Working in the Garden
Eating Porridge
In Namwendwa families survive on the food that they grow. Family members contribute to the productivity of their families land. All work is done manually so the families must plough the fields, plant the seeds, water the garden and harvest the produce. The most common crops that are grown are maize, beans, cassava and yams.
Due to the absence of irrigation, families rely solely on rain for watering their gardens.
Common Foods
The people of Namwendwa eat two to three meals per day; primarily lunch and dinner. For these meals they have a source of complex carbohydrates that is flavored with some kind of nutritious sauce. The complex carbohydrates include; posho, (maize flour cooked with water to form a dense meal that looks like mash potato), matokee (Green bananas that have been steamed and mashed together); steamed yams, steamed sweet potato and steamed cassava (a root vegetable that is similar, but more starchy than potato). They generally select one of these different foods and eat it with fried or boiled beans; ground nut sauce (similar to satay sauce) or dodo (green vegetable that is steamed). Beans are by far the most commonly used sauce.
If families have the time and money for breakfast, they usually have black tea if they do not own a cow for milk and white tea if they have a cow. Some families also cook porridge out of maize flour and water.
Cooking
Maize
As there is no electricity in Namwendwa people cook on; three stone fires, charcoal or paraffin stoves. The type of stove that is used depends on the wealth of the family. Due to the poverty in Namwendwa paraffin stoves are not used as much as three stone and charcoal stoves which are much cheaper to maintain.
Who does the cooking?
The females of the family generally do the cooking. In Namwendwa cooking is a long process. For example to cook matokee and beans, one must peel the green bananas, steam the green bananas and then smash them into a firm block that is ready to be eaten. In addition to this job they must cook the beans which can take up to four hours! For this reason, the females of the family might spend most of their morning and afternoon preparing lunch and dinner.
How do they flavour their food?
Salt and curry powder are the two ingredients used to make food more flavorsome. They are both relatively affordable and they do not perish (most people do not have electricity and therefore do not have a refrigerator).
Bathing
In Namwendwa most houses do not have running water. To bathe one must first collect the water from the closest borehole. This usually means a 15 -25 minute walk with a 20 liter (or more) jerry can full of water. You then take the jerry can and a basin and wash inside an open aired cubicle. However the cubicles are often filled with big fat slimy toads! So before starting to wash you must sweep or kick them out and quickly close the makeshift door before they hop back in!
There are two seasons in Uganda, the wet and dry seasons. In the wet season it tends to get very cold, so bathing outside with cold water is very uncomfortable for most people.
Education
Currently One Village only runs programs in Namwendwa Parish. In Namwendwa parish there is a government primary school 'Namwendwa Primary School'; a government High School ‘St Peter’s Secondary School’; a private school and an infant school.
Uganda has universal primary school, meaning that all children can attend year one to year seven for free. Their families must only supply them with a uniform and stationary. Uganda is currently trialing Universal Secondary Education in selected schools across the country and in selected universals by subsiding part of the students’ fees. However, until Universal Secondary Education is fully embraced by the Ugandan government, the struggle for school fees remains a major concern for Ugandan families.
Health
In Namwendwa parish there is a government health clinic. This health clinic is responsible for providing health care to 30 320 people from Namwendwa and five other surrounding parishes. It employees one registered nurse, two nurse assistants, one enrolled midwife, three clinical officers, one health assistant, one laboratory assistant and one dental surgeon. The clinic consists of an outpatient ward, inpatient ward, maternity ward and a dental room. Uganda has a universal health system, meaning that all government health services are free, however, unfortunately all clinics are under-staffed and have insufficient supplies and resources.
The busiest unit at the health clinic is the outpatient ward, it usually sees up to seventy people per day. The most common illness treated there is malaria. In 2008 13 318 people were diagnosed with the disease.
Health Education
Every Tuesday and Thursday the health clinic offers HIV/AIDS testing and counseling. Before the patients go in for the test a counselor briefs them about what will happen during the test and how to prevent contracting AIDS. All patients that are found to be HIV positive are then given further counseling about how to approach life positively.
Staffs from the health clinic also perform HIV testing at our One Village health days.
Problems with health care
The main concern for people in Namwendwa with the available health care is the long time they must wait before they receive treatment. It is common for people to wait up to seven hours to be seen by the clinical officer or the senior nurse. This is a major deterrent for people who are ill or due for a blood test and often they chose not to access the health care. Spending a day waiting at the health clinic means they will not have an opportunity to harvest the land, which could mean they and their family go without food for the day – it’s a tough call to make.
Another issue is the shortage of drugs in stock. The Namwendwa Health Clinic has not had ARVs (medication for HIV) available since September 2008. This means people living with AIDS who were dependent on these services have been forced to stop treating the virus.
