Bishop Joel Obetia and his wife, Joy, at their home, a week after being discharged from hospital
By Jimmy Siyasa
After recovering from Covid-19, retired Bishop Joel Obetia of the Madi and West Nile diocese in northwestern Uganda has stopped taking certain things in life for granted.
Bishop Joel Obetia drinking a concoction of Vitamin C to boost his body immunity.
“Many times, we forget to thank God for the free oxygen,” he said. “A disease like Covid-19 clogs your lungs and you are asked to pay millions of shillings for oxygen to support your breathing.”
Bishop Obetia, together with his wife, the Rev. Canon Joy Obetia, was in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Mulago Hospital in Kampala for around two weeks. Their health deteriorated from contraction of Covid-19.
On the evening of Monday, January 11, 2021, the twosome arrived back at their home on the Uganda Christian University, Mukono Campus. Their return from hospitalization replaced long-held anxiety with bursts of irrepressible joy among their family members.
Besides running a busy pastoral life, Obetia, 64, an academic, also doubles as a lecturer at Bishop Tucker School of Theology and Divinity at the main campus in Mukono. His wife, Joy, 62, is the Assistant Chaplain at St. Kakumba Chapel, located in Kyambogo, a suburb of Kampala. At St. Kakumba, she heads the weddings, welfare, women and prayer/ intercession ministries.
The two had been in ICU since December 27, 2020. Still frail and fragile by the time of this interview, they were under close medical monitoring. They can only resume their clerical and other activities when doctors say so.
Bishop Obetia and his wife, Joy, arrive at All Saints’ Cathedral Kampala in January 2020 before being diagnosed with Covid. He had gone to confirm new converts. (Internet photo)
“Their return is an answered prayer,” exclaimed Gloria Obetia, the couple’s oldest daughter and a health care worker 500 miles from Kampala, at Kuluva Hospital, Arua. “Such a relief! At first, we felt that they were going to die because they were badly off. But God has worked a miracle.”
She delivered healthy food daily to her parents ever since they got admitted. Gloria and other family members last saw the couple, looking lifeless, three days after the 2020 Christmas holiday. They were being whisked away to Mulago National Referral Hospital, dangling between the hands of the emergency team and death.
“It has been God since day one,” said a jolly, 22-year-old Miriam Litany Pakrwoth, another one of the couple’s daughters. “They could’ve lost their lives in the process of being transferred from Mukono to Mulago because their oxygen intake was so low.”
The Obetias’ initial arrival at the Mulago hospital was marred with tension, suspense and anxiety. One of the voices of fear and doubt that contributed to this unease was reportedly a nurse in whose hands the patients had been cast.
Mercy Dokini, 16, the couple’s youngest daughter, recalled the nurse saying, “5 to 8 people in your parents’ condition die every day. You better pray and fast for them.”
Triggered by the nurse’s pessimism, Mercy and her older siblings took to persistent prayer and fasting. Not only family but also friends and the faithful to whom the Obetias minister were constantly on bended knees and gave generously. Not on any single day were prayers and goodwill in short supply.
“I want to thank God for the faith he has allowed us to plant in our children,” said a contemplative Joy Obetia. “They have been praying and fasting for us ever since.”
She recalls pocketing about $100 as contingency cash, on their way to the hospital. But it stayed untouched throughout their admission. Their God through friends “supplied all their needs according to his riches in Glory.”
“God used so many people to support us,” said Bishop Obetia. “People were calling in from the USA, UK and all around the world. The support was overwhelming. UCU had close contacts who kept a close watch of us, to keep the community updated.”
Obetia and his wife believe that their place in the church somehow opened doors to the “overwhelming support and respect” they received while at the hospital. Another plus is that their admission caused a dramatic turn in not only meal scheduling, but also quality of the meals.
“Breakfast would be served late, at about noon and then lunch would come like at 3:00 p.m.,” said Joy Obetia. “I sympathize with those only depending on hospital meals.”
However, the tardiness in the hospital’s welfare department stopped at the intervention of State Minister for Northern Uganda in the Uganda cabinet, Grace Freedom Kwiyucwiny, a sister to Joy Obetia. This was to the advantage of the majority of more economically challenged, less high-profile patients who often endure helplessly within the healthcare system.
When asked where and how they may have contracted coronavirus, the two pointed to some of the congregations unto whom they had last-ministered before their health deteriorated on December 27, 2020.
“I personally officiated so many weddings – two of them on November 29,2020,” Bishop Obetia recalled. “And on December 12, 2020, my family attended a wedding of my niece at St. Johns Church, Kamwokya. Thereafter, I travelled from Kampala to Arua, where I officiated another wedding on December 19, 2020. Then, I began to show Covid-19 signs like an intense cough.”
Obetia confessed that by the time he travelled to Arua, his wife, Joy, was already severely sick. Hence, on return to their home on the UCU campus, they tasked themselves to test for the virus, only to realize that that the potential “angel of death” had visited their household. On February 5, 2021, they are grateful that it didn’t remain.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org
In the midst of the first-ever virtual graduation ceremony of Uganda Christian University (UCU) on December 18, 2020, there was hope.
One of the First Class students permitted to attend the December graduation in person
The hope was in the 1,810 students – most of them not physically present – getting diplomas and degrees and in the announcement of infrastructural development projects to be implemented, starting in 2021. On this Friday and from the Mukono campus, there was optimism about the institution’s outlook and boosting its revenue.
UCU Vice-Chancellor, Assoc. Prof. Aaron Mushengyezi, unveiled the projects, which are part of a fundraising drive started in late September, during the 21st graduation ceremony as the university enters its 23rd year.
“The first project, which will potentially unlock $10 million worth of infrastructure development, involves construction of a shopping Centre, a three-star hotel, and four blocks of residential halls for 1,000 rooms on the main campus,” Mushengyezi said.
The second project involves the beautification and infrastructure improvement intended to make UCU Main Campus one of the most attractive in East Africa. In 2015, Christianuniverstiesonline.org ranked UCU as among the 50 most beautiful Christian campuses globally.
Mushengyezi said that the University Council has already approved a portion of the projects, which will be implemented in collaboration with private sector partners.
The infrastructure project at the Mukono/main campus includes improvements to the Bishop Tucker Gate; a business centre with a food court; a parking lot; a students’ digital lounge and UCU Information Center. UCU also will construct walkways; install solar lights on the roads within and outside the University; and connect digital screens in buildings for real-time display of time e-tables and e-notices.
The Vice-Chancellor said that UCU also has embarked on a fundraising drive for the construction of the Ordinands Apartment for ordinands and clergy who study at UCU.
Mushengyezi thanked the UCU Chancellor and Church of Uganda Archbishop, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Stephen Samuel Kaziimba Mugalu, for his support for projects and appealed to friends of Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology to provide added assistance.
“All dioceses, organizations and individuals will be listed on a Hall of Fame in the building when it’s completed,” he said. “This will be our priority project for UCU Sunday over the next few years. We thank churches and individuals that have donated funds, and we look forward to contributions from the dioceses from UCU Sunday collections.”
He revealed that Prof. Stephen Noll, the first UCU Vice-Chancellor, had offered to buy a new clock for Bishop Tucker Building and that procurement is also ongoing.
Mushengyezi later took the guests through some of the achievements the different faculties at UCU have posted in the recent past. They included:
$17,335 grant Bishop Tucker School received via Overseas Council Australia to refurbish the department of theology at Mbale University College Campus;
School of Dentistry donation (mobilized by the USA-based UCU Partners) worth thousands of dollars through Midmark Corporation in form of dental equipment that included dental suits/chairs; and
UCU School of Business skills development facility grant through the Private Sector Foundation funded by the World Bank to pioneer a birding course that will strengthen the Bachelor of Hospitality and Tourism program.
The 1,810 students graduating with diplomas and degrees on Friday came from disciplines that include: Theology; Social Work and Social Administration; Public Administration and Management; Law; Environment and Disaster Management; Education; and Development Studies and Public Administration.
The ceremony started with the commissioning service for graduands graced by Archbishop Kaziimba at 10 a.m. Only 80 students, selected for their high academic standing, attended the event physically while others followed it on UCU digital platforms that streamed live. A total of 42 students garnered first class degrees in different disciplines, but with the Faculty of Social Sciences posting the biggest number at 24.
Kaziimba asked the graduands to emulate Jesus on servant leadership. He said: “With servant leadership, there is no need to ask for a seat because we are called not to sit and be served, but to stand and serve others.”
Regarding the forthcoming general elections in Uganda, the Archbishop urged the graduands to exercise Christian influence.
“This is a very important civil duty and I encourage each one of you to vote, and to encourage your peers to also vote,” he said. “As graduates, you have been equipped to think and to analyze issues. Please apply those skills in deciding whom you will vote for. It’s your generation that will help Uganda move to another level in its national development, one that moves peacefully beyond tribalism and overcomes corruption.”
The Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, who was the guest of honor at the ceremony, urged graduands to remain calm during the ongoing campaign period, to love their country and to honor peoples’ political convictions.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
e-Learning compatible with multiple devices that can be accessed by both staff and students. COURTESY PHOTO/UCU Law Society
(NOTE: This article was written before the Uganda National Council for Higher Education gave late August 2020 approval for UCU to offer on-line courses.)
By Alex Taremwa
On Friday, July 3, 2020, my good friend Rebecca Karagwa, a recipient of a generous Uganda Partners scholarship, should have graduated with her Bachelor of Laws from Uganda Christian University (UCU). Only that did not happen. After waiting for online exams in vain, she celebrated anyway. She cut the cake and ate it.
Her official school completion was delayed partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced schools shut but also due to the Ugandan education system technological limbo in 2020. Since the colonial era, classroom instruction in Uganda – even at top government-supported universities like Makerere University (the 8th Best in Africa according to recent rankings) has been a blackboard and chalk affair.
While students in countries like Rwanda begin to interact with computer technology as early as primary school with the help of education tablets that the government freely distributes, it is common for a student in Uganda from a rural area like Kazo to join a university without ever touching a computer.
UCU Students browse online reading material in the UCU Hamu Mukasa Library. COURTESY PHOTO/UCU E-Learning
I write from experience. Before I joined UCU in 2010, the best I knew about a computer was to correctly identify the mouse, keyboard and monitor. It was the first-year, UCU Basic Computing Foundation Course Unit that moved me to computer literacy; I scored 98%. This is true today for many students at Ugandan universities.
While the Ugandan government directed that Information and Computer Technology (ICT) be taught compulsorily at secondary level, most schools in rural areas and some in peri-urban areas have at most eight functional computers to be used by a population of 800 students or even more. At the maximum, each student will have interfaced with the computer for about five full hours in a term. To say that this time is insufficient to create any sort of mastery is an understatement.
Nevertheless, students move on to the universities where some semblance of e-Learning can be felt. Lecturers often send course material on Email and can ably grade assignments through academic systems such as Moodle. But from experience, both students and lecturers confess that the traditional approach where assignments are typed and printed is more “effective” than the modern style because the latter requires an internet connection or a physical presence at the University where one can access free Wi-Fi.
But there is an even bigger reason. Most of the courses taught at universities had not been customized for online delivery. When you visit the Uganda National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) website to see the listed of accredited online courses for universities, you’re met with an empty list. There is, however, a list of new guidelines that the NCHE is mooting to furnish universities in a bid to support their customization of online programs.
Online programs have to be immersive and interactive to compensate for when the students are not physically present at the university as the case is now. The challenge is that neither the university nor the government can guarantee that students will have access to a computer and stable Internet to support this kind of learning.
Statistically, only 42% of Ugandans are connected to the Internet, according to the Uganda Communications Commission. This represents 19 million of the 45 million Ugandans. If you break this figure further, the biggest concentration of Internet users is in Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Entebbe, Jinja and other major towns, but most of the rural countryside where the students are during this lockdown is largely uncovered.
To worsen matters, Uganda has the most expensive Internet per megabyte of all the countries in East Africa. It doesn’t help our case that social media platforms like WhatsApp, on which students are currently interacting as they hope for take home exams, also attract a daily tax.
It would have been better and cheaper for the government to lift tax on social media to promote learning via smartphones on Facebook Live and YouTube but instead, the government is settling to buy two radio and television sets for each of the 140,000 villages in the country. While this happens, universities like the United States International University in Africa in Nairobi, Aga Khan University and other ultramodern institutions have already closed their semesters successfully by administering exams online. All the institutions had to do was to use part of the students’ already paid tuition to activate for them data bundles with which to access, write and submit the exams.
Together with an e-Examination system that closed submissions after the permissible three hours, the universities were able to avoid physical access to the premises, keep COVID-19 at bay and still successfully close their academic calendars with minor interruptions.
Selfishly though, the government has refused to allow institutions like Uganda Christian University (UCU) that have the necessary infrastructure to support e-Learning to proceed with their academic calendar, claiming that some students who are in rural areas will not be able to access the learning material – even when the very students petitioned the Speaker of Parliaments seeking permission to sit their exams and move on with their lives.
Uganda has attempted and failed twice to allow finalists to return to their respective institutions of learning to write their examinations. Information from the corridors of power now has it that the government is mooting to force a dead year on students like Karagwa that were hoping to graduate simply because there is no infrastructure to support e-Learning.
