Namatala

Today Martha and I went to visit JENGA, a Christian NGO here in Mbale. There we met a woman named Rose who took us to visit Namatala, an Mbale slum where at least a thousand (probably more?) Karimojong  live. It was a fascinating, eye-opening trip.

Many Karimojong go to the cities looking for work. Often married couples will split up, with one staying in Karamoja and one moving to Mbale; other times they'll send their kids away to the cities, and these Karimojong kids make up most of the street kid population in Mbale and Kampala. These transplanted people move into the slum of Namatala.

Truth is, although Namatala is one of the poorest areas in the city of Mbale, the people there are living much more comfortably than their families up north. Most have stone or brick homes or huts, rather than mud huts; the homes are pretty well spaced out, and they keep their living areas fairly neat. Of course, city life presents plenty of its own challenges, but from a basic quality of life standpoint they seem slightly better off. Still, it's a slum. Not an easy place to thrive... it would be very hard for any family in that slum to become prosperous enough to move into a better situation. Hard, but not impossible.

We met lots of lovely people who were thrilled when we greeted in ngaKarimojong and Martha struck up conversations. The kids literally PLASTERED themselves to me, which was sweet. I felt bad because one little girl was clearly sick and covered in sores. She was following me around, wouldn't let go of me, and when we sat down to talk to some women she just put her head face down in my lap for a long time and was breathing really hard. Her back and head were extremely hot; we told the ladies there, but no one seemed too eager to help her. I'm such a softy mzungu; my heart just melts over these kids. I didn't care that they were sneezing, licking, and rubbing their sore-infested faces all over my arms... I loved having them follow me around! But at one point Rose had to drive them all away because Namatala is so big, she was fearing that some of the children would become lost, and the parents would blame it on "those of Bob"!

We prayed with a few women, and then Rose took us to visit the Child of Hope school in the slum. The school is run by a man named Moses who has a wonderful vision for pulling these people out of poverty through education and small business grants in the slum. The school was absolutely beautiful! He took us to each of the four grades (Primary 1 - P4) and as we entered each classroom the children stood to welcome us:

"We wel-o-come you, visitors. This is Child of Hope Primary School. This class is Primary 4 and our teacher is Teacher Mike. We love learning and have hope." Then they would do a clapping routine before sitting down.

 Moses and Martha did introductions (I mostly waved and smiled). The children looked clean and happy, the classes were organized, with very nice paintings and alphabet/number charts on the walls, and the teachers seemed professional. Martha and I came away hopping with ideas and dreaming of all the possibilities for a Christian school in Nakaale....

Rose, who was showing us around, lives in Namatala. As Tiff, another JENGA worker, said, Rose is a hero. Her first husband was shot and killed by rebels in 1994. She moved away from the area where the rebels were (I'm assuming she was referring to the LRA) to Mbale and remarried. Her second husband at the time of their marriage could only see out of one eye. One day, their son was hit by a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) and knocked unconscious. Her husband demanded that the driver take the boy to the hospital and pay for him to be looked at, but the driver refused. Some time during the heated discussion her husband was hit in his good eye and it was destroyed; the doctors had to completely remove the eye. Now he is blind and can't work, although he can walk around and go to the market on his own. Rose works for JENGA and is the primary breadwinner. She has six children of her own, and has adopted 4 Karimojong kids and 5 other children into her family -- so she is living with and supporting a family of 17. She is very involved in the church located there in Namatala and kids all over the slum call her Auntie. What an example to all of us.