Yesterday was a very special occasion - World Vision arranged for Muhamud Lubega and I to meet, 15 years after we lost touch when Muhamud's family moved to the other side of Luweero District and left the Kiwoko Community Development Program.
We recognized each other instantly from the photos we'd each received years ago from World Vision. Muhamud lives in Busia, a border town 200km east of Kampala, close to Kenya, where he has a barber shop business. He had traveled to his grandmother's home in Kiwoko on Saturday as soon as he heard that I was looking for him and had been waiting three days to see me!
Family photo outside the house. Muhamud's sister Amina is on the right holding the little girl. We met Muhamud's stepfather who also lives in the house, with 7 step brothers and 12 step sisters. Muhamud was the only child in his family to be sponsored. We were invited into the front parlor to sit and chat. The family are Muslim and it's Ramadan at the moment so they were fasting, however they were very gracious hosts and offered us bananas and roasted maize to eat.
In the center of this photo is Aeneas, who has worked at World Vision for 14 years and is currently one of their drivers. Aeneas has a farm in nearby Wobulenzi where he spends the weekends, and was instrumental in tracing Muhamud through his local connections. Muhamud's granny is 90 years old and had a great sense of humor. I had brought a bag of sugar as a gift, which went down well - the slogan said "Nothing could be sweeter" which seemed appropriate. Here is Muhamud with his granny.
This is Simon Peter, who has also been at World Vision for about 14 years, and is Senior Communications Officer. Simon is planning to put our story into the World Vision UK Sponsor Newsletter.
I gave Muhamud the original photos I had of him aged 7 and 11; he is married to a teacher Christine and they have a daughter aged 9 and a son aged 4. I expect the children will be intrigued to see what their father looked like as a boy (his face hasn't changed much!). Muhamud was conscripted unwillingly into the Ugandan Army aged 15 or 16 and fought in the second Congo war. He was glad to leave the army after three years. On the right is Livingstone, who worked for World Vision as the Village Coordinator during the Kiwoko project. Livingstone helped interpret (Muhamud struggles a bit with English as he only had 5 years or primary schooling), and also told us about the other improvements that World Vision made at that time.
Here are some of my favorite pictures of Muhamud and me.
At some point granny must have slipped out and put on her best dress and gold turban. Here she is in a formal pose with one of her grand-daughters.
This is the school that World Vision rebuilt 20 years ago after the 1981-6 civil war in which President Museveni came to power, with bags of cement, iron sheets for the roof and nails. Muhamud attended this primary school for the five years that I sponsored him. It was one of four schools that World Vision supported in the district, together with 600 sponsored children. Today there are over 800 children and just 12 teachers at this school alone.
The school rules. We liked the last one "No Jiggers" - they are flea like parasites that burrow into dirty skin.
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