We Are One Village

by Nikki Lovell

  I smiled to myself: I will find a way to raise this money. One birthday when I was young, my parents had given me a card; on its cover had been a small child wearing over-sized red boxing gloves with a punching bag high above his head. The card read: ‘If you can dream it, you can do it. Dream big.’

  I was wide awake now and I jumped onto the computer that was also in the back room. I began typing fundraising ideas—movie nights, quiz nights, street BBQs, music festivals. I was also thinking of the various Rotary and Lions clubs that I now knew from speaking at their meetings— maybe they could help, maybe they knew other clubs that could also help. And my old school . . .

  I started a new list and on this one I wrote down everyone I knew. I typed until my eyes grew weary, and then I went back to bed and fell straight asleep.

  It didn’t take long for me to organise to speak at all sorts of different places—clubs, schools, even my nanna’s retirement village. Everyone was always really interested and most people supportive. Occasionally people were critical, asking why I supported those in a foreign country instead of supporting Indigenous communities in Australia. It was a good question and I answered honestly—because I would have no idea how to do that.

  I set up an extra bank account to start putting donations in. It was a problem though, because I had no option other than to have the account in my name; this always took a lot of explaining every time someone was considering giving money.

  As the donations started to roll in and my conversations with Florence became more regular, my passion grew. One day, when I was having a cup of tea with Mum and brainstorming fundraising events with her, she noticed me becoming wild-eyed with excitement. She asked what was going to happen with the scholarship scheme that Jane and I had set up. Jane didn’t feel able to find more sponsors, but I knew that I could and I told Mum that ideally the scheme would expand every year, empowering an additional eight girls each year. This meant that next year the scheme would fund sixteen girls into secondary education. At this, Mum asked whether empowering the people of Namwendwa would always be a large part of my life. It was a massive question, but I didn’t even flinch before answering.

  There was a pause in the conversation then, while Mum and I busied ourselves sipping our tea; I wondered where this series of questions was leading. Finally, when our mugs were empty, Mum revealed her thoughts and suggested that I register my fundraising as an official charity. She said that it would then be easier for me to get donations and other forms of support. I could also open a bank account in the name of the charity.

  It sounded like a dramatic thing to do, to set up a charity. Shit, I was just a kid myself—this was possibly way out of my depth. But Mum was right; it would make it easier to gain support. I would no longer have to personally meet every single person before they made a donation.

  I rang a long-time family friend, Brad Butler, to ask his opinion and for his advice. I knew that he was involved with Oxfam and he generally seemed to be just an all-round knowledgeable guy. And he didn’t disappointment me. Brad told me that there were different types of charity-like organisations. Trust funds, for instance, raised money but then gave it to other organisations to spend. He said that what I was talking about would be a not-for-profit incorporated body. He went on to explain the process for becoming incorporated. For starters, I would need a name for it, plus a governing body and a constitution. He said he would help me if I decided to go ahead.

  I always mull over small decisions, like what to eat for dinner, and yet I have a tendency to make big decisions in just a blink. I like to think this is because the big things are so important that you just know what you have to do; and if you don’t know, well, that in itself is your answer. This particular decision was no exception, and I immediately told Brad that I would love his help. I said that the organisation would be called ‘One Village’.

  I was in one of my journalism classes for uni, and was twiddling my thumbs and staring at the clock. I must have looked totally out of it because the girl next to me asked whether I was really tired. I sighed and said yes, because that was the easy answer. And I was tired—tired of uni.

  It was a little amusing that I was already over this course, even though I rarely attended my classes. Each day before I entered the uni grounds, I was the happiest person alive; but then I became brain dead, drifting around the campus like a lost soul. I had to laugh when I realised I was there by choice—I was even paying to be there. In a very warped way I was paying to be unhappy! It was downright absurd, but still some little voice in my head said it was the right thing to do.

  When I arrived back at Sharon’s later that day, Nanna was sitting in the lounge room and she was very excited that I was home. She told me that since I had spoken at her retirement village several people had approached her and asked if I would speak at other functions. Brilliant! My networks were growing, but the problem was the times at which people wanted me to speak—I had uni classes that couldn’t be missed. Nanna wasn’t disappointed and simply said that I had to know my priorities and uni was my main one. Again, I had to laugh; the statement sounded so ridiculous—uni my priority?!

  That night was the final straw. I went to see a local high school drama production. I was so excited about being there that I had to use all my will power to restrain myself from jumping up on the stage. I really missed acting. All during my childhood and teen years I had dreamt of being an actress. When I was in Year 11 the lead girl for the Year 12 drama production had fallen sick only two weeks before the opening night. My drama teacher asked if I would take her place, and I was thrilled to accept. We had to rehearse intensely. The play was about a man and woman who initially despised each other, but ended up falling in love. This was how I had met Jack. He played the leading male role. It was a fairytale way to meet.

