A Community Visit

Highlighted areas show our area of operation. The orange area encompasses all of Nebbi diocese of the Church of Uganda and the green encompasses Madi/West Nile diocese. We have over 100 communities we work with in this area. We are the only staff based in northwestern Uganda. As a whole this region is referred to as West Nile, because it lies to the West of the Nile River, which has its source in Uganda at Lake Victoria.

A traditional meal is being laid out for our consumption. The staple here is a cassava dish called "kwin," wich is paste-like in its consistency. Being that we are guests here in Leiko, we are offered chicken or goat meat and an accompanying sauce along with the kwin. Hospitality is very important in traditional Ugandan society and you can see that they offered us bottled pop and water, a treat that the average community member would not be able to afford.

To the right in this picture is a very astute development worker that helps keep the community groups in Koboko district running well. To the left is one of the pastors in the area. We had a time of fellowship on the evening of the first day in which the pastor shared a message. On the morning of the second day a woman and community member offered the devotional. A pastor in this kind of rural setting might make 4,000 Ugandan Shillings (15% of the offering) in a month. This isn't very much, given the fact that the exchange rate is 1,750 Ugandan Shillings to $1.00. One has to be dedicated to persist in this profession here in this country.

Here are the Anika community group members proudly showing off some of the things we worked on during our two days with them. Our time in Leiko, where most of the Anika members come from, was very insightful and inspiring. You can read about our experience in the post below.