As long as COVID-19 is still a global pandemic, education in Uganda will remain on halt and even when schools resume in the near future, e-Learning will remain a far cry until the technological barriers to uptake are addressed.
Alex Taremwa is a journalist, a graduate of UCU and an MA student at the Graduate School of Media and Communications (GSMC) of The Aga Khan University in Nairobi.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
(L-R)-The Vice Chancellor Dr. John Senyonyi, Chancellor Archbishop Stephen Kazimba Mugalu, at UCU.
After his enthronement as the 9th Archbishop of the Province of the Church of Uganda on March 1, 2020, Dr. Stephen Kazimba Mugalu became the Chancellor of Uganda Christian University (UCU) in line with the institution’s Charter. The Rt. Rev. Kazimba was officially inaugurated as UCU’S Chancellor on March 20, 2020. His leadership has been hindered by the Uganda government order closing academic institutions to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. In this July 16 interview with John Semakula, the new Archbishop and UCU chancellor discussed challenges and opportunities for education, Christians and the church.
How long have you been connected with UCU? I am an alumnus of Bishop Tucker Theological College, which trained me many years ago. When the University was beginning, and it was a transition from Bishop Tucker to Uganda Christian University, I was a student. I am grateful to God for how far He has taken us and for the way He has kept Bishop Tucker and UCU. And for all those who have been in leadership like the Archbishop Livingstone Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo, Henry Luke Orombi and Stanley Ntagali, my predecessor. These were Chancellors. But we have also had wonderful Vice-Chancellors like Prof. Stephen Noll, who was in charge when I was a student, and his successor, the Rev. Cannon Dr. John Senyonyi.
During your short tenure as Chancellor, can you summarize challenges? Like any other university because of COVID-19, UCU is at the moment experiencing some challenges. After the government imposed a lockdown in March, the University was very ready to offer on-line exams, but because of one reason or the other, the government discouraged the exams that time. That is why I say it’s not only UCU, but also all the other universities because there are no students, and the income is not there.
Some are concerned that UCU’S Vice Chancellor of 10 years, John Senyonyi, is retiring on August 31 at this critical time. What are your thoughts? What a challenge! But God’s ways are not ours. God’s ways of doing things are incomprehensible. But where there is a challenge, there is an advantage. I learnt this from a missionary called Hudson Taylor. He said: “Your setback can be a setup for your comeback.” So at the time I came as an Archbishop and Chancellor, immediately the country was locked down. But there are other things we are learning together during this critical time. I am so grateful that I was installed as the chancellor just a few days before the lockdown. We are also happy that we are going to have another Vice-Chancellor who is coming in office almost like myself when the country is still under the lockdown. Possibly by the time he comes, maybe there will be change. I am not sure, but we trust God for His leadership.
Dr. Stephen Kazimba Mugalu
What message do you have for Dr. Senyonyi, who is retiring? He became the Vice-Chancellor when I had already left UCU as a student. But I first met him when he was working with the African Evangelist Enterprise, and he did great work. This is the Ministry that was started by the late Bishop Festo Kivengere, a powerful preacher of the Gospel and a teacher. Dr. Senyonyi, I can say, is the product of Bishop Kivengere and I am sure he would be happy to hear that because of his great heart of evangelism, he has reached out to many to ensure that there is transformation. When Dr. Senyonyi came to UCU from the African Evangelist Enterprise and joined as a chaplain, he found that being a university, there was a lot that was needed especially in the area of the chaplaincy. He is the one who put in place the structure we have in the chaplaincy. He ensured real worshiping among students during community hour fellowship. He is a man with a heart for the mission at the University and at all the campuses. In addition, I think because of his passion for the gospel, the University is the Center of Excellence in the Heart of Africa.
How has Dr. John Senyonyi’s spirituality impacted on the UCU community? UCU is supposed to be the backbone that produces men and women who can bring about transformation in this country. That is the transformation I call conversion of the head, heart and the hands – the holistic and total transformation. When Dr. Senyonyi succeeded Prof. Stephen Noll, I think the later had done great work of mentoring him. You know what we are lacking in most of our institutions today is mentoring. Some people do good work, but mentoring others to succeed them is not something they prioritize. Some even look at their juniors or colleagues as threats because they think they will take over their offices, but one day they will retire. I am sure all we have achieved in the area of spirituality as UCU is linked to Dr. Senyonyi and Prof. Noll. This is definitely important to all of us because without total transformation, we are doing nothing. Actually when employers are looking for the best lawyers in Uganda, priority goes to the UCU Alumni. This is attributed to the total transformation of their heads and hearts. You can’t work well when the heart and mind are corrupted.
Any other attributes to Dr. Senyonyi? Dr. Senyonyi encouraged all the workers at UCU to put their marriages right. I don’t know whether they were requested kindly or by force, but they ended up appreciating afterwards. But it started with him. I can’t imagine a University like UCU having immoral people, who are cohabiting. I think Dr. Senyonyi did a great work. Dr. Senyonyi also encouraged people to pursue further studies and now we have well equipped professors. So we are going to miss Dr. Senyonyi, but definitely his successor Dr. Aaron Mushengyezi will do a nice job. I want to end with one thing about Dr. Senyonyi. He is a man of integrity; he is committed to God and is a preacher of the Gospel. He accepted Christ long time ago, and I am happy that he is supported by his wife, Dr. Ruth Senyonyi, a professional counselor. Ruth is a daughter of Bishop Misael Kawuma who confirmed me. She has lived to the standard of a daughter of a bishop. She has supported Dr. Senyonyi. Dr. Senyonyi exhibited integrity while dealing with money; a University like UCU is not getting a lot from government. You hear corruption stories in other places. I can’t say that there are no problems at UCU, but they are normal abnormalities. I wish Dr. Senyonyi God’s blessings in his retirement and I wish the same to the incoming Vice Chancellor.
How do you compare UCU to other Universities in Uganda? The University itself is admired by other universities in the area of spirituality. Once somebody is touched spiritually, other areas can follow very well. The areas are interwoven. In the other area of order, when you visit UCU, it’s well organized. I go to other campuses and say really? But at UCU, the compound, the buildings and all these other things reflect a wonderful Jesus.
And what does it mean to be a Chancellor of UCU? It’s very important for everyone to know that this University was founded by the Province of the Church of Uganda. This was mainly to ensure that there is promotion of holistic ministry, which covers three areas of Jesus Christ: teaching, preaching and healing. And because of that, the Charter indicates that the Chancellor of this University must be the Archbishop and one of the roles of the Chancellor is to ensure that he presides over the graduations, and that the values of the Church in the areas of spirituality, and academics are maintained. The Chancellor is therefore the father figure of the University and ensures that all the interests of the founders, like the bishops, are observed.
The Church of Uganda came up with the UCU Sunday in September to promote and support UCU financially. How do you feel about diocese support or lack of support? Because this University is founded by the Anglican Church, definitely this is a child of the Church and like any other responsible parent, when you have a child you must ensure that you support him or her. And so the Provincial Assembly, which is the supreme body of the Church of Uganda, decided that at least the first Sunday of September would be a UCU Sunday. This is mainly to ensure that every Church in Uganda talks about UCU, and sensitizes the congregation about what the University offers. But also to have the offertory, thanksgiving go towards supporting UCU. That one was agreed upon and I want to ask all Christians and the clergy to ensure that we respect our own resolution. Those who have done it, very well, we are so grateful, but those who are not yet on board, we need to encourage them. But definitely, this has just started. We want to invite the bishops, all God’s people. Let me also make this very clear, the UCU Sunday is not about money. It’s about making UCU known allover Uganda and outside. This is the Sunday we need to use to mobilize for students, and talk about the contribution of UCU to the community.
As the Chancellor, how do you intend to help UCU raise operational funds? If we are to raise funds for the University, we must begin with me and you reading this story. It’s our responsibility. The way to raise resources is also to mobilize students to come and pay school fees. That is very important. But since this is a private University, we need a lot more resources. I want also to appeal to the government of Uganda to support these private Universities because the students we educate are not private. They are government students and once they graduate, they serve the government. One way of government supporting these Universities is to waive the taxes or remove them on some of the things they use.
Any appeal to UCU Partners and donors, who have done a credible job already? I want to appreciate the donor communities for the way they support the University and I would like to further call upon our partners, the UCU friends. I know that there is donor fatigue, but I appreciate you so much the way you support us. We are also aware that there are those who do not know how to support us. Please you can do it in any way. You can connect us to someone who can donate a gift to the university. You can support us by giving us scholarships to equip our professors with Masters and PhDs. You can give partial scholarships or help our students who want to study abroad. By doing so you are supporting the University. And lastly, praying for the University. But as you know, prayer goes with actions. Faith without action is nothing, says St. James.
Why should someone study from UCU? Outside all the other reasons that I have already given, I and all the other bishops in Uganda plus many prominent Ugandans are products of UCU. UCU has wonderful professors. I am inviting students to apply for any course they want, let it be education, law or mass communication, you will be blessed by studying at UCU. We embraced e-learning already before COVID-19, and it’s the way to go so join UCU.
How are you helping to ensure that the Churches that have been closed since March 23 in Uganda due to the coronavirus pandemic are reopened? I don’t agree that the Churches have been closed since March. It’s the buildings that have been closed. Actually we have many Churches that have been opened during this period. I minister every Sunday to over 10,000 people using live streaming and television and this is the way to go. But sure, we are lacking fellowship, because I preach to many people, I don’t see them. But we have collaborated with other religious leaders to come up with a strategy called spiritual standard operation procedures, which we have submitted to the COVID-19 national task force to study. In the strategy, we have indicated that whoever will come to Church must have a mask. We have ushers to ensure that it’s done. Whoever doesn’t have a mask will not be allowed in Church. So we are organized. We shall also have sanitizers at every Church. And everyone entering Church will be required to wash their hands. In between the services, we shall have to spray before another begins. For the offertory, there will be a stick used to hold the bag where money is put. On the number of services, where we have been having three, we can have five or even six to ensure physical distancing. We are more ready and it will be a matter of sensitizing people. If we tell the flock to sit, it does, and to stand, it does which no politician can do. And we have divine authority.
Some pastors have called for protests against the continued closure of Churches? We are not supporting things like demonstrations and protests, we are peaceful people and we encourage dialogue. COVID-19 is there and we are aware and what we have proposed in the strategy is to help government to know that we are ready to cooperate because you can’t close Churches and open Kikubo one of the busiest places in the city center. We are more organized than the traders in Kikuboand in the shopping malls and arcades.
How is the Church caring for retired bishops under COVID-19? Definitely, it’s a very big challenge. The Province has always catered for retired bishops through their dioceses. But due to COVID-19, there some dioceses that have no means of income to ensure that they care for the incumbents and those who retired. It’s a challenge I now have as the Archbishop to ensure that we come up with the income generating activities to address this. And the Church must realize that the old tools can’t solve the new challenges. We must do business, do farming, plant trees and this must apply even to our University. We must look for new tools even in the way we communicate. Old tools don’t apply. I am ready to bring more changes.
How have you avoided money temptations as a top Church leader? Transparency, accountability and integrity are all Christian Values. We must embrace them because it’s the teaching of Jesus Christ in Mathew Chapter 5:13-14. You must be the light and salt of the world. It’s Jesus who saved me on March 7, 1984. Ever since I got saved, I discovered a secret in being transparent and accountable. This is what an American evangelist said about integrity: It is something you do at night, and in broad daylight. I want to call upon all God’s people. We must be transparent. Once you tamper with transparency, you block God’s blessings for you, your children and your children’s children.
The interviewer, John Semakula, is a graduate of Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies of Uganda Christian University (UCU). He is the supervisor of The Standard newspaper and lecturer of journalism and communication at UCU. John worked as a Senior Writer with the New Vision newspaper for eight years.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Outgoing Uganda Christian University (UCU) Vice Chancellor, John Senyonyi (right front) poses recently with some of his leadership team, including the Mayor of Mukono, George Fred Kagimu (third from right); and the incoming Vice Chancellor, Aaron Mushengyezi (third from left).
By the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi Vice Chancellor, Uganda Christian University
The global COVID-19 pandemic is both unprecedented and baffling. It has locked up countries with the best healthcare systems, and plagued palaces and Presidential houses, just as it has pervaded slums. Churches and schools have been barred from physical gatherings, as well as places of amusement.
As Christians we have not been spared. We bend our knees in prayer pleading for God’s intervention during this crisis. For what can a believer do than cry for God’s deliverance?
In the early 1980’s, the political and security situation in Uganda similarly defied all hope. In desperation people half-jestingly would say, “God lost Uganda’s file,” to mean God had forgotten about Uganda. Had He?
A comparable pestilence struck Eilenburg, Germany, in the 1630s. It is said thousands died. People, including clergy, either fled Eilenburg or died. One pastor, Martin Rinkart, stayed and alone performed more than 4,000 funerals. His wife, too, perished. A famine followed the plague. Yet Rinkart shared his food with all he could. In the midst of this tragedy, Rinkart wrote a hymn of gratitude we know well, Now Thank We All Our God. He thanked God.
In modern Christian parlance, health and wealth have become a human right before God. Acquisition has become a “spiritual virtue,” alongside discontent. We tell God how He should run His world! We give thanks only when we get what we want. We even attribute our welfare entirely to our self-care.
