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Totoke Liango (10.02.2007)

"Toto" is the Ateso word for "mama". If you add a "ke" it means as much as "mama of". If we want to call one of the caretakers, we usually say "Totoke" or "Papake" and then the name of the child. Therefore this mother is called "Totoke Liango". When I saw her for the first time I was confused: the eyes were green, her skin was to light and her hair was brown instead of black. Somehow she looked quite malnourished but I had never heard about a change of eye colour due to malnutiriton! But her child was clearly malnourished and so we decided to admit both of them to our feeding program. Some days later, we got to know the whole story: her father was european. He had just pregnanted her mother and disappeared afterwards. She didn´t even know his name or where exactly he came from! But still, after some weeks of good feeding, her appearens changed a bit: the skin and also the hair became darker. Only the eyes remained green.

Rubbish pit   (10.02.2007)

Waste disposal in Africa. Not really a nice topic because there is nearly none! In our garden at home we have two such rubbish pits. One for biological waste and the other for rubbish that cannot not be composted. Everything is burnt in order to reduce the volume and then just thrown into this two pits. Once they are filled up a new hole has to be dug. Here our two old holes were filled and we asked one of our fathers in the Ward to dig a new one for us - and so he did. Two metres deep for five euros. It feels really funny for us to throw all kind of things in the garden behind the house. Even batteries and broken electric articles - but what to do? It´s impossible to keep everything!

Okwii at time of admission   (10.02.2007)

This boy was 6 years old when he came to the NU (at least according to his mother). He suffers from cerebral palsy with mental and physical disability. Very often children with disabilities are neglected by their families. Especially when they are not able to eat alone. Okwii liked to drink his milk formula very much and therefore he gained a lot of weight within a very short time period.

Okwii after rehabilitation  (10.02.2007)

Okwii has reached his target weight and now he is even able to sit alone - inspite of his severe disability. One month later we visited him at home. But what we found was very sad: he again had lost half a kilo of weight. There is no one to take care of him during the day. His mother is working in the garden and a disabled child has simply not the first priority. It is difficult to accept but there is nothing much what we could do. There is simply no future for him.

Sowing tomatoes  (10.02.2007)

On this picture I am preparing the garden for tomatoes together with our mothers. In the beginning I was surprised that only very few mothers know how to plant vegetables. Everyone is living from his or her own cultivation but they just plant the same crops every year! There is always maize, sweet potatoes, beans and of course millet. But rarely someone tries to plant tomatoes, green pepper or eggplants or even fruit trees. And it would be so easy! Always when I start digging with the local hoe the mothers have a lot of fun. They cannot believe that a "Muzungu" can work in a garden - that is not fitting into their view of the world.

The Karamojong   (10.02.2007)

Some time ago I wrote already something about the Karamojong. It is a tribe who borders to the Iteso in the north of Uganda. The Karamojong are still not as much influenced by civilisation as the rest of the country is. They are calling themselves warriors and they mainly live from hunting animals. But the problem is that there are nearly no wild animals anymore. This is why they started raiding other tribes such as the Iteso. And not enough with stealing the cows they even kill people and burn down huts. Therefore the Iteso don´t like the Karamojong and they are talking sometimes really bad about them. After hearing so many stories I decided one day to go there to build up my own opinion about them. And indeed, it was an interesting experience. They are really different from other tribes. They are dressed only with kind of a blanket and they are wearing a lot of adornments. I hardly got to see any smile and they are not as hospitable as the Iteso. On the other side they were even poorer, the hygiene was horrible and malnutrition is a common problem.

Pictures from Uganda (February 2007)