jake lyell photography (blog)

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Living Hope Education Centre, a primary school in war and disaster-torn northeastern Uganda, is beating the odds. As much as I can, I am an advocate for this school, which is doing wonderful work in the lives of young ones.

It’s hard to believe it had been five years since I’d been to Ethiopia, not counting the many hours of down time spent making a connection in Addis Ababa’s airport. Recently I arrived a couple days early for a ChildFund assignment in this Horn of Africa country so that I might explore an ancient city in Ethiopia’s exotic East.

Harar’s meandering old town is other-worldly, a step back in time along the caravan routes of the middle ages. Indeed, if it weren’t for Coca Cola’s stubborn presence inside the city walls it may sometimes be difficult to decipher which decade, or even century, you were losing your way in.

Most Ethiopians don’t mind having their photograph taken. It was my original intention to shoot only portraits for these two days I’d set aside. However, I was quickly enveloped in the atmosphere of the town and the eye candy was too much for me.

The green leafy substance seen here is known as khat, a highly addictive stimulant originating from Ethiopia. It appears to be both the boon and bane of Harar. Many farmers spend their entire lives cultivating it. Many women earn their living selling it on the streets. Many people, mostly men, spend far too much time idly chewing it in a hypnotic daze.

The World Health Organization classified khat as a drug of abuse in 1980. Though its use is illegal in many nations, Ethiopia is not one of them, and the country brings in a great deal of revenue every year in exporting the plant to places like Somalia, Kenya, and Djibouti.

Khat does not come cheap. A lesser-quality bag begins at 100 Ethiopian Birr, or about $6, which is about three times as much as the average Ethiopian earns in a day. Consequently Harar’s alleyways are lined with addicts who are broke and sleeping on the street, sometimes begging in hopes of scrounging up money for the next fix. Khat, along with coffee, are Harar’s two main cash crops.

I spent much time indulging in the latter.

For the nerds out there, on each of these photographs I confined myself to either a Canon 16-35mm 2.8L zoom or a 50mm 1.2L prime lens, more so for the sake of continuity than portability.

After years of foreign aid pouring into the East African country of Rwanda following its 1994 civil war and genocide, its citizens are used to receiving help from those on the outside. Those tables could finally be turning, however. Recently I documented the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative, a program wherein food aid for Africa is bought, not from a farmer in Iowa or Australia and shipped thousands of miles to its destination, but from right here in Africa.

Rwanda is home to some 55,000 refugees, most of whom are sheltering from ongoing turmoil in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its neighbor to the west. Most of these refugees are landless and unable to provide for themselves and their families. Consequently they’re reliant on food aid. Above, children race a homemade scooter through the streets of Kaziba refugee camp along the shores of Lake Kivu in western Rwanda.

The Gates Foundation works through its grantee, the UN World Food Program, (WFP) to connect small farmers to a larger market by setting up cooperatives at the village level. Training and capacity building of these farmers are essential parts of the program in order to ensure that a quality product is passed on to the recipient. Above, Niyonsaba Gaspard (16) harvests corn in Musaza village in Eastern Rwanda.

For the first time this year, the World Food Program held a trade fair in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city. The forum was an opportunity for food buyers to connect with P4P’s small farmers cooperatives from different parts the country. By pooling their resources and selling their food in bulk, Rwandan small farmers are now not only supplying food to the WFP but also exporting it to other markets in East Africa and beyond. Above, women from the COACNU in Musaza cooperative winnow corn outside their co-op’s headquarters before it’s weighed, bagged and shipped off to Kigali.

For decades small farmers have been crippled by lack of access to markets despite their geographic proximity to food buyers and recipients. By forming into cooperatives, farmers now have an opportunity to enter the market and sell their surplus harvest at competitive prices. Buyers like the WFP can distribute their food aid more quickly without having to pay for pricey freight and insurance costs when buying from outside. It’s a win-win situation for buyers and farmers.

Food aid from the west hasn’t been discontinued. Rwanda does not yet have the capacity to completely provide for itself and the refugees within its borders. But as the Purchase for Progress effort is scaled up, we can look forward to a day when Africa and other developing areas are food secure. P4P is working in 21 countries world-wide, 15 of which are in Africa.

At a massive campaign rally that seemed at times more like a victory celebration, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni touted the achievements made under his National Resistance Movement’s leadership during the last decade. After detailing agricultural, educational, economic, and infrastructure improvements, he painted his various rivals as untested and risky choices.

Throughout a slew of performances by Ugandan pop stars, “No change” became the slogan of the day. Mr. Museveni has been in power for over 25 years. However, if this crowd has anything to say about it, the recent trend of deposing long-term heads of state won’t carry over to the streets of Kampala. Ugandans go to the polls to elect their President for the next five years on Friday.







Behold at last, the True Chapeau…

Uganda’s opposition parties are rallying the faithful ahead of Friday’s presidential and parliamentary voting. Today, presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye campaigned in downtown Kampala to enthusiastic support.

Dr. Besigye is the front runner of all the Presidential challengers to Uganda’s incumbent President Yoweri Museveni. Along with supporters of his IPC party (Interparty Cooperation), he took to the streets of Kampala today for a last-minute push of campaigning ahead of Friday’s presidential vote. The crowd was raucous, taking on almost a militant tone. One vehicle in his caravan was decorated to resemble an army tank.