But the Bible is relentless in urging us to thank God. Paul urges, “Give thanks in all circumstances …” All circumstances is not in some circumstances. During COVID-19, and even with bereavement thereby, or with other misfortunes.
Gratitude is important because it is as contagious as ingratitude. Children who grow up in thankful homes develop a brighter spirit toward life. The converse is equally true. The pilgrim children of Israel coming from Egypt demonstrate the infectiousness of grumbling.
The Bible does not command us to thank God for the crisis or misfortune, but in the midst of the situation. It commands and commends giving thanks because of who God is in His nature, and especially to us.
We may not know the circumstances that inspired King David to pen more than 70 psalms, including Psalm 103 (Bless the Lord, O my soul), though we are all too familiar with David’s personal troubles. They were not unlike our own. David endured many personal trials.
He encourages us not to forget all God’s benefits. For when hardships come, present circumstances press so hard that as a reflex, our emotions dominate our response. In adversity, we do not remember the past goodness of God easily.
Now, without a memory it is impossible to give thanks to God. For that reason, David says, “forget not all His benefits.” This is a fundamental statement. There is wit and truth in the statement, “the principal function of the brain is to forget.” If you will not remember, you will not thank God. Gratitude first reflects on what the LORD has done, and that is in the past.
David is teaching us a central truth that our circumstances should not dictate our relationship with God or how we walk with Him. Gratitude comes when we reflect on God’s goodness in our life – not the future, but the past. So, we can be thankful amidst the COVID-19, if we know where we have come from.
Moreover, David gives valid reasons for gratitude that are applicable to all. God forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies, and each verb is present continuous imputing God’s unending care and blessings. God’s unmerited Grace forgives our sins and heals our diseases and redeems our life from the pit.
That the Coronavirus has no medicine should be telling that God alone has spared His people. In Uganda, with our grossly imperfect health systems, people have not died in hordes as predicted. According to data, only five have died so far. Some friends were down with the Coronavirus and appeared near to death. Yet God’s mercy spared them. Bless the LORD, O my soul.
As David calls upon all people to thank God, he explains the means whereby we should thank Him. Thanksgiving is vain unless it flows from within – that is, from one’s soul. Thanksgiving is not the words we speak or the gifts we bring before God. Unless the heart is thankful, all external expressions are empty public rhetoric and display.
Equally, a thankful heart cannot be suppressed; it must burst out into expressed gratitude. The Psalmists repeatedly talk of thanking God among the people. Their thanksgiving flows from within to without, into Praise and Offerings to God and care for others.
A story is told that a man once stole the famous Bible commentator, Matthew Henry’s wallet. That can be traumatizing. When he reflected on the incident, Henry (1662-1714) had four reasons to thank God.
He was first of all thankful that the man had never robbed him before. Then he was thankful that although the man had taken his wallet and he certainly could have caused more harm, he did not take his life also. Furthermore, although the man had taken all Henry had, there wasn’t much in that wallet. And finally, Henry thanked God that he had been robbed, rather than he, Henry, doing the robbing.
Crises often have a silver lining. In the education sector, COVID-19 has been an eye opener. As human physical interaction receded, the virtual world that appeared distant and optional became urgent and necessary. It also has become more real in connecting the world, as the less fortunate yearn to be included in the new world.
We certainly do not know all the dangers God rescues us from, but we know that the Man who was bruised at Calvary is in control. He will not let you go – not even during the COVID-29 pandemic!
Therefore, we can confidently say with David, “Bless the LORD, O, my soul.” Amen.
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The need to support Uganda Christian University programs, students, and services is ever greater during COVID-19 and the lockdown of education. To contribute, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Retiring UCU Vice Chancellor John Senyonyi, second from right, and his predecessor, Dr. Stephen Noll, right, with Archbishop Emeritus Henry Luke Orombi, his predecessor, Livingstone Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo (second left) and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Michael Kyomya bishop emeritus of Busoga Diocese.
The Archbishop emeritus of the of the Province of the Church of Uganda and former Chancellor of Uganda Christian University (UCU), the Rt. Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, has joined the list of prominent clergy bidding farewell to Cannon Dr. John Senyonyi, who is retiring from the office of the Vice-Chancellor on August 31. Archbishop Orombi, who retired in 2012, was the University’s chancellor 10 years ago when Dr. Senyonyi was assuming the office. In this July 20, 2020, interview with John Semakula, the retired archbishop speaks out on why he chose Dr. Senyonyi for the position and why the Church is proud of UCU.
How is retirement? Some people have thought that I am not retired. I have only shifted camp. I left Namirembe, the Provincial home of the Archbishop and went to Nebbi as my main base in retirement. And I have continued to serve God and minister in many different ways. I have continued to help dioceses in the province and beyond our country. I have gone to Kenya several times, and Tanzania once. I went to Korea in November, and to the US before COVID-19 became serious. So I have been a busy man, extremely busy. The Lord has given me the strength and ability in me.
Why did you retire a year before the official end of your term as Archbishop? Everybody has a calling and a reason for that calling. When I came in 2004 as the Archbishop, I had a few things that I believed God wanted me to do. First was to bring peace to the Province. We had five dioceses which were not functioning well, and it was succession, seriously. There was no leadership; there were gaps there, so there were wrangles. Second, we needed to bring back our young people who were scattered. I believe that the young people were scattered because they were looking for a pulpit that can feed them. The third was the Church House, which was a 40-year dream that had to take off. And then, I also wanted to preach the gospel nationally. Once those things were done, results were already good, the Province was settled and then we had the Church House already started up to a level from where my successor started and finished it up, and the young people came back to the Church, finances were stable, I felt that my assignments were over. I was remaining with only one year to finish my tenure as we normally do 10 years as Archbishops, and I did nine. So I did not even see why I needed to spend another 12 months doing nothing. I said I have finished; let me go back and preach the gospel, which I am doing right now.
Any challenges in retirement? Yes, a lot of challenges. You just can’t do as much as you desire to do. Your physical body is not going to tell you that you can rush all over the place all the time. I have too many invitations that I cannot meet and that is why I do my diary two years at a time. So the 2021 items in my dairy are now filling up and by the time I get into December, I am already putting to finish the 2021 diary for my partners who are praying with me. So much as my spirit is always willing; my body can’t do it all, and now in retirement I can say to some people that I can’t do that and I can’t come to you. Remember that travelling up and down this country is a lot of work.
The interviewer, John Semakula, and Archbishop emeritus Henry Luke Orombi pause for a photo after the interview in Muyenga, Kampala. (Photo by Sam Tatambuka).
How have you been affected individually by COVID-19? Do you know that the day the lockdown was imposed, we were passing through Entebbe Airport from the US together with my wife? We arrived on March 18, the same day the President was on air issuing the restrictions that the airport will close, schools, and everything else. The airport authority said they were supposed to quarantine us in Entebbe, but asked us to do self quarantine. We went to Mukono to get a two-day’s breath then travelled to our upcountry home in Nebbi. After a month, the Ministry of Health sent a team to come and test us. They took our samples and the results came back negative. I have since been at home for four months, and the first trip I made was this one.
You were the chancellor when Dr. John Senyonyi became the Vice-Chancellor of UCU 10 years ago. Why did you endorse him? Dr. Senyonyi had been mentored already by Prof. Stephen Noll, his predecessor. He had worked alongside him and knew UCU very well. And what I thought about him then was the trust Prof. Noll had about him. That trust is always good because somebody who is local and locally bred and if people can trust him, let alone a Muzungu (white man), it means he has seen quality in the person and so we were very considerate about the honest assessment from Prof. Noll. I have also known John for a very long period of time ever since he was with the African Evangelist Enterprise.
What is your honest assessment of Dr. Senyonyi’s tenure as he retires in August? He has come to the end of his work without any single crisis. He has not been fired by the board or by anybody else. For me what will always tell you that somebody is a good leader is how they finish. When the people finish well and peacefully, then you know that they have worked their way within the best of their abilities and have finished. Perfect? No. Nobody is perfect. There are other things that could have happened that can happen to anybody. But Dr. Senyonyi’s main achievement is that he finished well and that in 10 years, UCU has grown in numbers, quality, and infrastructure. UCU is now one of those institutions in the country with a name and that depends on how the leadership has been. He has been at the apex of that leadership. I am also thankful that he has not collapsed because of diabetes, high blood pressure or stroke.
Any advice to Dr. Senyonyi for his retirement? John, you are coming out, but you have a lot of energy. May God give you opportunity to use your energy because men like you need outlet for energy. Use your gifts to bless this country.
And any word to the incoming Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Aaron Mushengyezi? Be a leader who is transparent. Listen because you learn a lot from your faculty and students. Be a man who is humble enough to ask for assistance. Even Jesus recruited disciples who would help him to advance his mission. And may I ask God to give you discernment to choose the right kind of people to advise you. Anything can rise or fail because of the kind of people who are advising you. I also pray that you will understand that this is about serving people and God. It’s not about prestige or promotion.
How does UCU fit into the mission of the Province of the Church of Uganda? UCU was a child conceived by Archbishop Livingstone Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo. And it’s an investment in the building of the next generation. That is one of the core values of the Church, to think ahead. For the Church our pride is we have ministered and we have served not only Uganda, but other countries around us and elsewhere because we partner very heavily with Nigeria. Nigerians have come to study here. We are also linked internationally. Trinity Divinity School has sent us people here and we have sent our people over there. So our international connection as a Church brings these things about. The Church is not only a local entity, but global and we see that happen as the Church’s pride in UCU. And also I think that comments people make, makes the Church encouraged and proud that we are producing results that are a blessing not only for our nation, but all the place where our people go to.
The Provincial assembly set aside the first Sunday in September for the dioceses to promote and fundraise for UCU. Why are some not cooperating? I don’t even want to think about the UCU Sunday. I want to think about Ugandans who have money to sometimes provide in their will that would like to put for UCU sh5m, sh10m or whatever. And this should be regular. You know when people are willing to give and give genuinely? Yesterday I had a man I met in the Archbishop’s place, a man who is a member of our Church with such a giving ability. He has done work with the Archbishop when he was still a bishop in Mityana. The Archbishop was telling us that he came to fundraise for their cathedral roofing and one man alone said he wanted to give sh100m ($27,284.70) for the project. When the money wasn’t enough, they came to say that they still needed some more money. The same man said he would give another $27,284.70 – Sh200m ($54,569.4) from one person? Now that to me tells me that we have people who are willing to give towards the cause of the Church including UCU. Let’s just put it for an argument’s sake, we have 20 Ugandans who are willing to commit $27.284.70 per year. That money is more than what comes from the dioceses. That’s how the Americans do it. They have philanthropists who are willing to commit money regularly for 5 to 10 years. That’s much more easier for planning purposes than when you are waiting for money to come in when you even don’t know how much it is.
How is that kind of fundraising possible in Uganda? I was in Mbarara District and for four years coming every November, we would go there, I was encouraging Christians to put their Church in the town. The Archdeaconry of greater Mbarara has now built a church, the biggest in Uganda, a 7,000 seater. Very beautiful indeed, but when they wanted to raise money for the roof, they invited the President of Uganda to come and the bishop stood up to say how much the Christians have actually committed to build the church without a bank loan. He said there is one Christian here, who built the offshoot of this Church in Kakooba near Bishop Stuart University and he and his family alone raised sh250m ($68,211.75).
Any message for UCU students going through challenges due to COVID-19? My encouragement to the students is that while you are out there, think as a student, but as a useful student. Meaning that if you are home with your guardian or parents, employ yourself. Make yourself useful. If there is a way you can eliminate the burden of finances, do it. I have university students in my home and I never give them the money. They will come to me and say, dad, give us work to do because they have their personal needs. So where I would be asking other people to do the work for me and pay them, I pay my own family members because they are willing to serve. That’s the way to go.
And any message for Christians going through the same kind of suffering? I only want to tell you Christians that what we are going through is not foreign to God. He understands it more than we do. He knows we need to wear, eat, and to be accommodated. He also knows that we need to be healthy even more deeply, so allow God to understand that we actually know that He knows. Yesterday I was emphasizing a lot on prayer. I said that there are two things that Jesus taught us. First, he taught us who God is. The God who is the father in heaven, the holy God, King of Kings, our protector, the forgiver of our sins, the shepherded of our souls and the defender of our lives. That is God in his quality. And then he is related to us. He is a friend, God our friend and our father. We still have our hotline with God our father and I know there are testimonies I have already heard during this period. On Saturday, I was in Makerere with a chaplain and his wife was giving a testimony about how God was intervening in their domestic needs this way: A batch of matooke will come, when it’s about to get finished, another one will come from different people and all are strangers. Why? The God who knows our different needs knows how we will survive.
Why should a student study from UCU? I don’t think that we are going to sell UCU more than it has already been sold. UCU is so well known. UCU is a university with Christian ethos, which in itself makes it a very special place. Secondly, our products from UCU are very marketable. When you finish from UCU, the workplace out there is looking for UCU graduates, and it’s because of the kind of way we have disciplined people and how we have brought them up. Thirdly, UCU carries with it the pride of the Church of Uganda and I am amazed the other people, Roman Catholics and Muslims, are attracted to this University and we do the foundation course, Christian Ethics, which gives the basis for UCU. So when other people who are not members of the Church of Uganda are attracted, then you know that something good is there. We keep that as a point of attraction because we deliver and anybody intending to apply for University education should come to UCU.
