Uncovered manholes, open sewers and a train collision

Uganda is the most wonderful place…until you get hurt. Two weeks ago I’d just got back from a fun, relaxed and magical weekend at a little resort called The Haven. And a haven it was. A group of 15 of us camped right by the edge of the Nile, waking up to gorgeous sunshine and birds singing; we ate a breakfast the size of my house, and sunbathed with our feet dipped into the Nile’s clear, cool water.

Just a week later, I was emotionally drained and exhausted, thinking life was just as magical, but for very different reasons. On 10^th June I witnessed what I can only describe as one of life’s miracles - I watched my friend get hit by a train, and survive. After Friday night’s world cup games, myself, Lorna, Adam and our friend Magnus, got in a taxi to head home. Our friend, Abi, left in her car at the same time and we entered into an industrial estate together.

In Kampala there are many train tracks, but most are redundant, or not active at night. Most people, in cars, boda bodas, matatus (public buses), or by foot, cross without looking, because the risk is perceived as minimal. Abi drives a big 4x4 with power and good suspension. As she drove to the end of the road – perhaps 20 meters ahead of us – we saw her driving slowly around a pothole, right in front of the train tracks. Simultaneously I saw the train coming. The tracks were running diagonal to the road we were on, and so we didn’t see the train until it was so close to the crossing that we could do nothing but watch in despair and disbelief. I remember thinking ‘this isn’t a Hollywood movie – there is no way that this train will hit her’.

“Oh, there’s a train”, I mumbled, and then two seconds later ‘Abi’s on the tracks’ I screamed. As the multiple-carriage train collided with her, the fragility of life had never been more exposed or real to me. Upon impact, Abi’s car was thrown up into the air, spinning rapidly, just like a rag doll. Her solid, sturdy car must have weighed well over a tonne, but the train discarded it like it was a feather.

From what we saw, the train hit her completely on her side of the car. The speed at which she was thrown and then lost in the darkness, gave us all little hope for her survival. All four of us sat in the car screaming for as long as a minute, although my concept of time that night is very skewed. None of us moved because although unspoken, we thought we had just watched our friend die.

Magnus, a guy that is new to Kampala, had the courage to get out of the car first. Maybe it was because he was the bravest, or maybe it was because he realised we couldn’t see our friend in the state we were imagining in our heads. Regardless, he ran over. Adam followed quickly, while Lorna and I just hugged each other in the car, crying for Abi; her life; her family.

We didn’t see her land - the train was moving too quickly for that - but she’d been thrown approximately 20 metres from where she was hit, having done a full 360 degree turn in the air. When Magnus reached her she was conscious. She had moved from the driver’s seat, into the passenger’s seat, because her door wouldn’t open and she was worried the car would blow up.

Adam ran back over to tell us that she was lucid and from what they could tell, pretty unharmed. Lorna and I didn’t believe him at first. That wasn’t what our eyes had seen; it wasn’t the image that we’d conjured up in our heads. Within seconds we had shifted from a state of mourning into one of action. She was alive and now we had to figure out how to make sure she stayed that way.

The first thing I did was phone our friend Pete. Pete’s been living in Uganda for several years now and is a very talented, hardworking and well-connected guy. He understands the somewhat warped and inefficient Ugandan public systems, and knows largely how to get things done. He called for an ambulance, and so all we could do was keep Abi warm and talk to her until the ambulance arrived. Pete was in a car with some of our other close friends, and they soon arrived at the crash site.

Abi was amazing through the whole experience. She had a large cut on her forehead and her back was causing her a lot of pain, but she didn’t cry and she didn’t panic. Very quickly a large crowd formed around the car. People were bouncing on the side of the car that had been hit. I assume they were determining how secure it was, but the movement caused agony for Abi. We rapidly went into defence mode, doing our very best to keep onlookers at a distance.

After about 40 minutes of waiting, the ‘ambulance’ arrived, comprising of a van with a driver. No healthcare professional was insight. Astounded, this man unloaded a metal rack from the back of the van and asked me to move out of the way so that he could move Abi on to it. My friend, Einas, had to inform him that we shouldn’t move her without an assessment of her vitals, especially with her back hurting so much. He looked surprised and then agreed that that was a good idea. The complete neglect and incompetence was shocking, and if I hadn’t been holding Abi’s hand, trying to keep her calm, I think I would have reacted in a far more aggressive way.