Many voters are frustrated that President Museveni has yet to stand down from office after more than 25 years. Dr. Besigye, speaking from the roof of an SUV, had a message for those politicians clinging to power: look to the streets of Egypt and Tunisia.

There was indeed a lot of energy on the streets today. It made me fearful of what is to come after the election results are announced, which is due to happen on Sunday.

Take five minutes to explore Obalanga’s weekly market, the largest in NE Uganda’s Amuria District. Here people come from surrounding towns and districts to buy and trade, make repairs, catch up with friends, and hear from politicians and itinerant preachers. The predominant language heard here is Ateso.

Two weeks ago, Grace seemed like any other nine year old girl in northeastern Uganda’s Amuria District. She was attending school and helping her mother around the house. Suddenly she was unable to hold down food. The medicine her mother bought at the local clinic was of no help. Now Grace hasn’t eaten in over two weeks and weighs just 13 kilos (28 pounds). Sores on her lips and mouth make any ingestion of food far too painful to bear.

Grace’s mother, Sarah Kembi (27), found out that her daughter was HIV positive only two years ago. Since that time Grace has been taking Septrin, a stabilizer drug that, while not an ARV, still reduces the chances of opportunistic infections. Sarah’s husband, Grace’s father, succumbed to AIDS around the same time Mrs. Kembi figured she had better get her daughter tested. Though Grace was likely healthy enough to forgo ARV treatment two years ago, her system is now too weak to begin them.

Sarah has brought her daughter to Amuria Health Center IV, the largest in the district. At first she identifies Grace as her niece, too ashamed to confess her as her own in her present state, and too afraid of fellow patients thinking that she herself shares the same disease. But the health center here is not capable of handling such cases as dire as Grace’s. They connect her to a hydrating drip and wait for her mother to scrounge up enough money to fuel the ambulance and pay its driver or hire a taxi to the Regional Hospital in Soroti, 50km away. “What we’re doing here is just minimal life support. The longer we delay to get her on ARVs, the greater her chances of developing some very serious opportunistic infections. She’s at risk of dying,” says Dr. Raymond Malinga.

Today Sarah’s results come back from the lab. She took the test just yesterday. They confirm what I’m sure she’s known all along. Sarah, too, is HIV positive, but until this time has put off knowing for certain. “We have a problem with denial here,” says Dr. Malinga, and that denial is likely why Grace is in the state she is now. “At the time (of testing) there was no reason to go on ARVs. The child was healthy.” However, from the test two years ago until now, there was likely never any periodic testing or even follow up by her mother.

Besides her newly confirmed HIV positive status, Sarah Kimbe (above) is an outsider here in Amuria, land of the Iteso tribe. She comes from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, where she met her husband, a Ugandan soldier from Amuria , whose job was to chase after Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. Sarah doesn’t speak the local language but communicates instead with Swahili, which in Amuria is usually only used in trade or transportation.

With no land of her own, she moves from plot to plot in the village as a hired farm hand, earning less than fifty cents for every field she tills. Though she longs to return to her family in neighboring DR Congo, Sarah thinks her situation may be better here in Uganda, due to its comparatively superior health care system. She hasn’t had to pay for the Septrin Grace has been taking for the past two years. Although the health center has been out of Grace’s needed drips and Sarah has had to purchase them from the local pharmacy, the nursing and bed Grace has received from the center have been free of charge. “In Congo you have to pay for everything,” she complains.

Thankfully, Sarah doesn’t have to pay to get to Soroti Regional Hospital either. After a week of Grace languishing in the Amuria’s health center, a compassionate passer-by takes note of her serious condition and springs for the $2 journey for her and her mother. They pile in to a taxi with four other passengers and head out of town.

Throughout my time with her, with the exception of a couple brief crying jags, Sarah has remained remarkably stoic. Yet it’s clear that she’s hopeful, and perhaps even certain of her daughter’s recovery: “When she’s stronger I want to return to my home in Congo. I want Grace to be able to go to school and to study.” Above, Sarah Kembi removes washing from the line outside Amuria Health Center.

It takes just an hour to reach the hospital. Grace weighs in at the aforementioned 13 kilos, more to the surprise of the other patients than to the doctors and nurses. Unfortunately her case seems only slightly less than routine.

Grace’s referral paper gets her through the queue at the hospital more quickly than the other patients. She’s first sent to pediatrics, after which she’s sent to a special feeding center, a critical care unit for malnourished children. Dr. Okwairwoth Justine, the in-charge on-duty, offers cautious optimism: “If it was just malnutrition, I’d say she’d definitely recover. Right now she’s dealing with malnutrition and severe infections. She’s running a fever. But even now she can sit up straight. She can improve. I have hope.”

Once Grace is settled into her new bed, she falls to sleep. Her mother runs out and returns 15 minutes later with a black plastic bag that she cradles with one arm so as to keep it from bursting. Out of it she draws a thermos of warm milk for her daughter. She places the bag with its remaining contents on the floor underneath the bed. The contents turn over and clang on the floor: two sealed bottles of beer. She glances at me in embarrassment. I pretend not to notice. “How could she at a time like this?” I think to myself. However, as I make my way out of the hospital I begin to sympathize. The woman must be a frantic mix of gloom and fear on the inside. Once Grace makes it, she knows she has herself yet to deal with. I may go and have a drink myself.