I'm Aussie. With 2 children - a tween going on twenty, and a 'How to Train Your Dragon'-mad ten year old. I've been with the Amari Community Development Organisation project for the last ten years, and worked on and off in Uganda during the ten years prior to that.
"Madam, I have to go home to sort out a family problem". So said staff member Richard to me. But we're in lockdown. You can't leave the site. You have to choose between leaving and taking two weeks off. Or staying and having your family sort the issues without you.
Turns out the issues were to do with 11 relatives now living with him. Because they'd been flooded out. I also found out that staff member Chezera had had to move earlier due to floods. And Denis was about to be flooded out.
That was my introduction to the Buliisa floods. We'd been compound-bound with no staff for 6 weeks, and somewhat immune to what was happening outside. But not any more.
I figured I needed to visit. Which I did. And was both horrified and mystified to find half of Songalendu trading centre already under water, most of the homes on the lake side abandoned or people in the process of moving out.
That was when I first became aware of the issue. And have been following every since.
Yesterday we went down to visit Songalendu-Karabaka-Kigoya where 4 Amari staff and a few students are still living. And are about to 'get chased' away by rising waters. Yet again. How much can a person take???
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Flooding forced Denis to move in June. Now, after he's just bought a plot of land further inland and started to build, it's threating to land on his doorstep yet again. So Denis and family, like thousands of others in Buliisa District, now face the dilemma of when to move again, where to move, and where they will get the money from for more land or renting.
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So you have to move house. And move quickly. And without a lot of notice. What would go with you?
I love, love, love rain on a tin roof. That is, I used to. Now, I listen with mixed emotions.
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I'm Marita. Mother of a tween and ten-year-old. Found out about the floods in May, after compound lockdown lifted. Been 'flood chasing' here in Buliisa ever since!
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