Ruhanga Parish

Uganda Lodge is situated in the heart of Ruhanga village in south-west Uganda and strives to develop community projects such as providing running water access points and education to an impoverished local population. Here we want to tell you a bit more about village life and how your contribution to our Uganda Lodge can make a real difference.

Most of the people living around Uganda Lodge are subsistence farmers. They have a very basic home, usually consisting of two or three rooms and built with locally made mud bricks and a roof of either thatched banana leaves and grass or rusting iron sheets. If the inside rooms have been plastered at some stage in the distant past, any paint on the walls looks like it was added at the same time! They have no power and rely mainly on candles or oil lamps.

You will find  a couple of chairs and a bench with maybe a table in the main room and a peek into the bedroom sees an array of unkempt mattresses and torn mosquito nets and a few clothes hanging on a nail. They usually cook on an open fire which will be outside of the house and may have a roughly made plate rack and a board on which to prepare the food.

Latrines, depending on if they belong to one or several families, are in various stages of cleanliness and disrepair but the welcome you will receive if you enter their house (don’t forget to take off your shoes!!) more than makes up for their meagre possessions.

Livelihoods

Having a small plot of land around their house on which to grow a few vegetables and maybe  keep a couple of goats and chickens occupies much of a village person’s life. Sometimes they can rent extra land from a big farmer if they are lucky. Their day is spent fetching water and wood (jobs often relegated to children before and after school) tending their gardens, preparing and cooking their food and perhaps looking after a sick or elderly relative. Many families also care for one or two extra orphan children in their midst.

Crafts and Trades

Only a few people have any skills such as weaving, tailoring or carpentry and this is the area in which our proposed craft centre/workshop will be of great benefit. Learning a trade can help support a family by giving an extra income for purchasing such items as oil, salt, candles etc. Our idea is to encourage these already skilled village people to pass on their knowledge by offering the free use of the workshop and tools that we already have waiting. We hope that volunteers will come along and enhance this project with new ideas and innovative ways of marketing their products

Weaving Mats and Baskets

Some of the village women have joined together to hold weekly sessions for weaving baskets and mats from locally collected papyrus and grasses. However, although they are of a very high quality they tend to only make things to sell amongst themselves, as they have no experience of business marketing skills.A volunteer with a love of crafts could perhaps introduce new ideas to them such as  batik, tie dye, jewellery, banana pictures and small items suitable as souvenirs

Pottery

Some women in the village are able to make basic pottery items for home use by hand, and for each batch they build a pit in the ground to make a kiln and fire them. The local clay is only suitable for brick making, so they have to save enough money to buy a truckload of clay from the next district. We have identified a different area in Uganda where we could bring a potter and teach our villagers how to build a kiln and a potters wheel, plus make items to sell to visitors staying at Uganda Lodge.  Maybe a volunteer could bestow the cost for that?

Music Dancing and Singing

A group of about 20 women have joined together to sing, dance and play drums at village events such as church gatherings, weddings, parties or funerals. Our own school children also perform and when available, will sing at school events or to wish volunteers a safe journey home. Any donations for this help provide instruments and costumes etc.

The Church

There are two churches quite close to Uganda Lodge Cell and both welcome  visitors (in English) inviting them to stand up and say a few words about themselves. A tip: if you do not really wish to listen to a 2 or 3 hour service in another language – time it to enter half hour before the end! When the service ends you may be invited into nearby homes to take a drink – some sort of local brew. There is also much to see locally:

Migorora Village

This is the cell or village in which Uganda Lodge is situated and the village boundaries run up to the top of the hills on both sides of the road.  It offers many opportunities of hill-walking,  with stops to visit homes, farms and plantations on the way.

Nyamahani Village

There is a small trading centre in this village, just a few hundred metres from Uganda Lodge. Here a few very basic commodities  such as sugar, cooking oil, maizemeal, rice, local sweet bread, bananas and  ‘airtime’  can be bought. There are couple of small local bars with a pool table and music, if you need a change from Uganda Lodge. There is an Adventist church and its interesting to join the service and meet everyone for a short while late on a Saturday morning.  There two large government schools attached to this church, and the senior school has many children who come from outlying areas and stay and board.

Kasiizi Village

This village is less about one km along the road and here is a Ugandan Church with an attached primary school. Its an interesting experience to visit the school on a Friday afternoon and watch the tiny children  ’smearing’  wet cow dung on the floor to prevent jiggers getting in their bare feet. Half way up the hillside at the heart of the village you will find a warm welcome from all you meet, and there are a couple of shacks selling a soda – Coke, Pepsi  and many other flavours, or you are likely to be offered local brew – probably made from some type of bananas.