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 Volunteers
in the UK helped to pack numerous ship containers, which brought
everything from drugs and powdered milk to hospital beds, medical
equipment, ambulances and fridges to maintain the cold system for
vaccines. Their arrival in Uganda was always fraught with difficulties.
On one occasion we were called to the border with Kenya where a container
had been stopped. There was some military coloured water cans in it.
Some of Amin’s “intelligence” henchmen accused us of importing military
equipment. Happily they didn’t see the camouflage mosquito nets which
were in the same container, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to talk
ourselves out of it. Urgently needed drugs, most of them donated by a
major drug company to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds, came
out by air on the then Uganda Airlines, which was also known for shipping
in whisky for Amin and his cronies. On one occasion SPICMA was offered
free air freight on a Hercules plane operated by Uganda Airlines. Tons of
drugs were delivered to Stansted Airport to be loaded on to this plane.
As it happened there was also a small statue of St.Teresa of the Child
Jesus, destined for a parish named after her. The whole consignment
disappeared into thin air. Eventually we found out that it had been
“diverted” by Amin’s army. Six months later, a package was delivered
anonymously to the freight agent in Kampala. It was the statue of
St.Teresa!
After Amin’s overthrow in
1979, Uganda embarked on a period of relative peace. SPICMA continued to
send in drugs and other equipment. It is much easier to break down than to
build up, and the infrastructure destroyed by Amin’s misrule would take a
long time to restore. The next life threatening crisis which SPICMA
addressed was the anti-government insurgency which erupted in 1986 in the
East of the country. Home grown rebels were pitched against the National
Resistance Army of President Joeli Kaguta Museveni,
who still rules Uganda. As often happens it was the ordinary people who
suffered, especially the vulnerable. Although a number of International Aid
Agencies came into the area, SPICMA offered help those who were in danger
of falling through the cracks. Numerous containers of milk powder were
shipped in to feed the children. One of these was hi-jacked in Kenya, on
the way up from the port of Mombasa. Fellow missionaries working in Kenya
saw some of it being sold in the market in Nakuru. (Fortunately it had been
insured). Where I lived we had one of the nutrition camps. My lasting
memory is of finding a mother lying dead in one of the huts, with her live
baby next to her, crying away and not knowing that her mother was dead.
For six years of war, SPICMA continued to supply the area with milk and
essential drugs.
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