Abi’s boss arrived shortly after, or before, I cannot quite remember. He’d called her insurance company and through them an ambulance was sent, with actual doctors onboard! Just before this point we realised a guy was taking pictures of Abi in the wreck. There is a hideously inappropriate magazine in Uganda called Red Pepper that likes to print articles about murders and rapes with explicit pictures as an accompaniment. I don’t have evidence that this man was from that newspaper, but when Abi’s boss asked him to stop, the guy said ‘It’s a shame you feel this way, because if you try to stop me again I will shoot you’. Nice. I couldn’t believe our friend was sitting in a wreck, not knowing the extent of her injuries, yet some random man was making death threats.

After we got Abi to hospital she underwent a series of tests and x-rays that revealed she had several broken ribs, but was otherwise ok. The relief we all felt was immense, yet the shock hadn’t subsided by this point, and those of us that had watched the crash were still pretty shaken up.

It took a couple of days to digest it all. Trains are infrequent in Uganda, but they do still run. Safety measures should be in place, especially at night when visibility is low. In Abi's case, there was not a single safety measure in place to protect her from the crash. There were no warning lights; no warning sounds; no barrier came down; and there was no warden manning the crossing. The roads are so badly made and maintained in Uganda that potholes are prevalent everywhere. Abi took so long to cross the track because she was manoeuvring around a pothole the size of her car. If she’d been able to dash across, this wouldn’t have happened.

So what will be the outcome of this awful accident? People being hit by trains are not unheard of. The doctor told Abi she was lucky to be alive because surviving a train crash is extremely rare. The police visited her in hospital to get her to sign a document admitting her driving was the cause of the accident. Thank goodness she had a lawyer with her and she wasn’t coerced into signing it. She came within inches of losing her life because of an inadequate and inefficient system that the police should want to better. Yet they want her case to go away and are unwilling to do the paperwork because the system they are controlled by is also ineffectual. The police get paid little and infrequently, and they have no incentive to fight for justice or positive change. They appear impartial to the whole system, unless you decide to pay a ‘facilitation’ fee, and even then you have no guarantees.

That same week Adam fell down an uncovered manhole that was 5ft deep. It was dark and there was nothing to protect him from falling directly into it. The very next day my friend Hanna was on a boda boda and the driver lost control and she fell into an open sewer. The poor girl actually came home covered in human faeces.

With all the political problems that Uganda has faced in the past, current prevailing peace is what is largely focused on. And this is understandable. Uganda is considered to some a model of development, or at least succeeding compared to many of its neighbours. The country’s often failing public infrastructure and social services is not focussed on, or always realised. Everybody complains about the state of the roads, but still road maintenance does not appear to be prioritised in Government budgets.

Our landlady in Uganda wanted to re-lay the road outside her house. She collected the equivalent of £600 from the neighbours, but when the council realised her plans they told her they would add to the fund and re-lay the road themselves. She’s never seen the money again and needless to say the road hasn’t been touched.

Ten days later Abi is alive and making a fantastic recovery, thank goodness. I’d like to think that her experience could be learnt from and change in the traffic systems and public services will occur. I won’t hold my breath. Instead I’ve decided to focus on the miracle that is Abi’s survival and the fantastically weird, wonderful, and not-so-wonderful experiences that Uganda has thrown at me in the past six months.

LWF Uganda is working to uphold children’s rights and eradicate poverty

This is another article I wrote for Reuters Alert Net: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/lwf/127626175529.htm

Lily sits on the ground with her six-month old twin boys, Isaac and Thomas, snuggled tightly into her chest. The boys are healthy and happy, gurgling away contentedly. Yet just four months ago, they were fighting for their lives. Lily is the fourth and youngest wife in her household, in a village in Pader, Northern Uganda, and her twins are the last born into a brood of many children. This household are among the 52 per cent of Ugandans living below the poverty line on less than $1.25 per day, and with many mouths to feed, survival is a constant struggle.

In Uganda, many children are living in situations where their human rights are being abused. From child soldiers, to children orphaned by aids, to children being abused through neglect, many are burdened with hardships that they cannot fully comprehend or protect themselves from.

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Department for World Service, works in Uganda fighting for the rights of children and supporting guardians to develop ways to meet their children’s basic human needs. Lily was visited by Geoffrey, a member of the local village health team, who was trained by the LWF to identify malnourished children. By measuring the twins’ upper arm circumferences, they were found to be severely underweight, and Geoffrey referred them to hospital for intensive treatment. However, Lily’s husband refused to pay the transport costs to the hospital, and the twins’ health deteriorated. “Day by day my boys got weaker and I felt so helpless” says Lily.

