Field report from Hoima in Uganda
Tomorrow I begin my journey back to the UK, having completed the second part of my Ugandan trip: a week spent in and around the town of Hoima in the west of the country. My main task here has been to ‘facilitate’ — as they say — a three-day workshop as the probable precursor of quite an ambitious project aimed at developing modern beekeeping among a dozen women’s groups in the district.
The project was suggested to us by Bigasi Sustainable Development Foundation (BISUDEF), who would be responsible for its implementation, and I now needed to judge whether this small local organisation would make reliable partners. I also wanted to meet a sample of the beneficiaries and try to assess whether they would gain much from a project of this sort.
So asking BISUDEF to undertake the complicated arrangements for a workshop at which nine leaders of the women’s groups would be introduced to a few aspects of modern beekeeping seemed an ideal way of testing both the organisation’s and the ladies’ capabilities.
They both passed with flying colours!
Given African realities, it was no easy task for BISUDEF to bring the participants together from far-flung locations, provide for their feeding and accommodation, secure a training venue and lay on transport to take us out on an apiary visit. But everything passed off splendidly.
And the ladies: I wasn’t quite prepared for their enormous enthusiasm. Their shrewd questions kept me on my toes and the practical sessions were a great success. It was perhaps not surprising that they had little trouble sewing protective clothing from maize sacks but improvising modern hives from a few off-cuts of timber and a bundle of reeds? Carpentry being traditionally a male preserve, they’d almost certainly never before hammered in a nail or sawed a piece of wood. But at the end of the session they’d produced four hives as good as any I’ve seen. And they were obviously enjoying it all hugely: lots of singing, occasional breaks for a spot of dancing, constant jokes and leg-pulling — we really did have a very happy and productive three days.
The efficiently organised workshop and indeed all the dealings I’d had with BISUDEF since I arrived had convinced me that they deserved our support. So the day after the ladies left, we sat down together and hammered out the details of an exciting project, for which Bees Abroad will now try to find a funder.
Yesterday my short stay in Hoima was rounded off in true African style. I was driven a way out of town to one of the ladies’ homesteads, where thirty or so group members were waiting to bid me farewell: lots more singing and dancing, gifts of vegetables, eggs and a very fetching straw hat, quantities of some lethal-looking beverage — which I contrived to dispose of without actually consuming a drop — and, of course, a speech or two … or six. All very jolly!
It’s been a most encouraging visit and I’m quite sure that before too long I’ll be back here helping to launch what promises to be a really worthwhile project.