Where do you want to see UCU in the next 20 years? From an honest perspective, I don’t want UCU to grow beyond what it can manage. By the time a place becomes so popular, the temptation is to grow it and grow it. But if you grow it so big and you can’t manage it, your products are going to lose quality. So I would want UCU to keep growing, but very calculatedly, steadily and gently. What I would also want UCU to do is to strengthen the (regional) colleges. We have one in Mbale, we have another one in Kabale; we also have a study centre in Arua. I would love to see these become fully fledged colleges so that both Arua and Mbale should not come to the main campus for their graduations. Like Bishop Barham in Kabale, their graduation takes place there. I would like to see that built up so that we can decentralize our services. For somebody to come from Arua to graduate in Mukono is very expensive unnecessarily.
But some people say UCU has a very expensive tuition policy? The point is that UCU is a private institution. It doesn’t get any help from government. It works itself out with all the things we have in terms of infrastructure, lecturers’ salaries and everything else from the students’ tuition. In the end, it becomes expensive, but you actually get the worth of your tuition.
What do you say about Ugandan politicians who are secretly holding political meetings in churches that were closed in March to mitigate the spread of COVID-19? There is no leadership in those areas where this is happening. If there was leadership, the leaders would know that church buildings are sacred and dedicated to God. They would not allow politicians to use them. The politicians would rather look for other places for their activities. Churches are dwelling places for the Lord.
The interviewer, John Semakula, is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies of Uganda Christian University (UCU). He is the supervisor of The Standard newspaper and lecturer of journalism and Communication at UCU. John has worked with the New Vision newspaper for over 15 years.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
The Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, seated, with his wife, Ruth, and children and grandchildren in 2017
At the end of August 2020, the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi says farewell to 19 years of service at Uganda Christian University (UCU), having come first in 2001 as a chaplain. He has been vice chancellor since 2010. He retires in the midst of COVID-related, government orders of education shutdowns. In this last segment of a two-part series, UCU Vice Chancellor Senyonyi gives his thoughts on various aspects of his leadership and the university. John Semakula, a UCU graduate and lecturer, conducted this interview on July 6.
What key lessons have you learned as the Vice-Chancellor? There is one fallacy. When we need someone to manage a university, academic qualification lends more weight than other requirements. To the best of my knowledge, if you are to manage a university, academic qualifications are necessary, but I would not even put them as number one. On the contrary, leadership qualities like listening, knowing that you are serving people, setting aside your own selfishness, being available and strategic thinking are more important. I also have learned that when it comes to managing people, it becomes more complex than even managing things like financial or building resources. The relationship with people is what is very critical because it is what will give you the respect and confidence to serve. If the people you lead don’t have respect in you, it doesn’t matter what you do.
Former UCU Vice Chancellor, Dr. Stephen Noll, right, and John Senyonyi, left, with Henry Luke Orombi, former Archbishop of the Church of Uganda
Any lessons on financing for a private University? There is one mistake that many managers of academic institutions make – that is to think that you must always look outside yourself to get the resources you need to manage an institution. What happens quite often is if it is a public institution, it looks to government to finance its activities. If it’s a private institution, at this present time, many don’t even know what to do at all. But you have got to be creative. It’s a wrong model to always turn to government for money that it does not usually have. My argument has always been that government should give us the right environment to operate in terms of taxation, or if we are talking about land to allow us to observe the law of ownership. Unless that is done, it becomes impossible for the institution to own land in a meaningful way. Many people have also come to me to benchmark thinking that UCU relies heavily on foreign funding. However, for the last 10 years, I can stand here and testify that I have received no foreign support for any capital development. None whatsoever, they have supported scholarships for students and things like that, but definitely no windfall of money that has put up a classroom building or worked on the roads and so forth. So this business of thinking that an outsider will finance what you need to do, I think for me, has been a very big lesson.
What has been the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the infrastructure at UCU? When buildings are not in use, they fall into disrepair, and that is what brings me pain and anxiety. I start wondering how much the University will invest to repair them when eventually it reopens, especially if it takes very long to get them back to tenantable condition.
Has government promised to finance private universities in the lockdown? What I have heard government say is not about providing grants, but loans. Once you talk of a loan, the first thing that someone will always have to think about is how to access it in a responsible way according to your cash-flows, both present and projected. We can’t take a loan at this time when we are even rescheduling the loans we had. If it was a grant, I would have been at the door of the government knocking so that I can support my staff. Government did indeed ask us how much we need to survive per month, which I sent them. We sent them our monthly bill that has payroll and utilities, above shb1.7bn (roughly $460,000), but I am not very sure that they are going to do anything more. I would be very happy if they can. I wrote a letter to His Excellency the President and to the Minister of Education (also the first lady),asking for support for private universities. Right now government is supporting public universities by paying salaries of staff and all that, but who is taking care of our staff? So the ball is pretty much in the hands of government to ensure that there is some support that comes to us as private institutions.
Why did UCU suspend staff contracts during the COVID-19 lockdown? The suspension is like putting on hold any obligations or liabilities that the University would have had toward those staff members, and it was to help save resources so that the University remains afloat even minimally. The suspension is saying that for the time being, you are a staff member, but we have no obligation and liabilities with respect to your benefits. I have to admit that probably, for all my 10 years as Vice-Chancellor or even for the 20 years I have been at the University, it was the most painful thing to do to look at all your staff and say we are not going to hold responsibility for paying your salary, well knowing it’s their livelihood.
Will the staff be paid the salary arrears in future? To promise that we shall pay the salary in arrears later is to make the assumption that for this period we shall be getting revenue that accrues to that time. Only public institutions can operate that way.
What piece of advice do you have for the incoming Vice-Chancellor? Fortunately, we are already doing some orientation sessions with him and they are going very well. To me I think that has been very helpful. We are exposing him to the full breadth of what I have been involved with. But I would say that first and foremost, he is coming from outside so it’s much better and foremost to be a listener. Implementation is not normally the best thing to start immediately. Leadership is like trying to place interlocking bricks. Before I place it, I need to know what fits where. Listening is critical to achieve that and will give him an opportunity to also understand the systems that are in place. He will of course be free to change according to his vision, but when you change before you have listened, it appears like you want to rub away what others have done. The problem with that is that you think you are changing what your predecessor has done, but you are also rubbing away all those people that are connected with it and may still be on staff. You are telling them that what they were doing is useless and that it was not the best way of doing it.
Any spiritual advice for your successor on how to handle staff and spirituality? The best people that will help him to settle down are within the University – not without. They are the ones he is going to live and work with. Other people may advise, but ultimately he needs to make sure that he connects with the staff rather than trying to create a relationship gap with them. What he does with staff members also becomes important with students. On the spiritual side, he is a Christian, which is very excellent. It will be very important for him who is not an ordained person not to relinquish his role as the spiritual leader in the University. That role may be carried out differently because he is not going to stand and lead services, he may not even be a preacher. He may not do the same thing that I have been doing, but his spiritual leadership is important to ensure that whatever has been in place in terms of spiritual leadership continues.
What advice do you have for the new Chancellor? I think the job of the new chancellor is easier. First and foremost, I think giving opportunities for the Vice-Chancellor and his leadership team to meet with him on a regular basis. One of the things we did here to ensure that we meet him quite often almost every semester was simply to create pastoral visits for the Chancellor. He comes and interacts with different people. There may also be time when the Vice-Chancellor may need to have a one on one or an opportunity away from here. Secondary for the Chancellor, one of the most critical things is to keep in mind that UCU is the Provincial University. Therefore, as Archbishop, he has the responsibility to ensure that the Provincial nature of this University is protected before the eyes of the Church. That means that all the bishops have a stake in the University. Unlike other Anglican founded Universities, when it comes to UCU, all the dioceses under the Province must see their responsibility and the chancellor is key in ensuring that they understand this such that they don’t look at the University like any other.
What has been your biggest challenge as the Vice-Chancellor in the last 10 years Inevitably, everything goes back to meager resources because if you wanted to get very good staff members and to furnish classrooms, you need the resources. When I talk about infrastructure, it still goes back to resources. Essentially what you are looking at is a University that depends almost entirely, more than 90 percent on student tuition. When you are in that kind of situation, you have got to put more weight on students to pay up. But if they don’t pay up, they won’t get the services. So it’s the issue of resources that has been my biggest headache. I sleep and wake up thinking about resources.
What is management doing to overcome the burden of inadequate resources? We have tried various ways to think of how we can harness some resources from the University particularly using our land from Ntawo, but then the problem is that squatters have put down their foot. They don’t want to compensate not even entering a relationship with the University that owns that land. That means that the University that owns this prime land, which we could have used to build an endowment can’t. So the issue of resources stands out as the one challenge that any Vice-Chancellor needs to come too and resolve.
What is the biggest challenge awaiting the new Vice-Chancellor? It’s still the same, inadequate resources. Some people quite often think that research money will bridge the financial gap. Research money will come and may be used to purchase some equipment, put up a building, but people are not going to give you money to run the University. Inevitably the biggest challenge that I think the new Vice-Chancellor will face is to ensure that there are resources that do not come from abroad that depend on any external factors other than the fact that the University has its own resources.
What advice do you have for the staff members you are leaving behind? Welcome the incoming Vice-Chancellor warmly because as much as his own handling of staff is important for that relationship to advance the mission of the University, it’s also true that unless staff members are open to welcome him, it also becomes problematic. Secondary, my experience in a University like this is that unless you feel a sense of calling to do this work, I am afraid it becomes very difficult for one to get the job satisfaction. It’s very easy to come here and do your work more or less for what you are going to get at the end of the month. That is important because people should get their pay, but if that is all that attracts you to UCU, you will not get the satisfaction. Staff members should take pride in a few years down the road to be able to look back and say I contributed to that University that there is a brick I put there.
How have you avoided the temptation to mismanage University finances? There is no position I have assumed because I am going to earn. Earning? Yes, I do, but I do whatever job as a vocation. This is my third station because I started from Makerere University. Then God called me and I spent another 13 years in an evangelical organization. I didn’t come here until I was convinced that God was calling me to serve. I knew he was calling me to be the University chaplain. Later, it was quite a bit of convincing to come out of the chaplaincy to be the deputy Vice-Chancellor. Eventually God just said; you will go whether you like it or not. When the Vice-Chancellor’s slot was falling vacant, ideally I was refusing to apply. I remember asking the then Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Stephen Noll whether I had to apply. He was encouraging. I still said no, and eventually it was my youngest son who convinced me by asking me a very serious theological question. He said: “If you don’t apply, how will you know that God is choosing you to serve in that capacity?” So that is when I applied, but it was like saying I don’t care if I don’t get it. When I am serving, I see money or resources and power as what God has equipped me with to serve others. Proverbs 22:1 says a good name is to be treasured more than riches. But for many people, when they get a job, it’s getting rich that becomes the most important. For me according to that verse, the most important thing is to have a good name. I want to be able to go through this University with an untarnished name.
Any piece of advice for thestudents as you leave? I think I have grieved more for the students than anything. The reason I grieve for the students is very simple; I went to the University of Nairobi a year before they had had a lockdown of the University for five months. The University of Nairobi used to be closed quite a bit. So when I look at these students I feel that what those others at the University of Nairobi went through. At least for them they had government supporting them. But this lockdown has created a situation where the students have suffered a setback by months and it may even be by years in terms of their career development. Secondary what will happen when they go out? Will the job market still be the same? That itself may set them back for years because the job market is going to struggle to get back to its rails. I feel for them.
The interviewer,John Semakula, is a graduate of Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies of Uganda Christian University (UCU). Currently, he works as the supervisor of The Standard newspaper and lecturer of journalism and Communication at UCU. John worked as a Senior Writer with the New Vision newspaper for eight years.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
The Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi, departing vice chancellor, shares thoughts with journalist John Semakula (Photo by Samuel Tatambuka)
At the end of August 2020, the Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi says farewell to 19 years of service at Uganda Christian University (UCU), having come first in 2001 as a chaplain. He has been vice chancellor since 2010. He retires in the midst of COVID-related, government orders of education shutdowns. In this two-part series, UCU Vice Chancellor Senyonyi gives his thoughts on the pandemic and other aspects of his leadership and the university. This July 6 interview was conducted by John Semakula, a UCU graduate and lecturer.
What has been the impact of closing the University due to the Coronavirus pandemic?The most obvious is finances of the University. Since the University largely draws its livelihood from student tuition, when students do not pay, the University is incapacitated. Moreover, the loss of revenue is equal to the period of closure. Therefore, if the University reopens next year, it also means that revenue lost probably will be for almost a year. That is over Sh50b (roughly $13.5 million American). In this case, the impact will be felt long after the reopening of the University. But then this affects many other aspects. The first and most painful is the Human Resource because it brings in many dimensions, as it should for any human being. Staff members cannot be paid. They suffer anxiety about the next meal, which could lead to distress and breakdown. Others consider abandoning University employment and look for where else to turn for gainful work. One can only imagine how all these affect the familial relations and other social interactions since in losing their monthly salaries; they are also likely to lose their self-esteem. People who think less of themselves than what God made them to be usually reflect that into the eyes of others. This is immediately followed by the impact on our students. In joining University, the students have the expectation of a straight and determinate period of study ending in completion and readiness for gainful work. This has been interrupted.
