Orphans, Swindlers & One Big Sky

or There are abandoned children in the U.S., but it’s largely an untold story. A woman who works in a maternity hospital once described to me the not totally uncommon occurrence of drug addicted mothers leaving their newborns following delivery. Presumably these children are reared by relatives or adoptive or foster parents.

Abandoned children in Uganda do not have a foster care system to fall back on when their own families fail them. The extended family IS the foster care system. If secretly deserted by their parents, children die where they are left, survive in the streets, or, the few, the fortunate, are nurtured in foreign funded orphanages.

I recently visited one outside of Kampala. Since I didn’t seek permission in advance to write about it, I will not reveal its name, but I was absolutely astounded at the quality of the facilities and care provided.

The sprawling campus rests on soft, rolling grassy hills containing 10 modern homes, a full service kitchen, a large playground, a “football pitch” (soccer field), manicured landscaping, an extensive farm, real washers and dryers, two full time nurses, one part time doctor, a mommy for each of the house’s eight little lodgers, teachers and assistants, and countless staff for cooking, cleaning, repairing, coordinating, assuring, etc. And it all overlooks Lake Victoria.

These children live far, far better than most other Ugandan youth who often live in substandard homes with little food and no modern appliances; without toys or play areas; running barefoot on muddy, trash-filled roads or grass clearings; occasionally receiving paltry medical assistance when family funds allow; and lucky students squeezed next to 100 other classmates in meager school buildings.

The abandoned Ugandan children are rescued from anywhere: hospitals, police stations, plantation fields, or the hands of an abusive parent. Little Elijah, a toddler I met, was saved when he was just one week old by good Samaritans who saw his mother savagely strangling him. The infant struggled for his life in a hospital for the two weeks before the parole officer released him to the orphanage. As he ran towards me to catch my hand, the kind woman who is his orphanage mummy and my guide for the day told me that he is very advanced for his age in speech, movement and social abilities, and never gets sick. “God wanted him to be here,” she said as she watched him, gently smiling.

Maybe there is a special place in heaven for her and the thousands like her who dedicate their lives to the care and love for strangers. At the very least, I believe that Sir John Vanbrugh is right: virtue is its own reward.

But other non profits are not so exemplary.

There is a relatively large NGO in town run by a former Ugandan rebel who actually lives in the U.S.; shamefully, granted refugee status years ago. Charismatic and convincing, he seduces donors out of thousands of dollars so that he and his brothers can live lavishly. Friends who have been to his brothers’ mansions resting on the hills outside of Kampala say the residence are grandiose and filled with a small army of servants, including chefs (that’s plural) that serve the family and their guests in actual tall, white hats. The family is also constructing revenue generating buildings in and around Gulu, and God only knows what else for their personal benefit. Anyone care to guess how many schools would have actually been built with that money?

His style of non-profit management includes inflating school development costs to secure more funding than necessary; not forwarding donations to volunteers, in effect ensuring their projects will fail; and actually attempting to persuade the local government to block projects that volunteers then take up on their own.

Until recently you could legally establish an NGO in Uganda in about a week. The government has made the process more difficult in light of the countless people like the aforementioned supreme asshole who have taken advantage of international development interest and funds from foreigners.

Apologies, but again an example of the bad so that the extent of thievery in the name of charity sinks in. Another former rebel also granted refugee status in the U.S. and living in San Diego has swindled countless dollars out of the hands of wealthy women in Coronado and La Jolla saying he is constructing schools in his village; however, he’s probably showing pictures of already existing buildings to them as proof of the work he claims to be doing outside of his full time job at Catholic Charities. One of his coworkers tells me he has suddenly been buying electronics for his personal use and taking his family on trips to Europe on his non-profit salary.

(ADDED NOTE: This person is doing this "charity work" OUTSIDE of Catholic Charities. I am in no way suggesting that Catholic Charities or any other major charity organization, non-profit, or NGO engages in stealing. In fact, I hope I am conveying quite the opposite. It is these individuals and smaller in-country organizations that are often unscrupulous, and I hope all of you would continue to trust and support the work of large, legit, international aid groups.)

I hope there is a special place in hell for these thieves.

I also wish myself superlatively creatively minded and these swindlers a product of my brilliance; rather, they are very real threads in the fabric of Life here, and I seek in my blog to lay It bare. I spent years reading about Africa, talking to people who had been, watching documentaries and films, but nothing entirely prepares and educates you, and I am slightly surprised at the aspects of life that weren’t revealed to me previously. The parts that, maybe, foreigners didn’t discuss to avoid perpetrating negative stereotypes; backwardly woven are many fibers here. Fortunately, there is also extraordinary and inspiring kindness and determination knit through It. I’ll be telling these stories, the good and bad, side by side, as I go along.

Which brings me to the blog title. I carefully considered it while drifting off to sleep, hiking through Mission Trails, reading the morning paper, listening to music….

The sky is limitless; a void of light and dark. Stretching as far as our imaginations, it reflects infinite possibilities existing within us; our potential and nature revealed faintly in lives of want, and starkly in crushing need. I anticipated witnessing it vibrantly within others Here, but within myself….what will I do faced with the novel and unknown?

Surrounding me Here in the extreme is the sublimely virtuous and the hideously appalling; pushing past each other on crowded grimy streets; polluting and nourishing the lush Eden that abounds; in Christian hymns and prayers and whispers of witchcraft; aside, along, courting and ruining each other in the same minds; as boundless and luminous as the pearl blue, puffy cloud Uganda sky.

Oh, and it is also inspired from a song title from one of my favorite artists and humanitarians, Annie Lennox. It’s a beautifully wrenching melody and story about overcoming the oppressive and overbearing.

I hope my writings enrich your understanding of Africa – enjoy!