Determined to uphold the twins’ human rights, the LWF staff and Geoffrey made regular visits to the household, counselling the couple on the consequences of malnourishment. Eventually, Lily’s husband allowed the twins to go to hospital.

Several weeks of therapeutic care later, the boys were stable enough to leave hospital and were enrolled in the LWF Supplementary Feeding Program. The twins were given a nutritious porridge blend made from corn, soya bean vegetable oil and sugar, until they reached their target weight.

Three months later, the twins are looking healthy and well fed. Geoffrey continues to visit the family to ensure they remain nourished and well cared for. ‘I’m so very grateful for the counselling that helped my husband see our twins were very sick. Now they are healthy and strong and I have faith they will survive’, says a smiling Lily.

In an effort to contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 1 and 4 - to end hunger and poverty and to reduce infant mortality - the LWF works with communities training them on improved agricultural practices, so that they can grow enough food to keep their families well fed and nourished. Concurrently, communities are sensitized on children’s and women’s rights, promoting the communities’ role in protecting them.

Throughout all its activities, LWF uses an participatory approach, consulting stakeholders at all levels, from government authorities to village leaders. This ensures knowledge and skills are penetrated through all levels of society, thereby increasing the chances of long-term and positive change.

If Uganda is to meet the MDG 1 goal set to reduce poverty in the country to 24.5% from the current 31%, by 2015, support such as this must continue so that communities can provide fully for their families and live dignified lives for themselves and their children.

Sanyu babies' home and Child's i Foundation

Lorna with baby Angel, the first girly at Child's i Foundation


This is baby Faith. We think she's about 18 months old, but she is a very tiny little girl. Adam and I are quite smitten :)
This is gorgeous four-month old Simon, the first baby to arrive at Child's i Foundation.

Amazing homes of refuge for little bundles of joy

There are 143,000,000 orphans in the world today. The population of orphans theoretically makes up the 7th largest nation in the world

Last weekend, Adam and I went to Kampala’s most well known and longstanding babies’ home, Sanyu. It was the first orphanage set up in Kampala in 1929, by a missionary sister, and since then tens of babies’ homes have sprung up around the city. The home can care for up to 50 little bundles of joy at any one time, and they are almost always running at full capacity.

Sanyu gives a safe haven for babies from anywhere from an hour old, up to four years of age. The home is run primarily by Ugandan ladies, called ‘Mammas’, and everyone from the babies to the visitors call them that collectively. These women are incredible. They clearly love the kids, but they also have a no nonsense strategy, due to the sheer volume of the crawling, walking and shuffling bubbas, and scoop and chuck them around, but miraculously in a way that doesn’t hurt or upset them.

I’ve never seen more than five Mammas there at any one time and so the home relies hugely on volunteers to come and help out with the changing, feeding, and bedding of the lively brood, along with just keeping them occupied. In no way is this a chore, and the home is constantly full up with visitors, mostly expats, who either are living there and just want to have a snuggle, or more commonly, by people who are looking to adopt. I don’t know a huge amount about adoption, let alone international or interracial adoption, but for most non-nationals, legally adopting a baby is a long and cumbersome process.

I’m not sure whether I agree with international or interracial adoption, because of the potential problems it causes for the child, especially for their sense of identity. To be a black child, growing up in a white family, in a country so far removed from their original culture, must be a challenge. Giving an abandoned child a nice home and loving parents is of course wonderful, but taking a child out of its native culture is not always what’s best for the child.

I’ve been to Sanyu a few times before, but this time the experience had a really profound affect on me. Firstly, a friend who I’d met back in September had come back to Uganda, and back to volunteering at Sanyu, primarily to see these two twin boys, Gideon and Gilbert, who’d had such an affect on her. She’s in her early twenties, and wants the boys to be adopted by a Ugandan family, however she wants to contribute to their upbringing, by setting up a fund to pay for their education herself. I was so impressed with her attitude to it all. She wants to be in their life, but in a way that is best for the boys, and I guess she doesn’t think adopting them herself would be.

Secondly, there was a little girl there, called Faith, who had been abandoned only days before. This little girl, with her perfect, gorgeous face, was so miserable and forlorn it just broke my heart. She sat upright for hours, just staring into space, with no interest in playing with the other children. From behind her body is so tiny that you’d think she was under one, yet when you look at her face, and see how advanced her expressions are, you realize she’s more like two, but just so malnourished and underweight. I tried to touch her, to stroke her arm, thinking she’d want to be picked up, but she just pushed my hand away, shaking her head with a huge confused frown on her face.

