But then, as if the universe hears me, the bell rings for the lunch break and I am just about run over with the zeal of these children trying to touch me. With great fervor they stroke, poke and prod me from every angle—all with boisterous hilarity. It’s pretty overwhelming standing here in the middle of fifty-plus black children who want to touch me and hug me, just to say they have touched a white woman. They are fascinated by the red color of my hair and how white and freckly my skin is. One girl puts her finger in her mouth, wets it and tries to rub my freckles off. Another keeps stroking my hair—I think she is fascinated by how soft it is. I just stand there and allow myself to be examined like some kind of exotic creature. I feel like pinching myself at the irony of it all. It was always Frankie who caused this kind of fascination wherever he went in Scotland. I wonder what Mum would think if she could see the role reversal today.
Pastor Sam waves over at me and, much to my surprise, doesn’t try to stop them. He stands there in his black Wellington boots, laughing away as the children practically knock me to the ground by climbing on and over me. I peer between the rioting bodies to try and see Rony. He looks like he has been trying to take pictures but now has at least ten kids hanging onto him. He gives up, turns the camera around and shows them pictures of themselves. That’s when they finally leave me alone; everyone wants to see themselves in a picture! Thank God for digital cameras.
Lunch is ready. This time I eat the fresh chicken. I am slowly starting to get used to the Ugandan food, although to be honest, I am not very taken with it. It lacks the spices that I love so much. It is also very high in starch. Baked, boiled or steamed matoke comes with every meal, as does sweet potato and cassava. Today I am grateful there are no grasshoppers to be seen—they are considered quite the delicacy.
Over lunch, much to our surprise, Phibi and Sam offer us some of their land to build our school for the creative arts. They admit the concept of such a school is alien to them but say they are willing to learn. They believe it will complement their own school and be a first of its kind. There are many children at Grace School and in the local community who could benefit from such a school. But we are well aware that Phibi and Sam will benefit too.
We stroll to Grandma Miriam’s house—she only lives about three hundred yards away from the school. As we walk the dry road I think about Frankie’s ancestral footprints. His mother must have walked on this land. I feel as if the murram road holds footprints of all those who have walked its winding path.
When we reach Miriam’s home I imagine Frankie has been there waiting for me. I imagine he bends down before me and rakes his hands through the red murram dust, picking some up. He holds out his dust-filled hands to me. I take some of it in my own hands.
I wish it were magical dust—like fairy dust. I wish I could be transported back in time to visit Frankie’s ancestors. I know his spirit has been here and he has now seen his lineage. He’s at peace.
Miriam is so happy to see us. She is dressed in her busuuti and is tongue trilling with excitement. I sit on the couch beside her and we hug and hug and hug. I tell Miriam it is the anniversary of Frankie’s death today. Phibi says she had no idea it was an anniversary when she suggested we come to Vvumba today. Miriam throws her hands up in the air in prayer position and praises the Lord with such passion! She believes God has brought us together for a reason. We must pray.
Pastor Sam leads us in a prayer dedicated to Frankie. The intensity of it is touching. Miriam keeps saying Amen, Amen. I choke back tears.
When Frankie died, if anyone had told me I would one day be sitting in his grandmother’s house in Uganda on the anniversary of his death, saying prayers with a pastor and some of his relatives, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.
Arts for Africa
It became apparent during—and after—our last trip to Uganda that the school we should partner with was Grace Primary. The board made that decision because Phibi and Sam proved that they could project manage the building of a school, work with the education authorities, and were in an area of need, not because they were tangentially related to Frankie. Also, Hope Kollective, the children’s home we visited on a previous trip to Uganda, was within walking distance from Grace Primary. We knew that if anyone was in desperate need of access to a school like ours it was the impoverished children from Hope Kollective.
Sam, as a pastor, was held in high regard by the local community and without community support, nothing can be achieved in Uganda. Both he and Phibi had drive and ambition—both of which were needed in huge quantities for a project like ours. Sam also has an entrepreneurial spirit; he was eager and willing to learn. He also had a vested interest in the success of our school because it would be linked to his own. He had already proven to us that he could get things done and done well.