  During Year 11 I attended drama classes three nights a week; I even had an agent. But as the end of Year 12 drew near, I began to doubt myself—I’m not that talented, hardly anyone gets a break . . . blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse . . . The truth was, I had been too scared to even try to make a living out of acting.

  I felt the same thing happening to me now—I was only enrolled in uni out of paranoia. Would everyone think I was an idiot if I was not at uni? Would my life ever amount to anything? What would I have to show for myself? Gah, I was so sick of being afraid. I was exhausted with trying to fulfil social expectations. I believed that it was a real privilege to know what made me happy. When I was planning development projects with Andrew, Moses and Florence, or organising my return trip to Uganda for next year, or acting or dancing, my soul and heart came to life. How good did it feel to be alive!

  Nanna had said earlier that I needed to know my priorities. My main priority was to be happy—what else was the point of this crazy journey we call life? I had already finished the first semester of my studies, and was about two weeks into the second. If I withdrew from the course now, I would still have a HECS debt for the first semester classes but not the second. So, just like that, I made another snap decision and the next day I withdrew from the course. This was in early August. I could always re-enrol another time if I wanted to.

  While I was on a roll of life-altering actions, I decided to take yet another chance—I would tell Tom how I felt about him. Because I still wasn’t completely courageous, I called him rather than revealing my feelings in person. As the phone was ringing, I was pacing about my bedroom. What was it with anxiety and pacing?

  When he answered, I suddenly felt overwhelmed. In a blubbering ramble I announced that I had feelings for him, and then I hung up. Tom rang me back immediately. I had taken him completely by surprise, but apparently in a really good way. I started smiling when he said that he had feelings for me too and asked if I would like to go on a date. Eagerly I told him about a female musician who was coming to Adelaide and who I really wanted to see. Her name was Holly Throsby and no-one I asked had heard of her. But, amazingly, Tom said that he loved her music and tha
t he had already planned to go to her gig. Now we would go to it together instead.

  It was weird. Now that I kept following my heart, everything seemed to be falling into place. It was funny that I had thought that going to uni and doing what society expected of me was swimming with the current, but really I had been swimming against it. As if a higher power wanted to give me further proof that I was on the right track, when I got off the phone from Tom my phone rang again. This time it was a man named Allan Wood, who was a graphic designer and also worked in a printing shop. He was printing newsletters for my old school when an article about me setting up One Village as a charity caught his attention. He read that I was looking for support and was now calling with the offer to donate his time to design a logo for One Village. I couldn’t believe my luck and arranged to meet him the following week.

  Tom and I had our date. The gig was at a funky little venue called the Grace Emily Hotel and we met there. At first it felt a little strange; I was so used to being around him, but not in this context. When Holly came on the stage everyone sat down on the floor—it was a peaceful vibe. Tom and I were so close that our knees were touching. Her songs were even more beautiful when heard live. I got tingles when she began to sing my favourite song.

  As she was singing, Tom took my hand in his. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect moment. Afterwards we shared our first kiss. Tom was completely different from anyone I had ever met and I already adored him.

  I was working almost every day in the bakery by now, trying to save money for my return flight to Uganda. Most days it didn’t bother me that this work was so undemanding. My mind was always daydreaming anyway, but sometimes I became bored and frustrated.

  With Brad’s help I drafted a constitution for One Village, but I still needed more members for the governing body. I would be president and Mum vice-president, Brad had offered to be treasurer and my best friend Kaitlyn said she would be the secretary, but I still needed at least two other members.

  I met with Allan and we began to work on the logo. It was a really fun process; he would ask me all sorts of questions about colours and different images, trying to find ways that would best portray Namwendwa and the projects. I really liked the idea of orange and green. Orange like the dirt and green for the fertility of the country, but also to portray that One Village worked from the ground up—with needs and projects identified and implemented by the community affected. I also wanted the logo to reflect the idea of coming together to work for a common good, to signify that we are all connected. As I talked, Allan took notes and often he made sketches.

  We met a few times and then Allan did some draft logos for me to comment on. I adopted the path of Ugandan honesty, and told Allan everything I liked and disliked about each logo. A few weeks later, he emailed me another design and it was perfect. I went to visit him the next week and expressed my gratitude. To my delight, he said that he had become so interested in One Village that now he wanted to stay involved. I asked him if he wanted to be on the board and he happily accepted.

  Then things got even better. He told me that he knew a web designer who might be able to assist me in getting a site up and running. This was how I met Jay Rafferty, who turned out to be an IT guru and an absolute legend. He was only my age but had already started his own web business. His intelligence and drive were inspiring. He not only donated the time he took to design a website for One Village, but also donated the site itself and joined our board.

