A beautiful country consisting of grasslands and rocky hills and outcrops, Uganda was once considered the bread basket of sub-Saharan Africa. With a long tradition of farming, Ugandans worked productively with ox-power and nomadic herding.
In the 1980s, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels emerged to terrorize the Acholi people of Northern Uganda. Over the next 20 years, at least 1.5 million people were forced to abandon their farming villages in favor of safer refugee camps for displaced people. Over-crowded and unable to leave the camps to tend to their farms, the Ugandan countryside fell to disuse, cattle were rustled, experienced farmers aged and died in the difficult camp conditions, and younger generations were left with no skills or knowledge with which to provide for themselves and their families.
Then in 2005, peace slowly emerged from the chaos. The people are eager to return to their villages and farms.
A Collaborative Effort
Tillers is working with Professor Todd Whitmore of Notre Dame and the Gulu Archdiocese to fill the void left by two decades of lost knowledge, skill, and time. In order to magnify and disperse our training efforts, we are working to establish a corps of local Ugandan trainers. These trainers will interact with their own people in their own local languages with an expertise born from native familiarity with their landscape.
"Volunteers Join the CAPP Training in Lokung" by Dick Roosenberg, Nigh Ox June 2008
Todd Whitmore of Notre Dame's Kroc Center for Peace, realizing how crucial oxen are to rebuilding the local farm economy and to peace, invited Tillers to the Lokung, Uganda, camp. Tillers and Todd set up a partnership, the Cross-border Animal-traction Project for Peace (CAPP, now Peace Harvest).
Several American volunteers joined Tillers' CAPP effort. Along with Ugandan trainers, they worked to improve ox-farming skills in Lokung, a camp for internally displaced persons in northern Uganda. Before the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgence began in the mid 1980s, Lokung was a small trading town. Now it is home to most of the farmers from the area. It has a population of 28,000 in 10,000 huts, packed into what seems like less than a square mile. The camp is ten miles south of hte Sudan border. While it is well organized and the people are very attentive to severe sanitation challenges, the farmers are eager for word that the insurgency is finally over, and they are safe to move to their farms. They love farm life and worked with oxen before the war. All the oxen and many people were lost in the years of raids. Two years ago the curfews ended. The militia guards no longer walk the camp's perimeter trail all night. The camp and town were welcoming.
We took three volunteers: Vicki Solomon, David McMorrow, and Louis Andrew, Jr. While Dick and Brian worked with the crew of Ugandan trainers, Dave and Louie documented the efforts and learned about the communities and the organizations working there. We have more than 2,000 photos and nearly 15 gigabytes of video form which to build training materials. By helping work the oxen, Vicki strengthened opportunities for women to farm with oxen. Dave and Louie developed a friendship with Bob Okello when Bob was in the States last summer. Their presence and hadn in building tools encouraged peopled who sometimes feel abandoned by the world.
The most significant accomplishment of our work in Uganda this spring was strengthening our corps of trainers. In 1995 we trained a group of extensionists in Tororo, Uganda. At that time the North of Uganda was in turmoil. One of the youngest of those trainees, Adam Kwebiiha of Hoima, helped us build a group of trainers in the north who speak the language of the local farmers. While Adam does not speak the Acholi language, he is an excellent animal trainer. He served as a good counterpart to Bob Okello, an outstanding mechanic who quickly understands the workings of new farm tools.
In late February, we paried Adam and Bob with the Tillers U.S. crew Brian Webb, John Sarge, and Dick Roosenberg for traininges in Gulu. Farmers are some of the most credible trainers of their peers. Many farmers have good teaching skills. For our training of trainers session, we brought back 16 Acholi farmers with whom we had worked in 2006, with the prospect of immediately hiring half of them as apprentice instructors in the CAPP (now PeaceHarvest) training program in Lokung and Madi Opei in the Kitgum District. We added a few new faces who were members of production groups that received oxen after the 2006 training sponsored by Catholic Relief Service and supplemented by a grant from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo.
We worked for six days with the group, spending much more time in the field with trained animals. They helped test the new plow and plow regulator for adjusting width and depth, which Bob built in St. Joseph's Garage. It helped them develop a research attitude toward learning. In reviewing yoke building, we experimented with bows made of a heavy plastic water pipe. The trainers picked up the technique of bending the tubing after heating it (with sand packed inside to keep it from flattening as it bends).
We almost always learn in these sessions as well. One of the potential trainers, Banya, was helping demonstrate plowing to some guests who had never plowed. While we usually put a hand on the handle of the walking plow to help new people get a feel for the movements required to guide the plow, Banya withdrew his hand from the handle more quickly and ingeniously moved his hand to the back of the plow person as if leading in a dance. He presses slightly to the right or left depending on what action is needed. This is much more intuitive than giving verbal commands and gives the trainee the opportunity to initiate muscle reactions on their own. We quickly recruited Banya for the crew for the Lokung training.
Both the Lokung and Madi Opei trainings were two weeks. We brought four apprentice trainers to Lokung: Santas, Obali, Banya, Kwoyelo, plus Martin from St. Joseph's Garage. They were a great group and gained a tremendous amount of confidence and skills from Bob, Adam, Dick and Brian. Banya and Martin continued to Madi Opei with two new apprentice trainers joining, Michael and Charles. There they learned from Adam to teach donkey training as well as the field work that they did at home with oxen. We look forward to working with these trainers in many more sessions. They hold the key to multiplying Tillers' contributions many fold in Northern Uganda.
On July 1, 2008, our good friend and partner in animal power training in Uganda, Adam Kwebiiha, died in a traffic accident on his way from Kampala to his hometown of Hoima. Adam helped us train trainers in Gulu in February, ox farmers in Lokung, and donkey farmers in Madi Opei in March. Adam was a great role model for our new Acholi trainers. He was both sympathetic to oxen and fearless in working with difficult animals. He had a deep well of training tactics through which he could communicate with animals. Everyone will remember the effectiveness of his "long walk" training strategy for new oxen.
In 1995, Adam was one of the youngest of about 30 ag educators in the "Training of Trainers" class that Tillers taught with ATRADO outside Tororo, Uganda. In that session, he studied for five weeks under Herb Nehring, Dave Kramer, Drew Conroy, and me. Last spring he recited some of those experiences.
Adam once so impressed the President of Uganda with the training of hix oxen that he was invited to train the President's personal donkeys. In gratitude, the President sent Adam to a workshop in Kenya on adult education. That workshop was reflected in many of his approaches to farmer training. His long walk improved animal training in Uganda.
We will miss Adam and his help. He was truly committed to making his community a better place. He gave much of his time and resources to helping educate the children orphaned when two of his brothers died as soldiers for Uganda. He mentored many of our recent trainees.
younger generations were left with no skills or knowledge with which to provide for themselves and their families.
enberg for traininges in Gulu. Farmers are some of the most credible trainers of their peers. Many farmers have good teaching skills. For our training of trainers session, we brought back 16 Acholi farmers with whom we had worked in 2006, with the prospect of immediately hiring half of them as apprentice instructors in the CAPP (now PeaceHarvest) training program in Lokung and Madi Opei in the Kitgum District. We added a few new faces who were members of production groups that received oxen after the 2006 training sponsored by Catholic Relief Service and supplemented by a grant from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo.
"Adam Kewbiiha: An Excellent Ox Trainer" by Dick Roosenberg,