How can students be helped to continue studying amidst COVID-19? COVID-19 has highlighted the need to run affairs differently. One evident positive impact is the enhanced exigency of online learning. As a University, we already had an e-Learning Lab that enables us to tap into online resources worldwide. We have been training staff members in e-Learning, and we have had a policy on entering students coming with laptops for many years. Unfortunately, many have until now considered these as luxuries. The present pandemic with its resultant restrictions has woken everyone up to see that if they do not shape up to this new normal, they will shape out of higher education in particular. Staff members are compelled to urgently train and apply the new technologies to remain relevant. The future has no room for ICT illiteracy.
What’s the fate of students who were supposed to study between May and August?Inevitably, there is going to be a rescheduling of the Academic Year to accommodate them – every delay implicitly reschedules our Calendar. First, we need to lead our Easter (January to April) Semester students to complete their examinations. The University remains committed to helping all students complete their requisite studies. This means that, depending on what is allowed, Trinity Semester (May-August) students may be brought back cautiously or complete their studies remotely. But we are also cognizant of the Advent (September-December) Semester students and the same applies to them.
UCU Vice Chancellor, Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi (Photo by Samuel Tatambuka)
How do the students who did not sit for their exams in April fit into your plan? Of course they need to sit for the examinations before progressing to their next Semester or graduating. The mode of examining will depend on how National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) handles the new normal situation; UCU is able to administer either the Take-Home examinations or the face to face, although the latter now appears to recede in probability with each passing month of the lockdown.
And international students who didn’t return home due to the lockdown? We continue to take care of them but of course they are idle. The Ministry of Education and Sports asked for their details, which we gave them. We did receive some help consisting of some food and body care items, but it is obvious that three months later, they cannot be living on those right now. So, the University has for long shouldered them single handedly. I cannot say how long we may be able to support them with food and board given that we do not have any revenue inflows at this time. The solution will be when foreign travel restrictions are lifted, and they are able to return to their nations. Moreover, some of these are students who were progressing to either the Trinity (May) or the Advent (September) Semester. I may conjecture that if they are caught up with time and need to restart in their scheduled subsequent Semester, they may not go back but continue with their studies.
Have you learned any lessons from the closure of the University due to COVID-19? No one living has ever seen such a global pandemic that results in restrictions as severe as we have witnessed in the COVID-19 environment. Most pandemics or epidemics are restricted geographically. Although UCU has had an Emergency Response Policy for years, it never anticipated a global pandemic. Furthermore, in the past we have used the term global village to refer to non-pandemic influences. Now, we have to ask how to live in the new global village in light of such life threatening pandemics. At this time, I may have more questions than answers for I am not sure we have learned the “last” lesson yet.
Will higher education still be relevant?
Can our University remain viable?
Are our e-Learning systems – staff, students and equipment – robust enough?
How can we ensure business continuity if something as severe as COVID-19 happens in the future?
How can education remain uninterrupted when all decision making is removed from our hands?
How can we make online learning amenable to UCU’s holistic education?
The answer to all these questions, and probably more, will be a matter for serious discussion for any institution that wishes to live above such disruptions.
Which projects haven’t you accomplished because of the coronavirus pandemic? There are doubtless many of these that I would have wanted to see completed, but I will mention just a few. About three years ago, I considered that my mission with UCU would be satisfactory if I accomplished four projects:
Ntawo Land: Securing this property is key to the financial health of UCU because if exploited it has the potential to generate revenue to alleviate UCU’s deficits. The continued forceful occupation of our land without any tangible benefit is a setback to UCU.
UCU Roads: I also thought it good to work toward the UCU roads. I was hoping that by the end of my contract that all roads would be covered. But alas, the costs had skyrocketed within less than three years to unmanageable levels.
E-Learning: At least the University now has an e-Learning Lab. The prohibitive challenge that has thankfully been highlighted by the present lockdown and may now be overcome more easily is staff and student training and use of online services more. For years, we have labored to get students and staff to own ICT gadgets and to learn their use with casual attention. COVID-19 has made online learning mandatory. I pray that when the University reopens, staff and students will be the main drivers for these modern resources. I also wanted UCU to have a Management Information System (MIS) that would essentially digitize all operations of the University, especially for our customers, the students. This is well on the way and most of it should have been completed but for the COVID-19 lockdown.
What is the cost of running a closed University during the lockdown? The biggest cost is intangible; it is the staff and students whose life and livelihood has been disrupted irretrievably. We cannot tell a staff member or a student that this lost time will be redeemed. Neither can we estimate the personal cost each has suffered. I know we have many heartaches out there, and I hate looking in the eyes of these dear people without a solution to their present hardships. At the same time, while we put brakes on expenditure, some of the needs of the University do not go away simply because it is closed and there is no revenue inflow. So, another painful cost is spending without collecting revenue; we are running downhill without an end in view. Ordinarily, the barest minimum I would need, without counting loans, maintenance costs, etc., is over Sh. 1.7 billion ($460,335) per month, but we have tried to cut that down to chewable monthly bits so that the University remains afloat for a few months.
How do you feel about handing over your office to a successor when the University is still closed because of the Coronavirus lockdown? It is admittedly a mixed bag of feelings. On the one hand, who wants to continue in this situation dealing with a daily crisis? On the other, I really want to support my successor to find some footing as he steps into the crisis.
Where shall we find you in retirement? If it is about location, my wife and I hope to move into our own house on Mukono Hill. Career-wise, I want to rest a bit but also to read and write more during the initial months of retirement.
How has the UCU environment contributed to the growth of your family? It would be wrong for me to say UCU has not contributed to our family growth though it is not easy to point at every aspect of that contribution. We came to UCU in January 2001, but really relocated to this Campus in May of that year. At the time, we had two of our children in Secondary School, and two still in primary school. Today, all of them are adults and graduates from different universities. Two attended UCU for their first degrees. As a family, we have been reminiscing about this since we arrived at UCU, and we are very thankful to God. We depart knowing that each of our children can now earn and live an independent life, and each of them has called upon Jesus to come into their hearts. I wouldn’t ask for more.
How do you feel that your tenure as Vice-Chancellor has come to the end? Of course I will miss the friendships forged at UCU, and the familiar routine that comes with a prolonged stay in a station. At the same time I look forward to the relief of setting aside the stressful life of daily decisions with meager resources. I also look forward to living in our own house, something we have never done in all our working and married life.
What are some of your key achievements as Vice-Chancellor? Interestingly, I started out faced with some doubters about if I would manage to run the institution. Some of that is a result of replacing a white man; very unfortunately, many Ugandans do not believe in themselves. The thinking that we cannot successfully replace a white man persists, and this is mainly because of the belief that a white man comes with money. So, one of my major achievements as far as I know, is to run the University and make some capital developments using Ugandan resources. It will surprise many to hear that I have not been receiving millions of foreign money to do what we have done; I have received no capital development money throughout my 10 years as Vice Chancellor. Moreover, during my first years, some students tried my nerves. They probably thought that I would be a push-over. It soon became clear to them that when I believe something to be right, I stick to my guns. But even more importantly, they have grown to respect my leadership, not to fear me or dread me. They know that they have had a friend in me, and I care for them. The hard decisions such as fees increments were not done to hurt anyone but for the good of all. Being accessible to whoever has issues has also been a key component of my leadership. I shun a leadership that is fenced from those we lead. No staff member or student who has sought my audience has failed to see me. They have been my priority. Finally, the growth of UCU is there for anyone to witness. UCU’s status among higher education institutions as well before Government and general public speaks for itself so much so that other universities and Vice Chancellors have come to benchmark with UCU.
What are some of your regrets for the period you have been Vice-Chancellor? I honestly do not have many regrets except for two: I am saddened by the continuing illegal and forceful occupation of squatters in our land at Ntawo, some of whom are in Government and boldly stand in our way to make use of our land. Therefore, up to now the University has a choice piece of land but is helpless and unable to build up its own endowment. Secondly, there is the challenge of unfair taxation on not-for-profit education institutions. It would help to learn from other nations about the primacy given to higher education, its role in national development and how they have brought it to the fore without endangering their economies.
The interviewer,John Semakula, is a graduate of Master of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies of Uganda Christian University (UCU). Currently, he works as the supervisor of The Standard newspaper and lecturer of journalism and Communication at Uganda Christian University (UCU). John worked as a Senior Writer with the New Vision newspaper for eight years.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Some students receiving food relief carry packages from university gate to their hostels
By Douglas Olum
At mid-morning on Thursday, May 14, 2020, and under the sun’s sharp burning rays, small groups of students banned from Uganda Christian University (UCU) under government COVID19 guidelines approached the main gate in Mukono. Students trickled in and out of the university, undergoing hand sanitizer spraying and temperature check exercises before entering.
As with all Ugandan universities since the country’s lockdown and university shutdowns started in late March, the students faced health scrutiny by university security officers and a medical worker. The students were hungry – struggling for roughly eight weeks without access to the regular university meals of tea, bread, rice, beans and, on occasion, chicken. While not the same as regular consumption, the UCU Office of the Director of Student Affairs provided some food relief.
The university’s intervention, supported by the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, responded to television and news reports that revealed that university students were starving in nearby hostels, caught by the lockdown with no public transportation to leave. The news reported by NTV Uganda and the Daily Monitor newspaper, coupled with direct phone calls to the Guild President, Timothy Kadaga, prompted an the necessary intervention.
An estimated 160 UCU students were stuck in various hostels and rentals around Mukono. At least 81 students got the first batch of the relief package which included; 10kg (22 pounds) bag of maize flour, a carton of 124ml (4.23 ounces) boxed milk, beans, powdered milk, cooking oil, (1kg or 35.3 ounces/2 lb.) of sugar and a bar of soap.
Students were interviewed anonymously to avoid shame that most felt about receiving assistance. They came, they said, after exhausting all other possible options to survive.
“I had just received my transport money to return home that evening when the president [Yoweri Kaguta Museveni] announced the ban on public transport,” one of them, a second-year Bachelor of Civil and Environmental Engineering student, said. “I had to use the money for upkeep but it even got finished within a week. I called home again and I was sent some more money, which also got finished. When I called again, I was told to wait because there was no money.”
A collection of the items
For more than a week prior to the time of the food relief distribution, the 22-year old said he depended on his friends and well-wishing neighbors.
Just like him, another beneficiary who is on the UCU Sports Bursary, and residing at the St. Michael Historical Hostel, said he lived on porridge for three days and almost died. He recounted:
“My tummy was grumbling. My joints were weak. I kept turning in my bed, trying to find a position in which my tummy would stop hurting to no avail. I got up and tried to make porridge again, but there was no more sugar in the room. At that point, my body was shaking like I was standing on something vibrating. I fell back to bed and that was when I started thinking of alternative options like contacting the guild president.”
At that point, the student said he came to realize that food was not just mere quench for hunger, but life itself.
A female student pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration echoed these thoughts. She said: “The package may appear small but it means so much to me. At least I can be sure that I will feed myself and live for some time while I explore other options and wait for the end of the lockdown.”
A second batch of students received portions on Tuesday, May 19, taking the total to 150 beneficiaries. They were humbled and grateful, they said.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org
Uganda Christian University team at the Africa Regional Conference of the World Congress of Families, November 2019, in Accra, Ghana. Jack and Linda Klenk with Michael Clement (Africa Policy Centre), Richard Sebaggala (School of Research and Post-Graduate Studies), Rev. Jasper Tumuhimbise (UCU-Church of Uganda Relations), Betty Enyipu (Social Sciences), and Peter Ubomba-Jaswa (School of Research and Post-Graduate Studies).
By Patty Huston-Holm
Waterfalls, forests, savannahs, gorillas, chimpanzees, lions and giraffes make Uganda amazing. Yet, as cliché as it sounds, for Jack and Linda Klenk, the best thing about the country known as the “pearl of Africa” is the people – the relationships they have there.
Jack and Linda Klenk, at home in Virginia, USA
Jack (Read More) first went to Uganda over fifty years ago for three years, studying and teaching as part of an Anglo-American teaching organization, Teachers for East Africa.
For Linda, her first of many trips to Uganda was in 1998, when she and Jack led a short-term mission team to Uganda. Some of the young children they met then have how grown up and are married with children. From the beginning, “I was all in,” Linda said. “The people were so friendly.”
Something that is very special for Jack and Linda is how Christianity connects people across cultural lines. When he lived in Uganda in the 1960s, Jack noticed a sense of bonding with Ugandans who were Christians. Over the years, he and Linda have experienced that again and again. When sharing a faith in Christ, “you’re family…regardless of the language you speak or the pigmentation of your skin,” Jack said.
Indeed, Linda added, “Ugandans have opened my eyes to see how faith connects us with brothers and sisters worldwide.”
Jack, a member of the Uganda Christian University (UCU) Partners Board, built new Uganda relationships with Linda after their marriage in 1997, while his long-established ones became hers as well. They were in a church that had a relationship with the Diocese of Kigezi in western Uganda, and later with UCU. The church sent short-term mission teams to Uganda and other countries, sponsored Compassion International children, supported missionaries at UCU, helped start a hospital in Kigezi, and sent containers with supplies for UCU and other ministries in Uganda.
