The Parish Compound consists of our four-bedroomed guest-house surrounded by the huts of others living in the Compound: three orphans, three staff and occasional guests. This Saturday we woke to find the compound full of goods brought from Torit by the indefatigable Father B.. He arrived at one o’clock last night. The haul include 15 crates of Coca-cola and Fanta, mango juice, sugar and…

So term ended early again, and once again because of food. This time I don’t think it’s incompetence, though it is true that neither the Head, nor the Deputy Head nor the Director of Studies have any management training and don’t do things like attendance registers. I don’t think they even recorded the exam marks of the pupils since we put them on to single report cards which were given to the…

The mechanic, Michael, drove our newly repaired tractor from Narus to here, a distance of over 100 miles. The vast lands at Lolit 16 kilometers away, which are earmarked partly for the women’s empowerment project, are still not ploughed. The second planting season begins in July, so it is unlikely that anything will happen this year. However, just as I was leaving at the beginning of May,…

Term is already into its fourth week and still the Ugandan teachers have not arrived. But the mobile network, which you can find by walking three kilometres, finally started working again. And last Sunday afternoon the Head Teacher and I and two others walked the three kilometres to be connected. No need now to take off our shoes to cross the Awali River. It can be jumped over or crossed with…

Last term was the first time at Isoke School that we didn’t have to end early from lack of food, so perhaps we are getting on a firmer foundation. Sorghum from the school garden lasted a month this term and there will be plenty of cassava next term. There are more pupils this year—over a hundred more than last year—but that also means there is more fee income for the school to use. But there…

A new term starts at St Augustine’s School in Isoke. So far the teaching staff comprises only the Head Teacher and myself. Pupils trickle in—about 25 have registered by the end of the first week—but many from around Isoke do not bother. At the school there is a general feeling that nothing much is going to happen, with pupils doing little but cleaning the classroom, sweeping or cutting the…

Berouk Mesfin, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), interviews Christopher Clapham, Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge, and Lee Cassanelli, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, on the topic of a life of research in the Horn of Africa, on the 2013 Rift Valley Institute Horn of Africa Field Course in Jinja, Uganda.

The Superior Priest has left to pursue an MA at Kampala in Public Administration. He didn’t try too hard to administer things at Isoke. His casualness was one thing I liked about him, but we suffered because the Isoke Superior Priest is a key figure in the area. Isoke was founded by the Comboni Fathers in this beautiful fertile valley under the mountains in the 1920s. Before they came here,…

A man called Luka climbed a cassia tree in the parish grounds to cut branches to sell, having taken five of six sachets of the strong alcohol they sell here called ‘Empire’. Drunk, he fell to his death. The family claimed compensation, but three witnesses confirmed that between his accident and his death Luka had told them no one should be held liable for his death. The judge in Ikotos agreed…

The three late-coming teachers never arrived, and well into the term we had no one to teach science except the Accounts Teacher, who stood in for the maths and physics teachers. The chemistry teacher left in December with a collection of illnesses that included malaria, typhoid, amoebiosis and pneumonia. The last phone call we had from him, he said he had yellow fever too. He is still aiming…