After a while of trying with her, I asked Adam to have a go. He sat next to her and reached out his finger to her. She stared at him for ages, but then eventually held on to it. In little stages like this she slowly warmed to him and at one point I turned around and she'd buried her head into his leg, hiding her little perfect face from the world. She stayed like that for ages.

Once Adam had gained her trust she let him pick her up, carry her and rock her the way a baby should be. He even got her to smile. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what she had been through. Where her Mum is, if she’s alive or dead, if she abandoned her because she couldn’t look after her properly, or if she was forced to abandon her. Is Faith a product of rape, has she experienced abuse, was her mother a victim of domestic abuse? I wonder what those little eyes have witnessed, whether she realized she was being abandoned, and how long she was alone and scared before someone found her.

Thirdly, I met one guy who is trying to adopt a little boy, Joshua, who may die. He’s currently got TB and is being treated, but at six-months old he also has HIV. This guy and his wife have already adopted two Ethiopian children, and heard about Joshua through an adoption network they’re associated with. He flew out to Uganda to meet Joshua and start the process. He simply wants to give this little boy as good a life as he can. It’s so selfless – and really reaffirmed for me that some people just want to help others regardless of the obstacles that may be in their way, or the heartache it may cause them.

Adam's going to finish his work two weeks early to go to the home everyday and play and look after the 46 babies they currently have there. It's the most magical place. Although all these babies have no mums and dads that can look after them, there are so many people that love these babies and give their time to brighten their days. Here’s the link to their site for more info: www.sanyubabies.com

Statistics on the number of orphans in Uganda are not exact, but earlier this year Unicef estimated that there are 2.5 million orphans in Uganda, representing nearly 10% of the population. Of those 2.5 million, over half have lost either one or both parents to aids.

The civil war in the north of the country has deprived many children of fathers and brothers; they’ve lost sisters to sexual servitude and their mothers have been left to bring up huge families alone. Gender disparity and domestic violence are still rife within Uganda. Polygamy often leads to families with so many children that the family cannot look after and support all the children. Abuse of children and their rights is still a huge issue, with many teenage girls being raped by family members, resulting in pregnancies that they do not want and are not old enough to handle.

A friend of mine has just set up her own transitional babies home in Kampala, to help young women who don't have the capacity or the support to keep their babies. Child’s i Foundation tries to prevent mothers abandoning their children in the first place, giving them the support, counseling and skills to provide for themselves, ultimately empowering them o keep their children. They opened last month, and currently have six babies in their care – all of whom I believe are coincidently little chaps! The home looks after the babies for six months, giving them excellent healthcare and love. Meanwhile, their mothers are invited to come and visit the babies everyday to get to know them without the overriding burden of worrying that they cannot currently provide for them. Two of the mothers whose little boys are currently in the babies home are only 14. Both of their boys are the product of rape; both by close family members.

Their unique home has three parts: a support programme to help mothers at risk of abandoning their babies; a transitional home to provide short-term life-saving care; and a family placement programme to ensure every child grows up in a loving family.

My friend Lucy, the mastermind behind the home, called Malaika – meaning ’angels’, comes from a TV background and used to be one of the producers on Big Brother, among other shows. Using social media, she runs the website as a blog, regularly uploading short film clips so that contributors and partners feel involved with every stage of the organisation’s progress. Her home is a truly original idea, trying to tackle and prevent the cause of abandonment, rather than deal simply with the consequences. Please check out her site http://www.childsifoundation.org to read about the home’s amazing progress. She’s currently in the UK and should be appearing any day on GMTV with Lorraine Kelly for an interview! So watch out for it!

Freedom of Speech for Uganda's media

“The media today in Uganda is more like public relations reporting. If you stick to real issues, you may not remain in the profession. You’ll be in danger.”

‒Radio journalist in Hoima district, Uganda

May 3^rd marked World Press Freedom Day, and with that, unsurprisingly, brought up the issue of which countries across the world have press freedom. Ironically, given the topic in question, many articles and blogs were written about how in Uganda, despite what the current Press and Journalism Act says, journalists are not free to express themselves or the truth.

In the past year, since I’ve either lived or started to read about Uganda, I’ve seen the media curtailed in its attempts to report on events involving the government. On Sept 11^th last year, the day I flew to Uganda for a visit, the capital, Kampala, experienced a series of riots.

