A story unfolds;
Julius, a tall lanky man from the Ateso tribe of NE Uganda, arrived in 2017 to attend the Sustainable Ag School along with his best friend Enoch. The two of them were very shy and rarely spoke up in the classroom, but it soon became obvious as they cared from their individual gardens that Julius was a natural farmer. He talked about the struggles in his mind with the differences in the new methods of farming and the traditional methods of his family and tribe, but he was open to learn and try.
He returned to his family farm after the school and began to quietly implement the new ideas. His family was indifferent to his farming attempts and his father was insisting that Julius join the army to get a paycheck so he could marry and start a different life. Julius said, NO, he had a job, he was a farmer and would continue farming.
During the 2017 school, he met Franca who was in a discipleship class on the YWAM base. They became friends and after their courses continued their friendship long distance. Franca returned to her home in Kitgum where she decided to farm to make some extra money. She had watched the SAS during her time in Arua, but when she farmed, she used the traditional ways, burning the land and plowing to plant her crop. She farmed one acre of maize and got only 8 sacks of maize and from the 15 kg of beans planted only harvested 3 basins of beans – of which she had to share with her partner in the farming venture. The return was barely enough to pay for the costs. She began pondering on the different farming she had observed the SAS practicing, where she had witnessed much more productive yields and healthier crops.
After a three year long distance relationship, Julius and Franca married and she moved to his family compound in the Katkwe district. The first season after they married, they farmed together, using completely new methods to her. They didn’t burn and they didn’t plow, in fact they gathered the very material which was traditionally burned and used that to put back on the fields as mulch! With a hoe and a measuring rope, they planted 1 cup of maize seeds and got an entire sack from the one cup planted. She was amazed. They planted other crops and the results astounded her. She didn’t understand the details of why it was more successful but it was no longer just a theory. When the opportunity was presented for Julius to return to staff the 2022 school, inviting Franca to join as a student, she was excited.
When this invitation came, Franca was pregnant with their first child, due in early December. The baby would be 2 months old by the start of the school, so they continued to make plans to attend. After laboring for several days, the doctors concluded that the baby would need to come through a cesarian section. Joshua was delivered safely, but now they faced a very costly hospital bill of 800,000 Uganda schillings.
The good news is that prior to the time of their son’s birth, Julius had planted 105 sukumuwiki (a type of kale) plants that were thriving. He took these greens to the local market, their size and quality catching the eyes of the shoppers. He explained to people how his crop was entirely organic and safe to feed to their children. After only two visits to the market, he never needed to return. Phone calls came, the word spread and people began to pay in advance for orders of the succulent sukumuwiki. They even traveled directly to the farm to pick up the orders! His face beamed as he told the story of how the the sale of these greens enabled him to completely pay the hospital and doctor bills where normally this would have put them in extreme debt and burden. Now they were free to continue with their plans to come to Arua for the SAS.
Franca enthusiastically participated in the class and now says she understands all the science and “why” behind the farming that the SAS teaches. She beams as she shares her vision and dedication help others to learn. She discovered she really enjoys teaching, volunteering often to teach many of the subjects in the partner community that her SAS team works with. Their son Joshua has been a delight in the class and everyone adores him. Truly a SAS village raised baby!
Now we go back in time to Julius’ story. Still single, he contacted us in 2018 with an interest in helping staff the 2019 school. He wanted to solidify his knowledge base with goals to make his family and extended family totally food secure and to develop confidence to teach and lead in his community. He wanted no more seasons of hunger for his family and if he could succeed in that, he could start to influence his community to do the same. Of course we said yes! And welcomed him to the team. As expected Julius served well, reliable to do any task, led by example, worked as hard or harder than the students, and absorbed all he could to become more effective as a trainer and a farmer.
