8/3/2019 A Caring brother - orphaned teenager educates
sister
1/2
EnsiNewsEnsi interviewed Asaba, a21 year old student whodespite
studying full time,
works every day after schoolto support his 14 year oldsister.
Since this interview,Ensi has trained Asaba inbasic book-keeping
and Mi-crosoft Excel. He now
maintains Ensis financialrecords; in return Ensi payshis school
fees.
What is your name? My name is Asaba Robert( Asaba means he who
asks )
Where are your parents? Our father died. After that,our mother
remarried and
went to live in a place called
Kyenjojo around 40 kmaway from here ( Kyenjojo means a place
with elephants ).
Where does your sister go toschool? My sister,
KyomuhendoGorretti ( Kyomuhendo means of great value )
attendsOmukahinju a government-supported secondary school. Se is in
Senior 1.Because the school hasmany students, they study in shifts.
My sister attendsclass from 1 to 6 pm. Lastterm, her position was
206out of 385 children. Herbest subjects are Biology and
Geography.
Why does she go so far to studyBecause the schools nearby are
private and so moreexpensive. Other schoolsrequire high entry
grades.It takes Kyomuhendo 2hours to get to school andanother 2
hours to get back home. After school shehelps with the house work
and fetches water from the
well.
How do you support yourself and your sister?
After school, I find jobs inthe evening, such as dig-ging
peoples gardens or
working on building sites. When I get money, I use itto pay my
school fees andmy sisters Parent Teach
Association fee. I also haveto pay rent and buy food.
Where do you go to school? I go to Fort Portal SeniorSecondary
school. I am inSenior 5. I am studying History, Geography,
Eco-nomics and Entrepreneur-ship. I leave for school atexactly at
7am and finish at5pm.
How well are you doing at school? I performed quite well inmy
Ordinary Level exams.But in my first term of Sen-ior 5 I did not do
so well, Ionly got 7 points (you needat least 14 points to
enterUniversity). I am sure that I
will increase those to 15points or more next term.
A caring brother [email protected]
Ensi is a womens community based organization whose goal isto
improve the welfare of womenand their families. In 2011, kind
supporters from Germany, Kenya,The Netherlands, Switzerland and
United States contributed, throughEnsi, school fees for over 20
needy children, many of whom areorphans living with elderly
rela-tives.
Page 2Waiting for the hen to lay!
Koi Koi Villagean update
Asaba Robert, Kyomuhendo Gorretti and Ngonzi Felicitywho helped
with this interview
Entendigwaa traditional beannow becoming rare. Ensi willcreate a
garden of indigenousfoods at Koi Koi Village, a culturalcentre
under development.
8/3/2019 A Caring brother - orphaned teenager educates
sister
2/2
In the rural areas of East Africa, people are very con-scious
about hospitality. Visi-tors including family, friends
and even acquaintances have tobe received and entertained.Food
is a very important partof hospitality. Guests whetherexpected or
arriving unan-nounced must be given some-thing to drink or eat.
Thequality and quantity of themeal offered depends on
whether the guest was ex-pected - and therefore prepara-tions
have been made, theeconomic status of the receiv-ing family and the
status of the
guest.I grew up in rural Central
Kenya at a time when nobody in my neighborhood had toomuch of
anything to spare.
We had our family shamba(small-scale farm) where wegrew our
food. Then as today,food availability in rural areasalso depended
on what seasonit was. A family might havecows, chickens, a maize
field,banana trees and a sweet pota-
to patch. Cows and chickenproduced all year round, ex-pect when
they were taking abreak Sweet potatoes andbananas could be
available allyear if the family had man-aged their staggered
planting
well. Where I grew up, maizebecame ready for roasting onthe fire
around July August.
So let us imagine a visitorarriving in a homestead in
August. She/he might be of-fered tea accompanied by fresh
roasted maize, sweetpotato or banana. If the visi-tor arrived at
the normal mealtimes, the family would offer
whatever meal had been pre-pared for the family. Oftenthe family
might go without inorder to feed visitors.
Depending on the status of the visitor, the family might
want to give something spe-cial. If there were chickensand the
visitor was staying long enough, some poorchicken would lose its
headand end up in the pot. If the
visitor was not staying forlong, a fried egg would be thenext
best food for a specialguest. Now, a normal hen
lays one egg a day and usually around the same time in
themorning. Picture this scene:Five visitors arrive aroundeleven in
the morning and my mother looks in her foodstore to find just three
eggs.She would like to have twomore eggs so that she canoffer each
visitor one individ-ually fried egg. She promptly dispatches one of
us to see if any of the hens have laid any eggs. We go to the
chicken
pen and find no eggs in sight.However, there are two orthree
hens looking promising in their sitting pose. We tip-toe, lift each
hen gently by thetail feathers and check under
too bad, no eggs yet. Tenminutes pass, we repeat thehen-lifting
procedure and stillno eggs Now my motheris calling and we know
she
would like us to deliver theeggs. Unfortunately the hen
2 | Ensi News
Koi Koi Village development on course
[email protected]
Waiting for the hen to lay! by Wandia Kagondu Seaforthlifting
tended to interrupt theegg production process. Inthe end my mother
wouldgive up, beat the three eggs
and make an omelet that would be shared among thefive visitors.
When an omelet
was served there was an un-spoken understanding thatthere had
not been enougheggs to give everyone a wholeegg.
I should add that very often,just when the visitors
weredeparting, we would hear thehens making that cackling noise
that announced thatthey had finally laid someeggs!
This kind of story repeatsitself in varying formats tothis day.
Rural East Africansalways look for something togive visitors, even
when they can ill afford it. Farm produceto eat on the spot or
takehome is almost always offered
it is the most readily availa-ble, but it also represents
thefruit of the givers labour.
Construction of Koi Koi Village in Fort Portal is moving
forward. Four round cottages, made with local stone, will offer
stunningviews of the Rwenzori mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. In addition to accommodation, Koi Koi will offer natural,
histori-cal, cultural and community tourism. This joint venture of
Ensi and Koi Koi Ltd. will create opportunities for the local
community.
Architect Vetle Jorgensen, Project Manager Samuel Omach and
journalist Ngonzi Felicity!