For most of their marriage, the couple lived near Washington, D.C., where Jack worked for the US Department of Education. There, they gladly opened their home to Ugandans, including a number from UCU and the government, who were visiting the nation’s capital. The Klenks would show them Washington. So many Ugandans visited their home that it became known as “Uganda house.”
Under their roof emerged the “American Hamburger University” – so designated because Ugandans gathered in their kitchen to learn the trade of making traditional American hamburgers. Still today, Ugandan “graduates” of the fictitious AHU hold dear their certificates declaring their “hunger for learning” and “excellent taste and high achievement.” In 2019, when the Klenks were in Uganda, one graduate organized a dinner with certificate holders at a Kampala hotel.
“Our visitors from Uganda are so fun,” Linda said. “They ask me questions that make me think. Like, ‘why do Americans put stickers on fruit they buy at the grocery store’?’”
One of the first Ugandans Linda met was the Rev. Canon Jovahn Turyamureeba, when he was a student at Virginia Theological Seminary in 1997. He made arrangements for the team they led to the Diocese of Kigezi in 1998, where they became involved with Bishop George Katwesigye and other Ugandans who are friends to this day. Another was Julius Mucunguzi, now communications director for the Ugandan Prime Minister, who did a recent video call with them on Facebook Messenger. He continues to applaud the Klenks for their hospitality when he arrived for the first time in the United States with no luggage and few funds in 2000. In addition to a photo of the Klenks, Julius’ 2014 book, entitled “Once Upon A Time…” describes Jack and Linda as “a couple whose love for Uganda is unmatched.”
The stories are many. Seminarians. Bishops. Students. Faculty. The UCU Vice Chancellor and his wife. A wedding reception. Celebrations of Uganda Martyrs Day and Uganda Independence Day.
Sheltered in their home in the midst of COVID-19, the Klenks take precautions. On the occasions when they go out, as to visit their daughter and her family nearby, they wear masks and gloves, and social distance. But they see the difficulties they face as “just an inconvenience” compared with what others in Uganda and the US are facing. Linda said. “Others are really suffering, while we are comfortable, with food, running water, and electricity. . .”
Jack and Linda know that Ugandans are hurting because of the coronavirus, but also know that they don’t easily talk about their hardships. Thus, it is hard to know exactly how they are faring. Ugandans they have come to know are “so polite, they don’t complain, they see the glass half full, not half empty.”
Out loud, Jack wonders: “How can Ugandans survive this crisis? With 8-to-10 people living together in one room, how can they social distance? If they can’t travel or go to work, how can they afford to buy food? How can they pay school fees and university tuition?”
Many of the Klenks’ Ugandan friends are connected to Uganda Christian University. They have come to know and respect UCU for the way it combines academics with character building and spiritual formation, setting it apart from other universities.
Jack and Linda admire UCU for its determination to be a thoroughly Christian university and not to lose its Christian identity the way many colleges in the US that were once Christian have done. It provides “a complete education for a complete person” for its students, whether they are in traditional disciplines like science, law, journalism and business, or in the Bishop Tucker seminary that prepares clergy from all over Uganda and East Africa, and even from the U.S. They like how UCU is a leading institution for Christian orthodoxy in the “global south” and the whole world.
Jack has served on the UCU Partners board since 2010, and greatly enjoys his visits to UCU and the relationships he has there. In recent years, a special focus for him has been UCU’s Africa Policy Centre, the first Christian policy think tank in Uganda.
As Jack reflects on his Christian walk, he asserts: “God calls us to follow him and serve him in the community of the Church. Sometimes God directs us to specific things, but mostly we are to look for opportunities to live out our call to follow and serve him. I am grateful for how this has led to involvement in Uganda starting over fifty years ago. I am especially grateful for the blessings Linda and I have received through our engagement with UCU. We pray that UCU will survive the current coronavirus lockdown and always be a bright beacon of light for Uganda, Africa, and the world.”
Jack and Linda hope to travel to Uganda in October 2020 for the graduation and the annual Public Lecture, this year with the noted cultural critic, Mary Eberstadt. They hope the current shutdown will end and that those events will take place. Graduation in the past two years was extra special for them because students they helped along the way wore caps and gowns.
Jack sees Ugandan Christians as strong even during this coronavirus crisis because of their faith in Christ. They hurt, but they “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (I Thess. 4:13). He and Linda are challenged by how Ugandan Christians endure incredible difficulties and still smile and have inner joy.
“No matter how bad it gets, Ugandan Christians have hope,” Jack said. “It is by the grace of God.”
For Jack and Linda, this they know: They have been blessed beyond measure by Uganda and Ugandans, and they have received much more than they have given.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Paul Mukhana, left, is a member of Mary’s “family,” helping others in time of need
By Mary Chowenhill
On a typical, sunny Ugandan day and in front of what most call the Thelma building but is soon to become the Uganda Christian University (UCU) business incubator on the Mukono campus, seven students and I got the news. They were telling me about their incubators – also known as business startups – related to piggeries, organic fertilizer, crocheted baby clothing and more. As their economics and entrepreneurship lecturer, I offered advice.
Then, we got the news of the lockdown, and everything changed.
Mary Chowenhill, left, before Ugandan distancing and lockdown guidelines
I think that day was March 30. But like most people living in the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, the exact date then and even the day of the week now escape me. I knew the coronavirus was spreading, including in my state of Florida in the USA. Yet, I didn’t see it coming to Uganda or my small apartment where I have lived on the UCU campus for the past four years.
Within days, I watched thousands of university students, including mine, as well as half of the Americans living and working at UCU, pack up and leave. Having recently sold my house in Florida and suffering from asthma, I felt it healthier for me to stay out of airplanes and remain here.
UCU offices are less than half full as Ugandan employees were ordered home and into isolation.
To the best of my knowledge while writing this on April 30, 2020, the deadly virus still isn’t here on the mile-long campus and in our houses, in my garden or on my patio. In fact, as I write, only 89 cases have been identified out of 39,000 tests administered in this country. It’s hardly in Uganda at all.
But the threat and precautionary measures are. And in Uganda, there are penalties for disobedience of such government regulations on social distancing, curfews, and taking public transportation. In addition to consequences of no income for people unable to go to work, there are government fines and imprisonment for disobedience.
In preparation for the inability to leave the campus, I immediately purchased 1.5 million shillings ($395 American) of food – something that the average Ugandan is not able to do. I divided beans, rice, posha, and sugar into various portions. My friend and gardener, Paul Mukhana, delivered these to many in greater need than me – a family with new twin babies, an elderly woman walking with a cane, among others.
Food purchased to help neighbors
When this ran out – and it did – I sent Paul to the market to get more. He went to buy posha and other items for me and another customer. Under Ugandan COVID guidelines, Paul was permitted to use his boda-boda (motorcycle) to pick up food. But due to some misunderstanding and while he was inside the market, the local police confiscated his transportation. Like many others who had their vehicles taken, he was required to pay 700,000 schillings ($184) to get it back legally or 200,000 shillings ($52) under the table.
It took two weeks, including prayer and a lesson about what Jesus thinks regarding bribery, to get Paul’s boda back.
The Christian love and human kindness of Ugandans, woven with the acceptance of a country fraught with bribes, is ever present in the COVID environment.
What has changed most is that my frenetic schedule of teaching economics and entrepreneurship and children’s Sunday school has ceased. It has been replaced with solitude and church on my patio and from the computer with six children and eight adults. After our most recent “service,” we moved and sat six feet apart under a tree, discussing the meaning of loving each other as depicted in 1 John 4:7-12.
A neighbor named Ebenezer, age two and a half, wraps his arms around my knees. He doesn’t understand why he can’t cuddle on my lap.
While the campus is quiet, there are places we can’t walk because a few international students still living here violated the distancing rule.
Depression from change and isolation contributes to the lack of motivation to accomplish tasks I was never quite able to get around to but could now. Yet, COVID is bringing me to a new way to minister.
I have always had people who are not students as part of my Ugandan family. But recently with students sent home, I am seeing more and more staff coming to my door. Some want to harvest greens from my garden. Some want a prayer. Most need a listener. Many need money for children’s school fees when that education returns.
It is an opportune time to teach people to fish. Not a hand out but a hand up. It’s what I’m trained to do.
One worker cleans out bat feces – 7 sacks full – from between the ceiling and roof of three apartments, including mine. I hire a man to fix my patio. Grateful for the work, he writes “Hebrews 13” in one section and ”Praise God, Jesus Lives” on the cement in another.
God is allowing my brain to be relaxed while I see deeper how people are hurting. Yesterday, I read Job 19. I know my redeemer lives. Is this easy? No. But it’s necessary. He will see us through.
Mary Chowenhill, a teacher in South Sudan until the war caused her evacuation, is a sponsored educator and missionary with the Society of Anglican of Missionaries and Senders (SAMS) and sponsors a student through UCU Partners. She hails from Jacksonville, Florida.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Sarah Lagot Odwong, UCU graduate and USAID employee
By Sarah Lagot Odwong
March 21st, 2020. 11:32 p.m. Uganda had its first identified case of COVID-19.
My mind buzzed with a thousand thoughts. Only weeks earlier, my siblings and I – with our own bills to pay – had emptied our savings to complete a large part of the construction work for my mother’s house. Because her life had been wrought with difficulty, it was always our dream to give her a place of rest.
There is no good time to be dirt poor, but having a bank account blinking red when a government shutdown is inevitable is the worst of times. Sleep eluded me.
I arose early on March 22. On my way to work, I noticed the unusual flurry of activity on the Kampala roads. The traffic was horrendous. Pedestrians trudged in silence on the pavements with swift gaits and downcast faces. The boda-bodas (motorcyclists) rode dangerously, swerving and wedging through the small crevices within the disorganized flow of traffic. It was a dystopian sight. I got into work in a pensive mood. I did not have much time to settle at my desk as a staff meeting was hurriedly called.
We sat hunched on white rickety plastic chairs in the parking yard. The chairs were spaced out from each other. Some staff wore masks. Others nervously tinkered with their phones.
Our boss announced, in part:
“As you all know, the first positive case of COVID-19 was confirmed last night. The grapevine alleges that the country will be in some sort of lock down. It will probably be announced later tonight when the President makes his address. I suggest that we share work plans with line managers and get all the resources we need to work from home…You will have your salaries in your bank accounts by this afternoon…”
At least some positive news. I got a notification from my bank at 1 p.m. that my account had been credited.
I picked up my bag, scampered to the car and drove to the nearest supermarket. I passed by the bank ATM at the premises, withdrew some cash and sauntered into the store. Inside, the panic buying had already ensued. There was a mad dash by shoppers. The queues stretched for miles. Shoppers’ trolleys were loaded with toilet paper, kitchen towels, soap, wipes and other hygiene products. Others heaped vegetables, milk, bread, cartons of beer, meat and liquor.
Only one big bag of rice remained. I grabbed it. I proceeded to pick up other dry rations, hygiene products and joined the snaking lines to pay prices that had increased tremendously in a matter of hours. Little bottles of sanitizer that were affordable a week earlier now cost almost ten times more. I bought just one.
Like anticipated, President Yoweri Museveni announced a lockdown of the country for an initial 14 days. After the two weeks lapsed, 21 additional days were added.
While fortunate to still have a job, my workload increased with hours extending from early morning to late at night. Not only do I have a full-time job, I also support the crisis communications for the epidemic response.
Before the outbreak, I was living out of suitcases, on the road for days and sometimes weeks at a time, working long hours. Now at home, my workload has ramped up even more. I jealously read texts in group chats from my girlfriends who suddenly find themselves with bursts of free time. They are learning new languages on Duolingo, learning to sew and evidently having an extended holiday off work.
Not me. I spend my days hunched at a desk in the living room with my pajamas on and my hair tied in a headscarf. I am writing, attending endless Zoom and Skype meetings, and tending to incessant phone calls.
What I have found hardest is the physical distance and inability to see family – both in Uganda and elsewhere. No travel on roads or in the air. We created a family chat group on WhatsApp, which helps my coping. Seeing videos of my nieces and nephews doing hilarious things, the new baby attempting to walk and other family milestones, I am reminded that there is hope after this plague blows over. And it will.
What precious time I have away from my computer, I am reminded to prioritize the things that really matter. Family, faith, friendships, love and personal development. We waste time chasing the wind, like the writer of Ecclesiastes opines. The “busy” job, the career growth, and monetary gain. All of it is meaningless.
What this pandemic has shown is that when it is stripped down, life makes meaning with just the simple things. Healthy thriving relationships with God, family, friends and the people who love and support you. They will always be a constant. All the other material contraptions we chase fade away. This epiphany has made me change gear.
In what I hope are the final days of this lockdown, I have a different attitude and mindset. Going forth, I aim to structure my work to fit within regular hours. I aim to find more time to check on the people I love.
I am determined to create extra time to pursue my passion projects. I wrote a book during my undergraduate studies that I need to publish this year. I have autobiography projects that I must complete. I have a consulting business to grow. I have a PhD proposal to write. There are friends and family to check on. I have series of sermons to watch.