To summarize, the government had banned a representative of the traditional leader, the King of Buganda, from visiting some of his people. The Bugandan youth went out onto the streets of Kampala and rioted against the government for disallowing the king to move freely.

The riots lasted for two days, resulting in the death of 40 civilians. The police began retaliations with tear gas and blank bullets, but once those ran out, they thought it appropriate to use real bullets that subsequently killed people. Throughout this all, several Ugandan journalists reported on the riots – or at least tried – however those that aimed to criticize the government were beaten and detained, frightened into keeping their stories out of the public arena.

Incidences such as these threaten to terminally undermine the Ugandan media. Detaining and beating journalists are just some of the means deployed to deter ‘bad press’. Threats are also made on the safety of writers’ families, and people are threatened with criminal charges. And in Uganda, the government has ultimate control of all public services. They are the police, the courts; they have manipulation of the entire justice system.

Along with the newspapers, many of the radio stations were usurped during the riots. Nine months on, many are still off air. The consequences of this were, and still are, far reaching. Outside of bustling Kampala, the majority of the population lives in rural towns. Few televisions exist and with high illiteracy rates, radio shows are the only way for people to regularly access information outside of their Districts. Without this form of media, people are unable to hear about news events from varying perspectives, inhibiting them from making informed decisions. With Uganda’s general election coming up in March of next year, these restrictions on press freedom will most likely hinder a fair and free election.

In a wider context, the behaviours of the government upon the media show that Uganda is perhaps not the democratic, non-partisan body that it claims to be. Their obvious lack of discretion in curbing bad press is also completely contradictory; they are stopping the media because they want a good reputation, yet their bullying and abusing of human rights gives them nothing but a bad reputation.

Further still, the government now wants to legally and publicly stop the media from criticizing the government. In Uganda, the Press and Journalism Act requires annual licensing and the government have put forward a draft proposal, making criticizing the government illegal. The Human Rights Watch is currently appealing to members of parliament to reject the proposed draft changes to the act, asking them to honour press freedom in light of the upcoming elections. What seems absurd to me is that a government would want to publicly become more autocratic in an increasingly democratic world. Looking outside of this context, many other things point to this conclusion. For instance, currently there is the proposed bill to make homosexuality illegal, introducing the death penalty for those found ‘guilty’. It seems Uganda is moving backwards, not forwards, in reducing human rights violations and creating a fairer, free society.

The effect of these restrictions is that journalists are scared, scared to report on anything considered controversial, and this is leading to continual self-censorship.

However, it is not all doom and gloom. Recently, journalists that were beaten by police, when trying to report on police living in a football stadium, won their case in court. The judge’s final comments expressed how freedom of speech for journalists in Uganda is essential. Perhaps the court and the government are mutually exclusive after all.

Coincidentally, last week I met a journalist who’s experiences put all of this in context and perspective. He was put in prison in 2001 when he was working on an Eritrean newspaper. All editors and reporters were interrogated and locked up for six months without being charged before a court of law. They were all tortured in an attempt to force them to sign a confession to subversive activity against the Eritrean government. None of them succumbed. His editor in chief died during the torture.

After spending three years in prison, he escaped with two other journalists and fled to Sudan. He arrived in Uganda in October of last year as he is on the run again from Sudan because he was documenting the human rights violations committed in refugee camps in Darfur.

This man is truly passionate and determined to fight for freedom of expression for journalists. He is campaigning for the Eritrean President to release the journalists that are still detained.

His testimony did put the current Ugandan problems with press freedom in perspective. Journalists are not degraded and restricted to the same extent currently, but the way the government has dealt with recent events and with their plans to suppress freedom of expression further, the situation may well deteriorate.

When professional journalists and radio stations are shut down in controversial times, it is the Ugandan blogging community that can keep freedom of speech alive, informing others of what is happening. With blogs and twitter and other forms of social media, then the ‘truth’, or at least varying perspectives, will reach the people of Uganda.

Borehole puts a stop to the cycle of Ill health and poverty

This is an article I wrote for World Water day that got posted on reuters: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/lwf/12698661542.htm

Charity pulls on her dress and quickly picks up the remaining jerry cans from the kitchen. She hears her mother calling and turns to see her family close by gathered around the borehole. The yellow jerry cans glisten in the morning sunlight; her sisters giggle, splashing each other with the clear water that gushes so freely from the pipe. Her mother, pumping effortlessly, greets neighbours as they get in line with their cans for the morning fill. Charity smiles - life is as it should be.

