decisions. They decided to open the clinic in a weeks time and even offered donations to get some basic medicine. I was shown around the clinic and introduced to staff at the local school.

I spent time doing home visits in the village and handing over gifts to some of the children sponsored by families at St Marks and St Mary's Island Church. This was fun. Banana Man and myself soon had a game of pretending that the other had the gift, we finally handed over the goodies and watched the children open them. Its amazing how thankful they were for pencils, note books and a t-shirt. Their families joined us and expressed their gratitude for the support they were getting.

I have failed to mention that most days involved a ride as a passenger on the back of Banana Mans bike. A first it was a bit scary but as the days passed it became an adventure of how many times we would have a near miss on the roads or drop the bike navigating the dirt tracks after the rain. Several days we left late and got caught in the 'showers' but this was an advantage as most of the traffic pulled over as they couldn't see where they were going. We couldn't but relied on the fact that everyone else had moved over.
This does not really do justice to the two weeks. The sights and smells of Mbale at night, like kind invitations to visit the homes of the FH staff where I was treated like a king, and the simple fun of living among people who had little but were grateful for all they had.