I have seen the Lord’s handiwork amidst this chaos. He has been faithful. There is no day I have slept hungry. I have a roof over my head. My utility bills are paid. I still have a job. When I feel overwhelmed, I remember that the creator of the universe knew me before I was formed in my mother’s womb. He had the foresight that I would go through this calamity. And he promised to help me weather it.
(Sarah Lagot Odwong is a graduate of Mass Communication from Uganda Christian University and received her Master’s degree in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response from The University of Manchester, England. She currently works for USAID’s Better Outcomes for Children and Youth Activity as the Communications Director.)
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Madonna waiting for her dad to come home from work
By Constantine Odongo Emmanuella Madonna is three years old. Every weekday, after taking her after-school nap, the kindergarten pupil engages her friends in the neighbourhood in games, such as dodge ball and hide-and-seek.
That was before mid-March 2020 and COVID-19.
On March 18, she got an abrupt, indefinite school holiday after the Ugandan government announced a closure of schools and a ban on work, unless it was an essential service. The ban was to enforce the health guideline of social distancing and staying home to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has become a pandemic. Madonna now spends more time with her mother at home and keeps wondering why I, her father, cannot stay home with them.
Emmanuella Madonna studying from home
As an employee of Uganda’s New Vision newspaper (i.e. news jobs are considered essential), it means I’m gone much of the day and conceivably more exposed to the potentially deadly virus.
Madonna doesn’t get that. She doesn’t understand why I can’t hug her the minute I get home between 6:45 and 7 p.m.
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni on March 30, 2020, announced a two-week stay-home order and capped it with a 11.5-hour curfew from 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. The order and the curfew were then extended by another three weeks.
Since, most times, the normal working hours at my office are not enough for me to accomplish my tasks, I often work up to the 11th hour. My workplace, being a media house, is open 24 hours. But, nowadays, the newsroom is almost empty, save for security personnel, especially past 6 p.m. People abandon office early, in order to get home and beat the curfew time of 7 p.m.
It usually takes me up to 25 minutes to cover the 14km (8.5 miles) distance from my office located in the capital of Uganda, Kampala, to home in Kawempe, a city suburb. I spend close to half of that time at roadblocks, trying to explain to security why my media movement permit sticker is on the dashboard and not on the car screen. Some motorists had lost their outside car stickers to thieves, who would pluck them off cars and sell them in the black market in Kampala, sometimes as high as one million shillings (about $280).
As I arrive home after work and oftentimes after the routine security interrogation, I see Madonna run to arms she can’t yet embrace – until I am cleansed of possible contamination to her and others in my family. I watch a fight brewing between Madonna and her nanny, who is seven times her age, but understands her job to keep a daughter from her dad in the world of COVID fear. I always ensure I bathe as soon as I arrive home, before getting into contact with anything or anyone, so that I do not become a conduit for the coronavirus.
Every morning, if Madonnna wakes up before I set off for work, she tries her luck in convincing me not to go to work that day. When President Museveni banned public and private cars from the roads on March 30, I carried my computer home and set up myself to work there. However, an unstable Internet network, an unfavorable work station and distractions by children hindered my ability to work.
Madonna’s sibling, Morgan, will be making one year on May 5. Throughout the day, I arbitrated disputes between her and Morgan. April 1 was day two of my full operation from home. We were both at our workstations, Madonna’s about two metres (6 feet) away from mine. When I stepped away from the room to receive a phone call, Madonna removed a keyboard key.
Madonna’s grandmother, a lady she was named after, lives and teaches in a primary school in Tororo district, located 220 kilometers (136.5 miles), east of Kampala. One-and-a-half weeks before the lockdown, schools were closed. Initially, teachers saw joy in the holiday. But it was short lived as they experienced more than one negative aspect of the lockdown.
Constantine Odongo
The weekend after schools had been closed, as one example, Madonna’s grandmother attended a funeral in Tororo, without knowing that she and some friends were going against the guidelines of the Ministry of Health – that only close family members bury the dead due to social distancing. There were water points for the mourners to wash their hands before getting to the funeral, but not many even understood why the water and soap had been provided.
Such stories justify why the Government enlisted the services of the security forces to enforce the observance of the lockdown guidelines. I remind myself of this each time I am stopped. Life as we know it has changed for Madonna and me. With God’s guidance and understanding, we will appreciate the fruits of the difference and get through it.
(Constantine Odongo is a deputy chief sub-editor for New Vision. He received an MA degree in Journalism and Media Studies from Uganda Christian University.)
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Journalists Paddy Nsobya of Bukedde newspaper, Samuel Sanya of New Vision and John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University in an April 20 meeting to strategize for the post COVID-19 period in Mukono District, Uganda. (Courtesy photo from Samuel Sanya)
By John Semakula
When governments in Europe and the United States came up with altruistic measures to help their citizens during the Coronavirus lockdown, in Uganda, we were left to fend for ourselves.
Despite the fact that the majority of Ugandans live hand to mouth and expected help from government during the lockdown, a selected few received food items. Many communities, including mine, were forced to mobilise ourselves to help the most vulnerable like the elderly, the poor and children in child-headed families. This experience has reshaped my personality and worldview.
For a video showing food distribution in Uganda, click here
Before the lockdown, I did not care much about community. If I had food on my table, I was mindless about the needy in the community; someone always did that job anyway.
John Semakula of The Standard newspaper of Uganda Christian University
However, the lockdown has molded me into a better person. I have learned to share with others and be keen about what goes on in my community. When the government of Uganda declared a partial lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic on March 17, I plunged into thoughts about how my family would go through it. I stay with seven relatives in Mukono town, central Uganda.
Although I am a salaried employee at Uganda Christian University, the lockdown was abrupt and yet the situation required that I should help close family members whose incomes were affected by the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. Some of them operated casual businesses that had to close.
However, as I was still lost in thought, wondering what to do, I received a call from my father in the village offering us food from his garden. This has turned out to be our lifeline. Whenever we run out of food, I send a motorist to collect from my dad.
This kindness from my father has helped not only my siblings and me but also some of my neighbors. My siblings and I had to share the little we get from dad and the meager monetary resources I had saved up before the lockdown. My father has taught me an invaluable lesson in adulthood and I had to reciprocate his kindness.
I have also seen hundreds of other Ugandans donate food, cash and other critical items to the coronavirus national taskforce that was set up by the government to receive financial and food aid from members of the public for distribution to the most vulnerable. This was uncommon before the outbreak of the pandemic. I have discovered that Ugandans are a good people and that if we had been helping one another before, we would have been a better society.
I have also had to help several of my neighbors who need small cash handouts to feed and support their families in other ways during the lockdown.
On Tuesday April 14, a father of six including a pair of twins came to me at 8 p.m. to ask for a loan of $6. He said, “…if you do not help me out today, my family will go without food for the next three days…” I was forced to surrender part of my week’s small budget to him.
Within less than a week, on April 19, another neighbor, who had a patient at a nearby hospital, also asked me for a favor of sh40, 000 ($12) to transfer him for specialised treatment to another facility. I gave it to him out of sympathy. Before the Coronavirus pandemic, he worked in Kame Valley Market in Mukono town and like other traders, the lockdown has rendered him helpless.
Although markets are allowed to operate, only those trading in food items are allowed to work, the rest of traders like my neighbor, have to close. That is how my life has changed during the lockdown. But I thank God who has been merciful to my family because we are still alive when thousands of others around the world have succumbed to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, since the University where I work shut down on March 17, I have been operating from home, preparing for the reopening and the next semester. I am also going through students’ research proposals and internship reports. In addition, I am taking this time to come up with and bounce off different COVID-19 related research ideas with colleagues; hopefully we will have a research paper at the end of the year.
I see light at the end of the tunnel.
But the Coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown have taught me a lot of lessons in life that will remain fresh on my memory until death. I have never seen people the world-over suffer and die at this rate. I also have learned that in Africa we survive by the mercy of God. I will continue to exalt Him as the most supreme.
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John Semakula is the supervisor of The Standard newspaper under the Faculty of Journalism, Media and Communication at Uganda Christian University (UCU). He is a UCU graduate of Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Masters of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Frank Obonyo holds Keren, his daughter, who he features in the article. Other family members are the writer’s wife, Cathryn, and children, Adonai and Ezekiel.
By Frank Obonyo
Keren: Daddy, why does Coronavirus have many names?
Me: Which ones?
Keren: Corona, COVID-19, Coronavirus…
Keren, age 3, is my youngest of three children. We – my wife, Cathryn, and our children Adonai, age 9, Ezekiel, 6, and Keren – live in Kirowoza, Mukono, Uganda. As I write this on Easter in April 2020, the deadly virus has not reached our village. But word about it has, including to a three-year-old.
Children ask questions. Lots of awesome questions. If deeply thought about, their intricate inquiries make a lot of sense. They wonder why things are the way they are.
Our three-year-old is excessively talkative and inquisitive. I recall one such time when she asked: “Does Jesus have a house in my stomach?” We previously told her that Jesus lives in us. Instead of figuratively about the spirit of Christ, our youngest took this literally.
It was during an evening walk with Keren that the COVID questions came. When I later went to bed and recollected what happened in the day, Keren’s question made actual sense. To think about it, COVID-19 is like a maze.
Multiple names are part of the maze as we weave through additional questions related to isolation, lifestyle changes, overall confusion and then how what is taking place now relates to other experiences that we have had.
Africans are connected to nature. It feeds us and shelters us but we also link it to natural occurrences. Locusts –those swarming, tropical grasshoppers – eat up vegetation including crops, leaving people in terrible famine. A child born during a locust invasion is called “Obonyo,”which is part of my name and my identity. The naming of this child, or me, is symbolic. It reminds the community about the dreadful disaster.
The Northern Uganda Luo speaking group refers to the insect invasion as “bonyo.” The Luo are one of East Africa’s largest ethnic groups.
In this season, Coronavirus seems to have touched the climate as well. Our weather is either dry or wet, and April is a rainy month. However, the sun is now baking green leaves bone-dry, sprinkling our heads with grayish dust and we have no option but to survive this life indoors, behind closed shutters. It is the government’s “distancing” and “sheltering” orders (expanded for another three weeks from the two-week curfew that ended April 14).
What is more exceptional is that the desert locusts swarmed Uganda just a few months ago. The two tragedies seemed to have agreed to attack us one after another. These somewhat haphazard observations may give a fair idea of what our country is like.
Life, I must admit, is ugly for us as it must seem to others around the world in this COVID-19 pandemic environment. We are accustomed to routine. Wake up, get to work, come back home, sleep.
This has changed. It is now bedroom to living room, kitchen to compound; that is the cycle. We miss out on social life, working together and even as a community, mourning the death of someone. In Uganda, life is about meeting friends, extended family, workmates. Men, for example, reserve Saturday and Sunday to watch English premier league games, children have school assignments, and mothers go shopping. We go out to church together.
We now hear and live two words: Stay home.
I admire Keren and her two brothers for how they adapt. They remind me of Jesus’ teachings about humility. He said that we should humble ourselves like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of God. If we are to live happily, we ought to live like children. And not worry.
My children do not worry about the bills, the next meal. If they have parents around them, food and accommodation, they have it all. They go forward, no matter what. There is very little fear. Children do not worry about the virus or a lockdown. They are focused on being themselves; they have an insatiable curiosity. It is not about missing the old life. It is about onward and upward. Children adapt quickly, and perhaps that is why they live happier lives. My children wake up, play, eat, and are happy to see us around.
The truth is, for adults accustomed to routines outside of parenting, spending more time with children can get complicated and chaotic. Lots of laundry, playing the role of a judge, answering why COVID-19 has many names…
I am using this season break from work and post-graduate studies to help my children improve in their reading skills and understand who they are in God. I read with them the adventures of Mr. Hare. This folklore revolves around the cunning Mr. Hare, who, though in small stature, employs his wisdom and tricks to outmaneuver bigger opponents and always takes the prize home. The stories are packed with humor and life lessons. We also study the Bible; April is the month of the book of Ephesians.
I am making good out of the season, as there will be others.
Frank Obonyo is a Communications Officer at Uganda Christian University(UCU), an MA graduate in literature from UCU and an MA Digital Journalism fellow at the Aga Khan University, Nairobi, Kenya.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
UCU’s e-learning center on the Mukono campus includes touch-screen capabilities as one example of state-of-the-art technology.
By Douglas Olum
“A 21st century university isn’t just brick and mortar. It’s evolutionary, novel, re-engineering processes, emergent, have value laden solutions beyond geographical borders in complex times like these. A commendation is befitting,” Godfrey Sempungu, the Associate Dean of the Uganda Christian University (UCU), Faculty of Business and Administration, posted in an April 2, 2020, Tweet.
His post came only days after parliamentarian, Gilbert Olanya, proclaimed before the Parliament of Uganda, during a sitting in which UCU’s digital migration was discussed, that the university based in Mukono is one of the best.
“We thank the UCU for being one of the best universities in East Africa,” Mr. Olanya said, alluding, in part, to use of technology.
On Friday March 20, UCU, like all other educational institutions in Uganda, sent home its more than 5,000 main campus students as well as regional campus students following a presidential directive instructing all schools and academic institutions in the country to go on a 30-day shutdown because of the globally threatening COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, Uganda had not yet recorded a single case of the viral disease. But all her neighbors, including Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan had already recorded cases of the disease.