Water is vital for survival. It commands us - we are at mercy to its power. Water - for this reason - is a basic human right, yet for many communities around the world this right is not being met. In northern Uganda, with a reported 40% of people not having access to a safe water supply (Unicef.org/infobycountry/Uganda-statistics.html) , communities often pay a very high price to have access to any water at all.

Most families in Charity's village have only recently moved home from the inhumane and congested camps they were forced into because of the 20-year long civil war that rampaged northern Uganda. Although happy to be home, the joy of resettlement is not without its challenges. 'Coming home' often means returning to a piece of land marked simply by a mango tree: homes have to be rebuilt from scratch, land cleared and reopened, and schools reconstructed. Access to clean water - the most vital resource of all - is ironically often the hardest feat for communities to achieve.

Without the tools, skills and money to buy supplies, communities are unable to drill into the ground to access clean water. Providing this infrastructure is just one of the ways the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) supports communities in Uganda. In 2009 alone, the organisation drilled 62 boreholes, providing clean water to thousands of people.

Before the LWF drilled the borehole in Charity's village, the 63 recently returned households used to draw their water from a dirty stream deep in the bush. This water - polluted and shared by cattle - led to a constant cycle of ill health within the community. 'My children and neighbours constantly had diarrhoea, skin rashes and eye infections', tells Christopher, Charity's father. 'Now we have the borehole these complaints have stopped. My children have put on weight and have more energy and my neighbours have the strength to work harder to rebuild what we've lost.'

This borehole has dramatically altered the quantity of water now accessible to this village. When collecting from the dirty stream, all families were limited to one jerry can per day to ensure the source did not dry up. With this one jerry can, whole families - with an average of six children per household in Uganda - would have to wash themselves, cook meals, and use it for drinking water. The result: each family only had enough water to cook one meal a day. People went hungry. The borehole on the other hand allows each family to draw practically inexhaustible amounts of water daily, ensuring all necessities are fulfilled.

Plentiful supplies of water allow for washing hands after using the latrine; it enables people to wash themselves everyday decreasing bacteria in their homes; it allows for utensils to be washed, decreasing cross-contamination. The ease with which water is collected saves women time every day, freeing them to concentrate on income generating activities, such as harvesting crops, to pay for their children's education, for medical costs, for food, and for basic necessities.
LWF has taken every step possible to ensure the sustainability of the borehole. A Water User Committee has been established, responsible for ensuring the borehole remains in good condition, villagers pay a small fee to cover the cost of any repairs needed, and a pump mechanic has been trained. The community feels empowered: they can now ensure that clean water, and therefore health, remains a priority in their lives.

This borehole has brought hope to the people of Charity's village, drastically changing their quality of life. Escaping the confines of the camp, this community has already rebuilt many homes, reopened land for agriculture and cattle grazing, and now - with the clean water source - they are living healthier, happier lives.

Being mugged and the Ugandan justice system

Yesterday put my previous blog – ‘Kampala – a city of different perspectives’ – in context. Two people’s starkly different lives, a thief’s, and mine, truly did coexist and collide.

This hasn’t been the best weekend, but it has been very interesting and taught me plenty about the justice system over here and how crime and the police work.

At roughly midday on Saturday I was mugged. Sitting on a boda boda in between Adam and the driver, we were moving along at a slow pace through busy lunchtime traffic in down town Kampala. A thief – completely in my blind spot – ran at me and with what I can only describe as intricate skill, pulled my necklace free from my neck, breaking the chain in two. I wish it had just been a necklace and not my most precious possession, but such is life.

Before I had time to realise what had happened, the man shot across the road. I let out a yelp and mumbled something about ‘necklace’ before Adam comprehended what had happened. As I said – this man had skill and was quick. Without trepidation, Adam leapt off the motorbike, removed his flip-flops and ran out across the road. How he didn’t get run over I don’t know, but within a second he disappeared also. In a panic I told the boda boda driver to follow them. Luckily, by chance, we’d picked a driver who was also a university student with impeccable English and quickly we were in hot pursuit.

When we entered the road they’d run down I couldn’t see Adam and I was scared. This man had mugged me with such ease, I was sure that he was a professional thief and could have a weapon on him. The panic grew and with it fear. The realisation that the necklace was gone and that Adam may be in danger threw me into hysterics. Quickly a crowd surrounded me and people were asking what happened, and if they could help. I didn’t realise this at the time, but there is a very strong mob culture in Uganda. People hate thieves, to the point that if they catch one, they often batter them to death – or close to it. I was having problems articulating myself, when all of a sudden Adam reappeared breathless, but fine, and then two police officers (out of uniform) were saying they knew the guy and where he would run. One officer climbed on the back of my boda, and Adam and the other officer on another, and we were off.

