Settling into Patongo

So let's start with some photos.

This is Patongo High Street, such as it is. It reminds me a bit if spaghetti westerns! If you want to buy anything, best wait for the Tuesday market which is really quite impressive for size, range of goods and number of people

Here's the Medair Patongo vehicle fleet, Toyota Hilux and Toyota Landcruisers, parked in the vehicle yard at one end of the compound

Turn around and look through the vehicle yard gate and this is what you see. We are lierally in the middle of a camp for Internally Displaced Peoples, current population 30,000

The wall is the side of our compound, the fence in the foreground surrounds a patio and a garden (only partly cultivated but with potential to produce some fresh veg which everyone would appreciate). There are huts up against the other side of the compound too.

Now we're inside, it's a bit like a stable block with 10 rooms down each side. At the far end is a water tank, showers, latrines. And beyond our vehicle yard.

And this is looking back the other way from the water tank to the dining area and the kitchen and a couple of common rooms beyond which don't get much use. And yes, that's a banana tree.

Across the road from the garden end of the compound is the Bamboo Nest bar: the blackboard has all the football matches to be screened on TV in the bar - there is a huge following of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United. We have a no alcohol policy so no cold beers. And they often play loud dance music until midnight which is not welcome !

And now for the update.

We left Kampala on Monday at 7am, me behind the wheel of a Toyota Hilux. 5 hours of driving took us to Lira. The roads varied from decent tarmac where 100km/hr was possible to potholed roads where 10km/hr was advisable. The same road could change quality dramatically as it crossed from one district to the next. 4x4’s are definitely required here. At Lira we picked up more local staff and changed drivers – only local staff are allowed drive beyond Lira for security reasons. The roads aren’t too bad, some marram (dirt) roads safe for 80km/h but for some sections the speed is reduced to a crawl. We were the lead vehicle because the aircon doesn’t work so we have to have the windows down. Behind us, they had to keep the windows up because of the dust kicked up by our vehicle. Lira to Patongo is 2 hours drive.

The IDP camps are poor – people living in tukuls, grass thatched round huts. There is little or no employment so men sit around while women tend the fields, harvest, thresh and winnow by hand. The children are often naked and dirty. Patongo is no different. But, actually, our living space is OK. It might be described as a stable block – 20 rooms opening into a central courtyard. At one end is the water tank (black plastic elevated) which feeds the 4 showers (cold) and hand wash point and the kitchen. The latrines are next to the showers. Beyond that end of the courtyard is the vehicle compound and beyond that part of the IDP village. Looking from the water tank, there is the dining area and beyond that a kitchen and 2 rooms which don’t get much use. Beyond that is the garden which contains a bread oven. I want to get the garden going so we have a choice of fresh veg – there isn’t much choice here and Lira, 2 hours away, is the nearest shopping area and we send vehicles there only once every 4 weeks. Sowing season is March ready for the rains in April. One of the staff has tried to get the garden going but without too much success – the soil may need some improving but there is time to do that.

The office is 10 minutes walk away – 6 small rooms. Solar electricity with generator back up. The IT system is barely adequate, no server just an external hard drive used as a common hard drive but LAN and wireless speeds are low and at the moment the internet connection is painfully slow.

I left with Michelle at 0830 Tuesday morning to go Pader for the fortnightly meeting held by the UN Organisation for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Pader is about 40 minutes from Patongo. It was held in a room without windows, near the road, so it was noisy and most locals do not project their voices so it was hard to hear what was being said. But it was my first introduction to the other NGO’s. I was back in Pader with Michelle on Wednesday for a meeting chaired by the district engineer on roads (lots of NGO’s are involved with reconstructing and improving roads, we are doing some point repairs where culverts are needed to make roads passable in the rainy season). And then to the WASH cluster meeting (water sanitation and health). In 2 hours we managed to get through the minutes of 2 previous meetings! The rest of the day Michelle introduced to me to the other NGO’s based in Pader. We stayed overnight in a simple hotel (the best in Patongo, no running water)so we could go to a social gathering at the ICRC house (we don’t travel after 5pm). Amazingly I met Ibramia from the Gambia who has just moved from Y Care International (the relief charity affiliated to the YMCA) to War Child and has worked for the Nottinghamshire YMCA in the Bulawayo project. So he knows people I know.

Back to Patongo on Thursday morning, management meeting in the afternoon, mostly HR issues, team meeting Friday morning. It is CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Govt meeting) in Kampala and Thursday and Friday were public holidays so we closed at lunch time on Friday (normally we work to lunch time on Saturday) although a few of us kept going all afternoon.

My first weekend in Patongo – there are some weights (just one useable dumb bell) so had something of a work out (to the amusement of some local staff) and then read some work documents in preparation for next week. I’m back in Kampala Wednesday (flying this time) to get to a 3 day meeting on a funding programme for NE Uganda from which we benefit: it was meant to be Thursday, Friday but was brought forward to start on Wednesday only a few days ago when everyone knows that flights from NE Uganda are only Monday, Wednesday and Friday arriving early afternoon and need booking weeks in advance. So one of the Kampala staff will have to do the presentation on Wednesday.

So far settling into Patongo life but keen to get out to see the staff in action.