Run for Life!

Last weekend, Esther, Ben and I took part in a 7 km obstacle race to help raise money for a centre in Kampala which supports refugees in Uganda.

Background Information

Uganda is one of the world's most welcoming nations for refugees. It hosts the 8th largest refugee population worldwide with over 800,000 registered refugees or asylum seekers.

In northern Uganda, refugee camps have been praised for their innovative and welcoming nature. Dispersed peoples fleeing conflict and persecution from neighbouring African countries, including South Sudan, may even be allotted a piece of land to help them become self-reliant as they work to produce food. However, with the recent conflict in South Sudan, resources are under strain as the flood of refugees coming into Uganda has swelled. Many refugees migrate to the city to look for work and livelihood.

Refugees who are no longer living in designated refugee camps are expected to be self-reliant. They do not generally receive any assistance or accommodation from the government nor from UNHCR. In Kampala alone, it is estimated that there are over 200,000 refugees- all of whom need to find a way to live and eat and support their families.

This is where the centre of Refuge and Hope provides a lifeline. The centre aims to empower refugees, enabling them to reach a point where they can be self-reliant. Refugees in Kampala can register at the centre for English classes and to learn vocational skills, such as sewing or cooking, which in turn can help them to reach a point of being independent.

A few weeks ago, Esther and her friend and I attended a cake-tasting event run by the centre, where we could trial the different cakes which students had baked. We had fun tasting the cake samples and learning about the delicious goodies which the students make and sell. Now I have a great place to order and buy tasty cakes from!

Their vision is commendable and their work inspiring. To find out more, take a look at their website:

http://www.refugeandhope.org/

The Race

At the unearthly hour of 6:15am last Saturday, I drove with our two eldest children and with three friends across town to join other keen volunteers for a race which would raise funds for the centre of Refuge and Hope.

There were scores of people at the centre that Saturday morning, all ready for the 7am start, which would see us participating in an obstacle race up and down the hills of Kampala. We ran in teams of up to six individuals. The church we attend here in Kampala had formed three teams in total.

This is the team Esther, Ben and I were in:

We looked energetic and ready as the sun started to rise and the day was still cool!

Four and a half hours later, some of us were feeling a little tired as we neared the finish line...(!!!)

Covered in mud and after a long run, with many obstacles, that energy we had earlier was waning!

Other members of our "Panthers" team came to the finish still feeling strong!

 

As I ran the final few meters, my foot slipped down between the slats of a drain cover on the ground, twisting my ankle and causing me to limp through the gateway of the centre of Refuge and Hope! The following photo was taken seconds before my foot got caught in the metal- you can even see the gap where my foot fell!

However, it was worth every bit of effort and every slip-up! We were jubilant as we posed for our victory photo:

Along the way, we had no camera or phone, so there are no pictures of the actual race.

It was not the kind of race where you take a camera, or in fact anything, along! We faced obstacle after obstacle, since the ultimate aim of the race, aside from raising money which will benefit Kampala's refugees, was to help us all feel a little of the frustration and powerlessness that many refugees face when entering a foreign land and trying to re-establish their lives.

At the start of the race, we received papers which listed the names of our team members. We had to keep this paper safe because we kept coming to "check-points" long the way where "immigration officials" would demand our papers and then decide whether or not we would be allowed to continue on our journey.

Through the course of the race, our papers got muddy, got wet and got ripped and each time it became harder to convince the "authorities" to let us pass.

At the 13 different check-point, these "immigration officials" also delegated tasks to us, which could be as easy as picking up litter or as hard as crawling through a mud-slide on our stomachs in order to reach the next "border", hence all the mud on our clothes!! Ben was DELIGHTED by this particular task and enthusiastically declared at this point in the race that it was the only time in his life where I had actively encouraged him to get muddy!!!

Among other tasks, we also had to stop to build a shelter, with only 2 branches and a large palm leaf. It needed to be big enough to fit us all in- but was actually woefully too small. During the "night" a violent "rainstorm" swept overhead- simulated by a smirking student who energetically threw a bucket of cold water all over us, causing our shelter to collapse and all of us to get soaking wet!

The four children in our team were unsurprisingly indignant- but it gave us a real sense of the frustration a refugee family may feel when there simply is no adequate shelter and when storms and nature simply destroy everything they may work hard for- a sense of hopelessness in the face of great challenges.

We had to cross "rivers" on stepping stones, crawl under supposed fences without touching the wire with any parts of our bodies, climb over walls, run through rain-storms created by blasting water from hose-pipes. We had to fill water bottles using only a sponge squeezed out with dirty water taken from a bucket nearby. That task took us quite a while, only to have an "official" tip all of the water out in front of us, despite our arduous efforts to fill the bottles. The blatant disregard of this official for our hard work upset Esther enormously.
"All that effort for nothing!" she cried. "How could he do that to us?!!"

At this point, Esther was feeling a sense of the helplessness that a refugee may face when they find themselves without dignity or respect, totally at the mercy of officials they may face on their flight from their homes.

Ben summed the whole experience up in a few words- words which spoke volumes and showed that he really understood the point of our participation in last Saturday's "Race for Life".
"They are only treating us like this," stated Ben, "to show us that they have the power over us and we can't do what we want,"

It was an eye-opening experience for us all.
It was an inspiration to view those refugees around us with respect, with compassion and to spur us on to do what we can, where we can, to support and help those who have faced challenges and difficulties, trauma and loss many of us cannot even begin to imagine.
We were so glad we used our Saturday morning to be part of Kampala's wonderfully revealing "Race for Life".