I’ve had some pretty scary boda rides since I’ve been here, but nothing like this. We were weaving in between cars at high speeds; cars had to break to let us through and in the end I closed my eyes in submission. That morning before we set off we thought about taking our helmets and decided against it – if only we’d known what the day would involve, I’d have thought again!

As we continued – I had no idea where we were going – we saw the thief and his accomplice on the other side of the road, clearly having no idea that we were chasing them. As soon as they saw us, they started running down a path that led straight into the slums. Within an instant, Adam and the two officers were off the bikes running after them. My boda driver followed at high speeds and many times I thought we were going to crash or that the persistent bumping would throw me off. I could see Adam in the distance very close behind this man and I thought that they were going to catch him, but by the time we caught up, all of them had entered the deep maize of tin-roofed shacks.

At this point I was still very shaken up, and quite honestly I didn’t trust anyone. So quickly had people come to help and these ‘police’, out of uniform, made me suspicious that this was a ruse, an elaborate plan to get money out of stupid muzungus.

The bike couldn’t enter the slums and so I stayed on the edge with the driver and again a huge crowd of people gathered around me. People were asking what he’d stolen – I presume they’d seen the chase and guessed what was going on. Again I grew nervous. They had been gone a while, and I felt so insecure about Adam running around the slums with people who claimed to be helping us, but could be tricking us. People were on their phones, speaking in Lugandan, and I had no idea what was being said. Adam still hadn’t reappeared, but the driver and some other person – I really can’t remember the chain of events that clearly – told me we needed to get back on the road and meet the others further up. I didn’t trust this, but without Adam and being alone in the slums with people eye balling me – at least that’s how it felt - I really didn’t feel like I had much to lose.

Back on the road, with the driving becoming more erratic as we went, I still had no idea what was going on. We were trying to join a busy road when another boda driver let us out. I remember thinking, ‘nice man’. Seconds later however, something behind rammed hard into the back of us and I heard a screech and a loud crash behind us. I turned to see this same man sprawled on the floor with his bike on its side next to him. Panic rose in me, but for a completely different reason than before. In Uganda, if you knock someone off their bike you are told to keep driving and as quickly as possible. This is not because people don’t care or that people don’t feel guilty, but because of the consequences of mob culture. If you knock someone off their bike and they are severely injured, or dead, even if it is not your fault, the surrounding people in their vehicles will attack you. An eye for an eye is very much the ethos of this country.

I remember looking around to gauge the faces of the people; I remember looking at the man and willing him to get up and to be fine. Luckily he quickly recovered, his reaction being to hurl abuse at us. I breathed out – we were going to be ok and so was he. Across the other side of the road, Adam and the police officers were suddenly there and we turned the bike around. They’d lost the thieves again, but people knew with 100% who it was and apparently our next step was to go to the police post to make a statement. En route, one police officer received a call from someone in the slum saying that they had the necklace and were bringing it to us. We stopped the bike and waited; waited for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually someone turned up. I naively thought that this was it; I was about to get it back and all would be over. How wrong I was. The man unclenched his fist to reveal the chain all twisted and distorted, but the pendants were missing.

To explain, the necklace had a gold ring on it, with engravings in French and a small gold envelope with engravings on the back, that opens up to reveal a little gold letter inside. Both have huge sentimental value to my family and me, and both are very old. They’d given back the chain, but not its precious companions. The chain means nothing and presumably the thieves knew this too. The difference is they mean something to me not for their value – in reality neither are worth much, they’re just a little gold.

I think I realised at this point that it was game over. Either the pendants had fallen off or the thieves had them, but had no intention of giving them back. We spent the next couple of hours giving statements to the police. They said that they wanted to take us back to the slum to find and arrest the thief, but we were going to have to pay them 20,000Ush for the privilege. Although this is only the equivalent of about 7 pounds, it is four times what the journey was worth in petrol.

This bribery didn’t really surprise me. Although I’d had no contact with the police up to this point, I’d heard many stories about how the police will only help you if you pay them. I had also been told that you only do this post help, because otherwise they take the money and do nothing. This bribery, a common place activity, they legitimately call ‘facilitation’ i.e. they told me, “You must pay a facilitation fee”. As illegal as this may be to the British mindset, the reality is that the police get paid little and irregularly and this is the only way to motivate them.

