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Day 2 in Uganda

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Matt Fincham | 12:10 UK time, Tuesday, 1 December 2009

This blog is from Aled...

What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday Gary, Fearne, Ben and Kimberley saw a warehouse full of 200,000 mosquito nets (bought with the money you donated to Comic Relief). And today they took 14,000 of those nets and distributed them at two places near Hoima (which is where we're based in Uganda).

Despite it being a happy occasion it was obviously tinged with real sadness, because in front of us were thousands of people who had walked miles - some of them with babies in their arms - to pick up a net costing around £5.

Kimberley asked the crowd in front of her how many people already had a net in the house - out of a few hundred only 3 or 4 put their hands up. Which means thousands of people in front of us were sleeping with no nets and mosquitos flying around biting them. Some of which will be carrying the malaria disease.

These centres were positioned among the poorest of the villages, so we travelled through many poor villages to get there, and this is when I got to see the side to Africa that we've heard so much about.

Extended families were living in simple huts for houses. People, who had done nothing wrong and deserved it no more than you or me, were living as a family in simple one / two bedroom houses made out of mud or in some lucky cases brick, with either straw for roofs or if they are lucky corrugated iron weighed down by bricks to stop the wind blowing them off. Around them would be a few farmyard animals to obviously feed them and then there would be just soil.

Sometimes the road was difficult to distinguish from the land around the houses so when the torrential rain started (which Uganda is currently experiencing) entire villages became flooded in seconds. Even the road itself became a river and our car handled like it was on ice.

Despite this, not one person has shown us anything but the largest smiles.

There was not a hint of any loss of pride or self-pity as the thousands who turned up wore their best Sunday clothes, women in dresses (locally made and very colourful) and men in shirts sometimes in full suits. Several turned up wearing either Manchester Utd or Arsenal t-shirts, one guy even turned up with the coolest ski-glasses I've ever witnessed. But all too poor to be able to afford £5 to save their lives.

We then returned to our hotel. By no means a luxury one, but it has a tv, running water, lighting and marlaria nets. That part of things plays on your mind as you know there are hundreds of thousands if not millions in Uganda, tens of millions if you count the rest of Africa living in those very conditions this evening.

It's been a big day!

Aled

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Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    It's good to see positive activities going on in Uganda. I founded a charity that works in rural eastern Uganda and know how valuable such activities are. It's important to remember however, that mosquito nets are consumable. The rough mud walls of the huts in which the rural Ugandans live play havoc with the fabric of the nets and they soon get holes in them. I suppose, I'm saying thank you but don't give, forget and just move on. The nets won't last forever. Also a thought for the future, when the rains became floods a couple of years ago, on advice from our local committee we provided kilos of new maize seeds for the next harvest as all the old stock had been washed away. The result was the best harvest ever as the seeds were of good quality and not re-cycled from the last year's harvest.This doesn't just apply to flood times....perhaps an idea for next year's fundraiser!!? Thanks for the good work.
    Marie Cates African Village Support

  • Comment number 2.

    While you're in Hoima look out for Bishop Nathan, he's relly hospitable, lovely, lovely, man :) have fun.

  • Comment number 3.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

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  • Comment number 6.

    The result was the best harvest ever as the seeds were of good quality and not re-cycled from the last year's harvest.This doesn't just apply to flood times....

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