  We now had everything we needed and One Village could register as an incorporated body.

  I had been speaking to Andrew a lot recently; to my relief, he had taken on responsibility for the scholarship program. He had been busy collecting letters from the girls and their photos so we could give them to sponsors back here in Australia. The community was thrilled, he said, when he told them that we would expand the program and offer sixteen scholarships next year.

  Andrew and Moses also hosted a community meeting to discuss the core needs of the village. An issue that was raised as a primary concern was malnourishment, particularly among children. The community wanted to establish an agricultural program in Namwendwa Primary School. The school had 2½ acres of land that could be used for this. Ideally it would work by introducing agriculture into the curriculum, and then the students would learn to grow the vegetables and fruit for themselves. We would also need to construct a simple building to be used as a kitchen and storage area. Each student would then receive a healthy lunch every day. The program would be low-budget to set up, and then fully sustainable.

  I recalled a moment the year before when Andrew had been helping me with the charcoal stove and he had noticed me chopping up a carrot. He had given me an odd look and asked what this funny-shaped orange thing was. I was surprised by his question. I had purchased the carrots from Kamuli, which was only 16 kilometres away, and yet Andrew had never seen a carrot before. I encouraged him to have a taste of it raw and then explained that it could also be cooked. Curious, Andrew took a bite, and then he smiled in delight. ‘It’s wonderful!’ he had exclaimed. When I showed him a capsicum and some green beans, he was equally amazed.

  When I first arrived in Uganda I had been blown away by how green and fertile the country was, and I had immediately thought it was a place where no-one should go hungry. As the months passed in Namwendwa, however, I came to realise that there were two issues—the first was not always having enough to eat and the second was not eating the right food. Plenty of vegetables and fruit could grow in Namwendwa, but if people didn’t even know that such foods existed or their health benefits, then obviously they wouldn’t be growing them. Setting up an agricultural program in the primary school would not only have the long-term benefit of teaching and feeding the students but also hopefully produce a ripple effect when the students carried such knowledge back to their homes.

  As well as discussing the possibility of the agricultural program, Andrew and I talked about running a second Health Community Outreach Program and a Disability Awareness Community Outreach Program. Often when I got off the phone, my mind would be buzzing from thinking about the projects we were planning. But discussing these developments was the interesting part; now I had the challenge of raising the funds to turn these possibilities into realities.

  I needed to raise the One Village profile, and so I contacted all local media and told them my story. Being young gave me a distinct advantage and seemingly made it all the more newsworthy; newspapers and radio stations took interest in both my experiences and the charity I had set up. I also continued to speak at clubs, schools and even churches. To anyone who would listen, I’d explain how motivated and determined the people of Namwendwa were to improve their situation—they just needed a little help to get things started. I was overwhelmed by the support that people showed, and felt more than ever that we were all coming together as one community, one village.

  Most of my days were still spent in the bakery. I had now decided that not only would I return to Uganda in January of the following year, but also that I would later in the year spend some time in South America. While deferring my journalism studies had been an easy decision, I was now missing the Spanish classes that had been part of my course. This way I would learn Spanish the authentic way.

  In October I turned 20. I was now officially out of my teens and, to celebrate, I had lunch with Mum, Josh and Sam. Dad was away working somewhere—sometimes I lost track of his whereabouts.

  But that night was truly special. Tom picked me up and took me to the beach. The moon shone magnificently bright and the stars appeared to be smiling down at me. The waves swept rhythmically onto the beach, and only the cold sensation of the sand between my toes convinced me this perfect moment was real.

  Tom and I sat on the beach. He had brought along his guitar and harmonica. His stunning blue eyes looked at me intently and then he started singing. He had written me a song and it was beautiful—it was called ‘My Little Light’ and it was about the light that I brou
ght into his life. His singing was so joyful and mesmerising that I knew right then and there that I was in love.

  Meantime, the paperwork for One Village’s incorporation had been lodged and it continued to consume my life. When I wasn’t on the phone to Florence, Andrew or Moses, I was organising fundraisers. Tom and I held a BBQ outside the bakery where I worked. The bakery donated the bread and the butchers next door donated the sausages.

  Tom also ran a benefit gig himself. He organised for his band and others to play, and charged a door entry with proceeds to One Village. Tom’s best friend, Nick, was like the third musketeer and he did all the artwork for the promotional posters. It was exciting how each of our passions came together to create this special event. Generally, it was also just great to be with someone else who was so interested in One Village and would do anything to support me.

  Tom was socially and politically engaged, intelligent and arty. I never told him this, but when I first met him I had found him completely intimidating. Not just because he already seemed to speak fluent Spanish, while I fumbled over hola, but because he was so comfortable with himself. He never tried to be anyone or anything other than who he was—it was refreshing.