More from Fort Portal

On the radio to day I heard the head of United Nations children's Fund talking about Northern Uganda and the way children have to walk from the camp a long distance to school. To give an idea of what 'long distance' means: I have many children who come to the University asking for sponsorship for school, the University has no sponsorship funds as yet but we now have about eight local children to whom I am father or uncle as I do sponsor some of them from our own pocket and from funds we were given at home in Ireland.
Recently one of my 15 year olds, a girl came to see me as she was suffering badly from malaria, so I took her to the doctor and then bought the drugs she needed, which may well have saved her life, I thought she was too sick to go home by boda boda: motorbike taxi, so I drove her home.
She walked this journey morning and evening to school about 10km-6miles every day. Locals would abuse her as she walked saying she had no business going to secondary level school or thinking of college so she was afraid to start before light, so she was always late for the first class and when she got home, tired hungry and getting dark, home work was almost impossible as they had no light in the house. So now she boards.
Why all this? her parents are dead from Aids so like most who come and ask she is an orphan and can only just keep herself alive without help.
As I write this I have had a visit from a 14 year old boy who has several years in primary to do, again an orphan, living with his two brother 3 and 6years with an uncle who has nothing, they are being pushed off the land where they have a 'house' because the landlord wants to sell so we are helping them buy a small plot of land where they can be secure and with a bit of help with a plot elsewhere will be able to grow enough to keep themselves alive.
You have to live here to begin to understand what life is really like for so many people. Visitors only see the beautiful landscape, the fabulous birds, the picturesque children in bright uniforms walking home along the road side, in droves after school, in bare feet of course.
But if you want to see happy people this is the place to come:- the German girlfriend of someone working out here visited for Christmas and when she went home all her colleagues, in an accusatory tone kept asking: Why are you smiling all the time?

After long and tortuous negotiations with the National Council of Higher Education Mountains of the Moon University was finally awarded its Licence. It is the first University in Uganda to obtain its Licence before taking either staff or students. This is the new regime that all aspiring Universities will be expected to follow.

The chief problem is that with no Licence, no students and no staff it is not easy to sell the IDEA of the University to possible sponsors and donors. A number of generous individuals have given substantial sums on the basis of personal contact and trust and it is these funds which have allowed us to progress to the point we are now at.

In May we had our first group of students. They were Primary school teachers ranging in age from 22 - 50. The one thing they had in common was tremendous nervousness at coming to do a University course. So far they have completed the first of 18 3 week units but already it is possible to see great changes in their confidence. These Grade 3 teachers left school after 4 years in secondary school, they probably did rather badly in O-level exams and became teachers as the only employment outlet for them, they have to teach science which they have never studied and maths which the "ran away from" and with poor communication because their English is weak.

Generally the reason for such a dismal performance is simply that the teaching available to them was very poor so they had little chance. Their response to the course was one of delight and great lift in their confidence. The aim is to teach what they need as primary teachers in the subjects and the teaching methods to be effective. Later they will get into the laboratories which are about to be built and which are being equipped by Labaid, a charity which helps schools in Uganda, a private individual who does the same and the Irish Embassy. So we get by on wing and a prayer.

It is important to build up a reputation as soon as possible so that we can begin to attract the right sort of staff at a senior level. They must be very hard working, very creative in their work and totally convinced of the approaches we are determined to take: tutorial teaching as far as possible, with the particular aim of ensuring the students learn to solve problems and use the information they have to find answers to problems they have never seen before. They must learn that posing the question is the hard part and finding/deciding which of the possible answers is the best,at the moment must be their aim. The ability to ask questions is hard at the best of times but in a society which is reared on seniors knowing the answer, young people asking questions and thinking tend to be unpopular and very few on the ground. Most of the other universities have not managed to get beyond giving answers to questions posed in class. If we can generate an atmosphere of original thought among the students it will be virtually unique in Uganda.

In order to help raise the profile of the University and generate some small cash flow I am proposing to use some of the photographs I have taken to produce postcards, Mostly the postcards available are very poor and I surmise most of the wild life ones come from Kenya being elephants, lions etc, Same as you get everywhere in Africa. I attach one or two which will give an idea of what I am going to do. The story of Junonia Oenone, the butterfly with the blue patches was rather amusing. I have a small book of Ugandan butterflies but could not find it which I found rather surprising as a number of relatives were there and it is rather striking. Later I found it in another book and on checking back found it was listed with a note saying the brown and yellow specimen was faded. Not much help.