The shutdown came just three weeks before students could kick-start their end of the Easter Semester examinations. Amidst the unanticipated interruption, UCU quickly shifted to its digital learning platform to continue assessing as well as to examine students in a bid to counter the eventuality of physical exodus from campuses. This on-line alternative was curtailed on April 4 when Janet Museveni, minister of education, suspended this option.
The UCU Vice Chancellor, Rev. Dr. John Senyonyi, who previously applauded university staff for adaptability in the midst of the pandemic, issued, in part, this statement on Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020:
“In compliance with the Minister’s directive, I must regretfully inform you that we shall not issue you with the examinations as we had intended. We realize that many of you have been preparing for these examinations. Besides, over 90% of you had registered your phone numbers or other contact information to receive the examinations from the University; and the number was still rising. This means that you will have to sit for these examinations upon resumption of normal University programs.”
Uganda registered her first case of the Coronavirus disease on March 22 with a 30-year-old businessman who returned from a trip in Dubai (United Arabs Emirates). The number has since grown to 53 (April 8, 2020), with the majority of the cases being of returnees from other countries, including China, India and Europe.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni consequently banned all forms of public gatherings including church services, monthly market days, political rallies, clubs and large wedding events. He also has banned all public transportation and limited private vehicle use to curb the possible spread of COVID-19.
The UCU Vice Chancellor further clarified in an April 9, 2020, memo:
“As I said earlier, our plan for the Take Home exam was conceived in good faith and we had the best of intentions for our students. It has never crossed our minds and we never did anything intentionally to disobey Government at such a critical time. Despite the current situation in the country, we believed that through available technological facilities at UCU, students would be able to complete their semester with minimal interruption. We considered that we should fully support Government efforts to decongest, and in that spirit, we judged that the use of technology was safe for our students since they would be doing the exams in the comfort of their homes.”
The Rev. Dr. John Senyonyi further stated in that memo, in part, that “Uganda Christian University is a law-abiding institution which cannot act contrary to the directives of our line ministry or of the Government. I request you to remain calm and commit everything to the Risen LORD.”
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
Teenager Jada Nicole Just engages in Uganda schooling remotely from her South Carolina, USA, home
(This is the second of two stories UCU Partners is featuring about American teens living in Uganda.)
By Douglas Olum and Patty Huston-Holm
At 1 a.m. on a Tuesday, 14-year-old Jada Nicole Just climbs out of her Charleston, S.C., bed to begin school – on-line and facilitated from Uganda, Africa, where it’s seven hours later. From her laptop, she takes her first class focused on the Bible and beamed out from Heritage International School, Kampala, where the time is 8 a.m. Except for COVID-19, Jada would be there with new friends from around the world.
“We literally had days to pack up and get back to the States,” her mom, Ladavia, said of the coronavirus exit she did with Jada and two younger daughters in March 2020.
South Carolina 14-year-old Jada in Uganda
The night before the flight out from Entebbe was bittersweet as Jada had a goodbye sleepover with Heritage school friends from Finland, Kenya and Uganda. She was excited to return home to her life in South Carolina and to her friends, her dad and her dog there, but had grown to love much about Uganda. Experiences with African food, wildlife and even getting around chaotic streets are opportunities that few American teenagers receive or are even bold enough to try.
In the summer of 2019, Jada, then age 13, left South Carolina for her first trip to Africa. Her mom received a Fulbright opportunity to teach and lead pharmacy-related projects through Uganda Christian University’s School of Medicine. With anxious uncertainty, the girls went along. They made Uganda home and were comfortably settled in their school when they learned they needed to leave. With almost six months left, Ladavia’s Fulbright was suspended by a U.S. Embassy directive, forcing their exit from Uganda.
Jada is still processing her time in Uganda. She recalls her first long trip – nearly 7,500 miles over two days – to East Africa. She had never before been overseas.
There was a stop in Brussels, which was her first time in Europe. Next, there was a landing in the dark at the Entebbe airport, followed by a car trip with a flat tire and two hours to fix it in darkness before arriving at a small Ntinda apartment in northeastern Kampala with no water pressure for showers. While exhausted, sleep did not come easily as there was a first encounter with nighttime Uganda mosquitoes. The sometimes-malaria-carrying insects were surprisingly smaller but nevertheless more frightening than the ones in South Carolina.
Daylight revealed disorganized traffic jams with motorcycles over dusty roads, cars and taxis with seemingly no driver guidelines, women carrying bananas in baskets on their heads, cows and goats without enclosures, skinny wandering dogs and dirty pelicans eating from piles of trash. While observing these stark contrasts to the landscape and more-orderly life in Charleston, Jada and her family discovered there also were American-like places such as Café Javas with cheeseburgers and salads and Acacia Mall with its ice cream, book stores and a movie theatre.
Trips to the zoo allowed an up-close look at ostriches and zebras. Game parks enabled the family to see lions, primates, giraffes and hippos in their natural habitat. There was a chase by Uganda’s national bird, the Crested Crane, and a frightening but unforgettable, nighttime trip across the Nile while hippos moved dangerously close by their tiny boat. Monkeys of different species roamed the trees seemingly everywhere.
“Sometimes, we picked jack fruit from a tree in our compound,” Jada recalled. “We didn’t need to ask permission. It was just there, very sweet and good.” Other regular foods were beans, rice, samosas and an egg-like treat called rolex.
Despite the time difference, the teenager kept in touch with Charleston friends via social media when there was a connection and electricity. Uganda power outages sometimes necessitated earlier bedtimes and subsequent earlier wake times to finish homework before school each day.
The weather in Kampala was surprisingly similar to that in South Carolina except that despite Uganda’s location on the equator, the air was cooler. The friendliness of the Uganda culture was another pleasant surprise.
“People here don’t take offense when you stare at them; they smile back a lot,” she said. “And for the first time as an African American, I was living in a culture where everybody looked like me. They just didn’t speak like me.”
Uganda has many tribal languages with the most common around the capital city being Luganda.
After getting over the nervousness that comes with starting high school in another country, Jada feels very prepared as she approaches her sophomore year in the United States. She’s become particularly fond of French, a language that is taught at Heritage beginning in kindergarten. But her favorite subject there was Physics. She has also grown in appreciation of her home in the United States.
“Although we can’t travel much now because of virus restrictions, I value that we have roads with no pot holes, and I’m not so picky about what I eat here,” she said.
Will she go back to Uganda?
“Not soon,” Jada said. “But, yes, I want to go back some day.”
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
(During this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic, UCU Partners will be publishing stories about how UCU-connected Ugandans and Americans are coping. This is the first of several accounts.)
By Alex Taremwa
In my shared apartment, Guma Jeremiah storms in from work. I call him the “diplomat extraordinaire” because he works for the Ugandan Foreign Service based in Nairobi. Panting is not Guma’s usual demeanour, and I can sense the haste and unease in this voice – evidently, he is scared.
“Have you watched the news yet?” he asks.
I send my hand for the remote and switch to NTV Kenya. The authorities are confirming what we feared the most – Kenya’s first Corona Virus Disease (COVID)-19 case – a 27-year-old female who had travelled in on March 5 from Chicago in the United States with a connect flight that went through London in the United Kingdom. Both the USA and the UK were flagged high risk by my country, Uganda.
What followed was silence, then a unanimous decision that shopping essential supplies was paramount. The supermarket in our affluent neighbourhood of Kileleshwa, Kasuku Centre, is often less congested but this particular afternoon, it was as if people went out at the same time to shop. The place was filled to the brim – forcing some prices to shoot up.
At the counter was a Chinese man whose tray was mostly occupied by bathroom tissue paper – enough to cover him for two months or more. I can’t tell if it was the four-metre (up to 13 feet) social distancing recommendation by the World Health Organisation (WHO) or his nationality that is associated with the genesis of the novel Coronavirus, but other panic shoppers gave him more than the deserved distance accompanied with a rare stare. I shopped for beef, bread, soap and groceries. Philip, my other housemate, sent for some alcohol.
“If I have to die, I don’t want to meet God sober,” he joked. He is terrified by face-to-face interactions.
Kenya’s announcement on March 13, 2020, was a wakeup call for Uganda. The virus that supposedly didn’t affected “blacks” or “Africans” as previously assumed had touched base in the region. When I first posted the update on my social media, the first responses I received were asking if the victim was White or Black. Around the East African region, Rwanda, the DR Congo and South Sudan announced cases. Uganda, in the middle, was now sandwiched with cases in all directions.
The next move for President Yoweri Museveni was simple, at least according to the opinion of most Ugandans I interacted with: Close the borders and stop all flights. They didn’t care that out of those borders were other Ugandans like myself – students, expats, parents – who wanted to return to their families. It looked imminent that the President, being the populist that he is, would heed to this pressure. He didn’t.
Instead, the president announced mandatory quarantine for all returning citizens – especially those from “Category One” countries that had more than 1,000 cases confirmed. This was my window to come home. Folks on the “Ugandans in Nairobi” WhatsApp group that I created agreed that if we waited, we would be locked out.
And so, I packed ready for quarantine – normally a 14-day absence from the physical scene but present on social media. Living in Uganda though, where we pay tax for being on social media, it is possible to be absent on both scenes.
The journey home At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), I met a one Alex Kawalya. He had spent the night at the airport because he had run out of money to hop onto the next flight. He had just sold his phone to one of the airport staff to get a seat aboard Kenya Airways to Uganda where he wished for a miracle if he was to afford the $100 price per night in Entebbe Central Inn Hotel where government was quarantining returning citizens for 14 days.
Stories of returning Ugandans being herded like sheep by the army to the hotel were sickening. Women and children slept in lobbies and the government would have nothing of the “I am a student on scholarship in Kenya and I can’t afford $100 a night” talk. Like Kawalya, I boarded KQ 412 at 11 a,m., not knowing what fate awaited me at Entebbe International Airport – but I boarded anyway.
It was the only one of the few flights heading to Kampala and from the look of things, one of the last ones as Jambo Jet, Fly Sax, and even Uganda Airlines were no longer plying the EBB-NAI route – a real catch 22 situation. You’re not wanted at home, but you cannot stay where you are.
Uganda confirmed her first case on Saturday, March 21, after I had been in the country for a few hours. The victim, looking feverish, was a Ugandan coming from Dubai and had flown in at 2 a.m. aboard Ethiopian Airlines. Having just flown in and in the process had interacted with another Dubai returnee, the pressure mounted. Even when I wasn’t put in institutional quarantine, I felt sickish. I volunteered Kawalya’s name to the Ministry of Health for testing and he did well.
Life in Quarantine On March 26 and from my self-quarantine hole at Kisubi Forest Cottages in Entebbe, where I am writing this, Uganda has 14 COVID-19 cases. President Museveni closed the airport and borders soon after and has since closed public transport, churches, markets (except for food stuffs). And as of today (March 26), all the 104 tested samples of suspected cases had turned up negative. From this hole, I keep my family updated about my health at all times. Occasionally, I go out, watch the stars and feed the mosquitoes – they are really hungry.
I have to cough up $40 a night to keep my family and country safe but with the stories of people bribing their way out of quarantine, others not staying home as required and thousands who have to be forced to wash their hands with soap – I am not sure if my sacrifice will make any difference.
One of the new cases is a father who travelled from Kisumi, Kenya, by bus and ended up infecting his 8-month-old baby. My conscience tells me that feeding mosquitoes is much safer that infecting innocent people. When I finally get out of this place on April 3, these mosquitoes will surely miss me.
Alex Taremwa is a graduate of Uganda Christian University, a journalist and Masters Fellow at the Graduate School of Media and Communications, Aga Khan University.
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To support Uganda Christian University programs, students, activities and services, go to www.ugandapartners.org and click on the “donate” button, or contact UCU Partners Executive Director, Mark Bartels, at m.t.bartels@ugandapartners.org.
On a typical, sunny Ugandan day and in front of what most call the Thelma building but is soon to become the Uganda Christian University (UCU) business incubator on the Mukono campus, seven students and I got the news. They were telling me about their incubators – also known as business startups – related to piggeries, organic fertilizer, crocheted baby clothing and more. As their economics and entrepreneurship lecturer, I offered advice.
My mind buzzed with a thousand thoughts. Only weeks earlier, my siblings and I – with our own bills to pay – had emptied our savings to complete a large part of the construction work for my mother’s house. Because her life had been wrought with difficulty, it was always our dream to give her a place of rest.
Emmanuella Madonna is three years old. Every weekday, after taking her after-school nap, the kindergarten pupil engages her friends in the neighbourhood in games, such as dodge ball and hide-and-seek.
When governments in Europe and the United States came up with altruistic measures to help their citizens during the Coronavirus lockdown, in Uganda, we were left to fend for ourselves.
Keren, age 3, is my youngest of three children. We – my wife, Cathryn, and our children Adonai, age 9, Ezekiel, 6, and Keren – live in Kirowoza, Mukono, Uganda. As I write this on Easter in April 2020, the deadly virus has not reached our village. But word about it has, including to a three-year-old.
In my shared apartment, Guma Jeremiah storms in from work. I call him the “diplomat extraordinaire” because he works for the Ugandan Foreign Service based in Nairobi. Panting is not Guma’s usual demeanour, and I can sense the haste and unease in this voice – evidently, he is scared.
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