After months of lawyers, due diligence reports and lots of phone calls and emails, a memorandum of understanding was drafted up between Pastor Sam Lwere, his wife Phibi, Grace Primary and Nursery School and Starchild. I won’t bore you with the details of the tedious hours of work it took to get to an agreement, but let’s just say we kept our wits about us and developed good negotiating skills through some pretty creative accounting—never accept the first, second or even third costing of anything in Uganda.
In July 2015, Starchild broke ground on Phibi and Sam’s land in the village of Kakoni, Vvumba, Uganda, and started construction of The Starchild School for Creative Arts.
While the school was being built, we needed to get set to work to provide the teaching materials necessary for it to function as a haven for creativity. We needed art supplies, sewing machines, musical instruments, fabrics, threads and craft materials.
My first call was to Graham Hart at TWAM. Much to my surprise, Graham told me they already had at least eight sewing machines sitting at their warehouse in Ipswich that they could ship over to Uganda in their next container for us. I couldn’t believe it—just like that, we had our sewing machines.
Music and sewing at the Starchild School for Creative Arts
I then put a message out on Facebook asking if anyone had any discarded musical instruments lurking in a cupboard or under the bed. I was overwhelmed with the response. In less than two days, we were offered umpteen guitars and violins, a professional drum kit, a couple of trumpets, flutes, and tambourines; the only thing missing was keyboards. I put out another call on Facebook specifically looking for keyboards and by the end of that day I had four!
It was incredible, but how on earth were we going to get them to Uganda? I knew TWAM was great at navigating the red tape in countries like Uganda, and its shipments always got there without anything being tampered with, but I wasn’t sure if it would be able to help us ship our goods.
Graham suggested we email David White at TWAM and ask if it was at all possible to book some space on a container and we would pay for it. Again, much to our surprise, David, said yes! It turned out Graham had been following the Starchild projects on Facebook and was able to tell him that any goods sent on our behalf would be employed wisely. By now, we had repeatedly proven we could navigate Uganda. I was so pleased we had taken the time and effort to build our reputation before trying to launch our school.
Next, I put a call out for unused art supplies on Facebook. Our original Art for Africa auction had been a great success (preparations were well underway for a second) and in the process we had garnered many artist friends online. In no time at all, we found ourselves inundated with an array of fantastic art materials. Thanks to Helen McVey and a charity in Glasgow she worked for called IMPACT Arts, a vast array of donated art and craft materials were able to go in our container.
As I knew the owner of Remnant Kings fabric shops in Glasgow, I decided to ask him if he would kindly consider donating some fabric for the kids to use as practice. To my surprise, Farrell McKeon told me I could go to his warehouse and uplift a thousand meters of fabric!
What had at first seemed overwhelming turned out to be one of the easiest parts of this remarkable journey. Still, our donations had to be collected from all over Scotland, packaged up and made ready for a driver to take to Ipswich in July. From there they were put in a container and shipped to Uganda. Somehow, we managed it and within a few months, we had a large container chock full of goodies ready to be shipped to our school, even though it still wasn’t fully built.
How we managed all this, I will never know. You see, on May 22, 2015, just a few months after we returned from Uganda, Rony was diagnosed with lung cancer. We were told he had months to live.
CHAPTER NINE
Uganda Saves a Life
Uganda, 2015
It is a hot day, our last in Uganda. We are invited to a garden party at the Sheraton Hotel for the Kampala School of Music. Fred Musoke, a prominent musician in Uganda, owns the school. Serendipitously, I was introduced to his British wife, Sam, through the actress Sally Philips. Rony happened to have a part in a movie, Decoy Bride, that Sally had both written and starred in and I was lucky enough to meet her on set. She was just lovely, and when she heard I was traveling to Uganda, she contacted her friend Sam and we also became friends.
It is a gorgeous day at the Sheraton in every way possible. The wine is flowing and David, Moses, Sam and her children and some other friends are with us. We are celebrating the end of an exhausting trip.
Suddenly—and unusually for him—Rony says he isn’t feeling well and thinks he should go back to the hotel. Reluctantly, I leave the party with him. We have a long trip home the next day and Rony seems really tired, but I put it down to the grueling pace we are under, and the heat.
A few days after we return home, Rony still doesn’t seem very good. He is tired, with hot sweats, and a constant cough. By this point he has had this cough for a while, and I had been nagging him to go and see about it. This time I insist he go to the doctor’s in case he has contracted malaria. He argues that we have both been taking our antimalarials, but we also both know they can’t guarantee immunity. Reluctantly, Rony goes to see his GP, Ian Kennedy.
