Blogs from Northern Region, Uganda, Africa - page 5

It is difficult to comprehend that thirty-five thousand chidren have been abducted in the past 20 years in Northern Uganda. The United Nations has described Northern Uganda as the most dangerous place in the wrold for children to live and one of the worlds most unattended emergencies. Amazing, isnt it thát we know so little about this horrendous situation. The children have been abducted by the Lords Resistance Army, LRA who have been at war with the Ugandan Army for the last 2 decades. Joseph Kony is the leader of the LRA and a witchdoctor who uses demonic tactics to ensure that these children remain in his power. Abducted children are forced to participate in the killing of other children - or to be killed themsevles. The children are trained to raid villages for food, destory ... read more

En route from Burundi, we stopped for one night in Kigali. The following morning was when I went to the Memorial Centre and then had lunch alone, feeling like chopped liver (New York slang). We then arranged a lift back to Kabale, in Uganda, with Milton, who delivers Ugandan newspapers to Kigali daily. For an additional fee, he took us straight to the Overland Camp at Lake Bunyoni. A gorgeous place! The safari tent rooms are erected on wooden platforms with stunning views over the lake. We walked to the local school and 'commune' where travellers volunteer through the House of Edirisa in Kabale. The school was impressive for the painted wall charts on the outside walls - I have seen this in many countries where there are few resources, but this is the first time ... read more

In October 2008 I had an opportunity to visit Uganda, primarily as part of an Engineering Ministries International team to learn about construction management in East Africa. My previous blog is an account of the work of this team. Before returning to the States, I joined two others for a three day safari of Murchison Falls NP. Wednesday, 15 October 2008, three of the EMI team, John J., John W, and me (my first name is also John, but to avoid further confusion I went by my middle name Robert, or Bob) went on safari. After breakfast at the guest house in Kampala, we loaded up the Land Cruiser for the drive north to Murchison Falls. Fortunately, most of the road was paved, although a stretch south of Masindi was still under construction; an aid project ... read more

After our eleven hours in London the group of us headed off to our true destination Arua, Uganda. After a few hours on the plane we landed in AFRICA!! We grabbed our bags and met up with the family we would be spending our time with. John and Erica have been living here in Uganda for quite some time now. They picked us up in a big old van and we all loaded ourselves into it. Our first stop before our voyage could really take off was to stop at the "mall" and grab some food. The "mall" was really just a food store, but what I was really focused on where the awesome birds flying all around us. There were quite a few Marabou Storks hanging out all over the place and my main mission ... read more

well i'm up north right now - we leave tomarrow morning. it's been pretty intense. traveling to different ngo's in the region and visiting villages and sites that were internally displaced people's camps before. there was talk of the lra being 6 km from the northern border of uganda (in sudan) and someone just told me that they heard that they have entered uganda. the people we talked to we super scared that they were coming back. all of the places i visited personally were camps in the past - in two out of three there were offical massacres, and in one the lra burned half of the camp. there is some speculatiobn that it might not have been the lra and it might have been the ugganda people's defense force (updf) - in one place ... read more