While we were waiting at the police post, we got to know the boda boda driver that we started out with when I was robbed. His name is Henry; he’s a university student studying communication, however he wants to become a police officer. He was very knowledgeable about crime, most likely picked up from being a boda boda driver in central Kampala. He told us that he worked until six o’clock latest, because it is well known that boda drivers are often ambushed by thieves, who steal their bikes and kill the driver in the process. Sometimes drivers are even decapitated. This really put getting bodas in perspective. Adam – only once, but still once – had got a boda on his own late at night. He was fine, but he was lucky. We think by and large that it’s the boda driver you have to watch out for, and obviously that is a risk factor, but you also have to be careful that while you’re on the boda you don’t get ambushed by thieves who then rob and kill you – and if you’re a girl, most likely rape you.

We also asked Henry what he thought would happen to the thief once he was arrested. He told us that either they take them to prison and then to court, however with some notorious thieves the police simply kill them. Obviously this made Adam and I very uncomfortable. No matter how much I wanted the pendants back, I did not want this man to be killed. I don’t even blame the thief. He’s poor and there I was with gold hanging down from my neck. I understand why he did it and I’m just grateful he didn’t use other means to attain it. I do feel like an idiot, but simultaneously I do think I was very unlucky. It was broad daylight in busy crowds and I was between two men. Considering this man would know all to well about mob culture, he was pretty brave to have done what he did.

Going back to Henry, out of everyone that day, he was the only person that I trusted. He advised us on how to handle the police, telling us when to hand over money, what to give details about and what to conceal.

After waiting for the police to get organised, we paid our 20,000 for ‘fuel’ and we headed back to the slum. Adam rode with the police officers in the car, and I – because I was having trust issues – rode on the bike with Henry. Going back to the slums was not an enjoyable experience. Being white and turning up with the police in hindsight doesn’t reflect well on us. The police are corrupt and cause just as much trouble as the thieves to poor communities. I very quickly became aware that our presence may not be viewed positively.

On the main trading path we spotted the thief and the police jumped from the car to chase him. I suddenly felt afraid and sat in the car. I didn’t want to be there and to be honest there was no reason for us to be. Our faces were being banded across the community – the troublemakers. We were assured by Henry that firstly, to Ugandans, all white faces look the same and secondly, that the community wouldn’t view us badly, but still it worried me.

The police returned some minutes later with a suspect. I couldn’t tell if it was the thief in question, but they put him in the car. Adam and I got on with Henry and we all headed back to the police post. They took the man into the shack and made him sit in the corner of the room. They said they’d searched him and there was nothing in his pockets. He eventually admitted to doing it, but said that the pendants must have fallen off and that he didn’t have them. Later he changed his story and said that if he was released, he would go back into the slums, talk to his gang and bring the pendants back. It was impossible to discern what was the truth and what was his desperate attempt to better his situation. Regardless, he will go to prison, so what incentive does he have to give them back even if he does have them? He knows that the police would intercept any money that I offered, so there really is no reason for him to do anything.

Eventually the police said they were taking him to the central police station and that they would follow up with us later. They tried to elicit more ‘facilitation’ from me, saying they needed incentive, and that they hadn’t eaten all day because they were helping us. We sternly told them that we hadn’t eaten or drunk either and that I would give a reward if I got the pendants back, but nothing before. I explained that I had no guarantees, so why would I give them money. They seemed to accept this, and after signing statements we left with Henry.

As much as I feel like I can trust Henry, Adam and I didn’t want him taking us back to our door. He already said that he couldn’t go back to that slum because his face would be remembered and he’d be seen as a police ally. We didn’t want to put ourselves in a situation where he knew where we lived, if for any reason these thieves wanted to find out. We got him to drop us by our local supermarket, close enough to walk, but far enough away for us not to be traceable. This may sound very paranoid, but its gives me peace of mind.

So that ends the ordeal. As I said at the beginning of this entry, it was a bad day, but it was very insightful all the same. It’s a day later as I write this and already I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that the pendants are gone. I may have lost some things very precious to me, but Adam and I weren’t hurt and that’s the important thing.

I didn’t want to be the type of person that doesn’t wear the things that they treasure and I suppose I knew the possible consequences of that decision. Although this has happened, I don’t want to become someone that puts things in a box at the back of a draw, scared of the possibilities. With anything we do in life there are risks, but wearing that necklace everyday brought me so much comfort and I would never regret that.

The police are hopeful that they’ll recover the pendants and we will follow up with them, but I’m not getting my hopes up.