 Travel, like literature, is a fantastic educator; another great way to cultivate a deeper empathy and understanding of people whose lives might be different to our own. So, when one of my oldest friends, and co-founder of Executive Edge Travel, Yvonne Verstandig, invited me to co-host a trip to Uganda inspired by my upcoming novel, I Am Change, I jumped at the chance. I would return to Uganda to see the girls who helped shape the characters in my novel, and in turn shape me – as a writer and a person - and spend time with the aid organisations who continue to support them.
I’d seen the difference these organisations made on my last visit; how they’d saved girls from unwanted pregnancies and marriages to older men, fed them when they were hungry and sat them at desks. It’s been such a buzz reconnecting with them to explore how our small group might make a difference. The first leg of the trip will include meeting with female leaders of change, participating in round-table discussions, visiting girls’ empowerment clubs and hearing from young girls about the obstacles preventing them from achieving their dreams - and taking their lead in how we can help them. In between meetings we’ll explore markets, spend time with local artists and fashion designers, watch a witch-doctor at work, drum and dance. Yvonne’s part of the itinerary - a dose of adventure – will take up the last four days and see our small group hike to remote villages, search for game in open top land-cruisers, offer a hand building a mud hut for the local community and trek through the jungle in search of mountain gorillas. If the trip is going to be anywhere near as exciting as the planning of it has been, we’re going to have an amazing 10 days. If you’re free in May 2020 check out the link https://www.executiveedge.com.au/travel-my-way-uganda/  It's been 4 years since I visited Uganda, three and a half years since I tapped the first words of I am Change on my keyboard and saw them pulse onto the screen. I remember how badly I wanted to capture the sticky African heat, the dusty streets and the wide smiles of the girls whose stories I promised to tell. And how nervous I was, waiting to hear Namukasa's verdict after she read an early draft. I needed to know I had sown her experience onto every page. I had drawn on her life and the lives of dozens of other girls who had shared their secrets with me. It couldn’t have been easy letting me into their lives. I asked hard questions and mined their most private and intimate moments and they forgave my ignorance and shared their heartbreak with such warmth and generosity. They told me about forgoing meals to pay for textbooks and trading their bodies for school fees. They told me about the lessons their aunts taught them about their bodies and about men.
None of the girls I interviewed had both their parents. Many were orphans, their mothers dying of diseases the witch-doctors couldn’t cure, their fathers abandoning them for second and third wives. They lived without running water or electricity. A lucky few were in secondary school, on scholarships, the only girls in their class. They lived in concrete boxes in the city’s slums, walking an hour to school on an empty stomach and they considered themselves blessed. They were lucky to be learning, they told me, their faces lit by smiles. “If you can read and write you can get a good job and you won’t be hungry.” I gave them sugar, flour, soap and pencils, but it wasn’t enough. Neither is this book, but it's a place to start. A flint to hopefully spark a desire in you, my readers, to do what you can to help. As Namukasa says in her beautiful forward to the book: 'Things can change. Me and my friends will make them change. We just need some help.' |
