Obviously Uganda does have it's troubles; a huge amount of people in the government, churches, banks and in high positions of authority are very corrupt which has forced a huge chunk of Uganda's population to struggle in poverty. The amazing thing is, they have decided to team together and create communities which face the every day challenges of poverty together. Every person in the community knows each other and they treat each other like family, in fact, they probably treat their neighbour better than any westerner would treat a family member!
Yes their children play in dirty streams and are dressed in rags but it is so beautiful to watch the children play together and actually share a bag of sweets. Yes they play with muddy tires and old plastic bottles but they have the ability to create a new adventure with the objects without pining for the latest electronic game. The children understand, from a very young age, that they are part of a family and within a community which work together to find food and water for each other. They don't slob out on a sofa and hope their mum puts their clean washing in their room for them, they go to the well with a big basin and scrub their own shirts from the age of 5 and if someone in the community needs a shirt to wear for the day, they will offer them their spare.
Unlike us whose daily aim is to have as much fun as possible, earn as much money as possible and live for drunken weekends, the people in Uganda know that their daily aim is to survive, to have enough food and water for the day and to sleep safely. I have not yet come across one Ugandan who has said that they are depressed or have suffered from depression. Is this because they have learnt how to be content with just simply being alive and they know that as long as they have life there is always hope?
I really struggled with my own self image when growing up. I used to question how I came across, how people would view me and whether I was accepted. I, like many, used to feel so self-conscious about my body that I would become obsesseed with the clothes I wore, with going to the gym and with the amount of calories I would shove in to my mouth each day. It did hit a point where my weight was the most important thing to me and although I was never obese or even overweight I would still be concerned about it from the moment I woke up. What a luxury we have! To actually have enough money and food available to us to create worry about what to eat!
It was during my very first trip to Uganda that I realised how ridiculous I was being, worrying about the amount of calories in a tin of tomatoes when there are people in this world who are starving down to the bone and would give anything for a juicy tomato!
As a teacher, I am in the position to say that there are a huge number of children in our country who do not understand why they are even in school. Many of our children think that is a laugh to mess around in lessons, disrespect teachers and bully the kid who didn't get the latest x-box game for Christmas. The difference is, Ugandan children know that education is the most important stepping stone for their future and therefore they would not dare disrespect the teacher or school rules. They are lucky to even eat chicken at Christmas, let alone receive a present, and they understand that their friends are also struggling so wouldn't dream of taking the mick of someone else's deprivation.
So when you take all this in to consideration, we actually have a lot to learn from these Ugandans. They are richer than us in many ways, in ways which actually matter. xxx
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