He returned home after the 2019 school and expanded his work to more acreage on the family land. His extended family struggled with alcohol dependency and the farm suffered from neglect. Julius challenged them with their choices and lifestyle but it took tragedy for them to finally change. After a night of drinking, an aunt died. Other family members blamed Julius’ parents, accusing them of poisoning the aunt and stormed their compound, burning their house and all their possessions. Franca and Julius had only been married one week. The angry mob did their best to run Franca off, taunting her that she had no future there. Later it was found, the aunt was HIV positive and the drinking coupled with the drugs she was taking for the HIV as well as the damage from the disease was what had caused her death, but the destruction was done. Julius said “ I knew how much God had changed me in that time because before SAS I would have taken a panga (machete) and cut those people.” Instead, he focused on healing his family through the painful events. In time, through love and perseverance, Julius and Franca were able to lead his family in a process of fully giving up alcohol and start to build a healthy God centered lifestyle. Through that same love, forgiveness and perseverance, the broken relationships in the community are healing as well.
The family began listening to Julius, started following his practices and asking questions as to why he was doing such strange things as mulching, making compost, not burning and not plowing. Julius says it has been step by step, slowly slowly. His mother now goes out to cut and carry mulch to the gardens every chance she can after seeing the difference it can make in the crops coupled with the unpredictable rains of the region. Julius says he has attained the goal now of their family and extended family being food secure. Beaming, eyes dancing, he exclaimed “No more hunger seasons, our family is now food sustainable.” They now know how to grow food throughout any season of the year and feed their family and others. [For those of you reading this, this may not seem such a big thing – but for the former village peasant farmer, who has faced true hunger, this is a very significant thing.]
From the shy young man who his father thought had no future in farming, Julius is now a farmer in demand. Other farmers in the area are watching him and seeing his astounding successes. Laughing, he says he cannot take a nap in the hammock under the mango tree, because the neighbors see him and disturb him to ask questions and get advice. One day as he was resting, a neighbor came and said you are being called to a meeting. A farmer association in the area under the NGO – Partners for Children Worldwide, who’s mission is empowering families to affect poverty and hunger, were seeking a leader. The community suggested Julius, thus his being called. The NGO forms farmer groups which meet every Tuesday for teachings and sharing information as well as develop a savings program where micro loans can be made to the member farmers. They also have a seed program to sell seeds based on the farmers ability to contribute. To date, there are 9 groups formed with 24 families in each group. Julius leads one group and has become in demand as a trainer and speaker for these farmer groups, walking or taking his bicycle long distances to spend time speaking, consulting and encouraging. Now, he really wants to take Franca with him to teach. He brags on her teaching ability and says they will make a great team with her teaching gift and him one on one with the men and Franca with the women. She is passionate about teaching nutrition to mothers to give the children a better life as well as training the women to make kitchen gardens to increase the availability and diversity of vegetables for their families. Kitchen gardens will be another completely new idea to the area, but one that will make a huge impact on families.
Their vision to reach people with a message of hope, physically, socially and spiritually, coupled with tender hearts that know the plight of their neighbors and the potential for transformation with real and tangible solutions, will continue to become reality. We see it in their faces as they share with us, we experience it with them as we spend time together and we know it because we know them.
Extra trivia:
Interesting tribal history from Julius. Many years ago when his tribe migrated from the north of Uganda, they reached the far northern tip of Uganda and the chief hurt his foot. He stopped to let his foot heal and decided to settle there. Part of the tribe wanted to continue south so they split the tribe. The tribe that stayed became the Karamoja tribe which means ‘too lazy to move on” and the tribe that continued became the Ateso tribe which means “they will die in the bush”. Both tribes then created their own language so they have distinction between the tribes. The Karamoja tribe are the cattle keepers and consider all cattle to belong to them. If any Ateso or neighboring tribes in other districts obtain cattle, the Karamoja will steal the cattle because “all cattle are theirs as THEY are the keepers of the cattle.”
It’s fascinating that the splitting of tribes continues to today and when a tribe forms, they create their own language that may or may not contain words similar to the former tribe. Thus the reason Uganda has so many tribal languages, some similar in language and some not though many of the tribes are related.