Ian isn’t taking any chances and admits him to Gartnavel Hospital right away where they have The Brownlee Centre for Infectious Diseases.
Well, they don’t find malaria—they find cancer. Lung cancer. They also discover Rony has contracted community-based pneumonia and that is the most likely cause of his symptoms.
In a matter of months our world has come crashing down. A series of tests show that the lymph nodes seem to be involved, which means the worst. They say ignorance is bliss, but I am anything but ignorant when it comes to cancer. I nursed Mum through ovarian cancer and fully understand the prognosis. If we are lucky, my Rony has a few months left on this earth.
I don’t want to dwell on the enormity of the grief and anguish we are both feeling. There are already plenty of books written about the devastation of a diagnosis such as we have been given. I say we because there are two people who have been given the diagnosis. Two people are fighting to keep body and mind together for themselves and each other.
Apart from the initial trauma of thinking I am going to lose the man I love, I am devastated that after all this time and effort, Rony won’t live to see the school in Uganda. Without him, I doubt there would have been a school. How can life be so cruel? But I know it is that cruel. Bad things happen to good people. I’ve known that all my life.
I do the only thing I can—I pray and I ask for prayers all over the world. I contact everyone and anyone I can think of. I ask for healing, for Reiki and for candle lighting. Anything. I’m not praying for a miracle. I am merely praying for the strength for us both to get through this.
The PET scan shows the lymph nodes in the center of the chest are “lighting up” and appear crushed—a sign they have cancer. However, the biopsies of the lymph nodes come back clear. After six very uncomfortable bronchoscopes, the medics decide to surgically remove one of the lymph nodes by doing a mediastinoscopy and send it for analysis. Much to the medical team’s surprise it comes back benign. It seems even though it looked to this team of professionals like the cancer was in the lymph nodes, it wasn’t. No one is able to understand this. We are told it is an unusual case, but the evidence from the biopsy shows clearly that the cancer is contained in the lung.
This means Rony has a chance! There is the potential to operate and remove the tumor and part—if not all—of the infected lung. But he still has pneumonia; despite umpteen antibiotics it won’t shift. It is getting to the stage where the surgeon, Mr. Butler, knows the tumor has to come out or it will be too late.
Eventually, after the strongest dose of antibiotics they can give has been administered, a decision is made. They have managed to bring his white blood cell count down enough to chance the surgery.
I will never forget the day Mr. Butler tells Rony he will be having the operation in the next few weeks.
Rony says, “I’m sorry but I can’t. I’m in the middle of our big Art for Africa auction. People are relying on me.”
Mr. Butler looks straight at me, then Rony, and says in his thick Irish accent, “Well, let me tell you something Mr. Bridges. If you don’t have this operation right now, you might not be here to see Art for Africa in a few months.”
On September 1, 2015 Rony undergoes surgery to remove a section of his lung. From his hospital bed in The Jubilee Hospital we handwrite, together, the catalog for Art for Africa. Rony refuses to change the date of the event. He makes it his goal to be fit enough to be at the preview reception with the artists on September 18. And he is.
Despite a few errors in the catalog, Art for Africa is a huge success and we raise over £24,000. Subsequently, Rony undergoes radiotherapy. Six months later, Rony is fit enough to return to Uganda.
A lot of people think—and tell us—we are mad to go back to Uganda after such an ordeal. But as far as we are concerned it is Uganda that saved Rony’s life. If I hadn’t thought there was a strong chance he had malaria then Rony wouldn’t have gone to see his GP, and Ian wouldn’t have rushed him to hospital and the cancer wouldn’t have been found until it was too late. So, you see, we have reason to thank Uganda.
A Dream Comes True
Uganda, May 2016
I walk along the red murram dust floor of our school, disappointed that it is not concreted. We had, after all, sent the funds for this to be done. I ask why our school does not yet have a proper floor. Pastor Sam looks up, “Ah, yes, the floor is on the ceiling.”
That is when Sam informs us an official had turned up and told him that because we have music in the school, we needed an acoustic ceiling. I’m not sure who we were going to annoy with the sound of music—perhaps a herd of elephants?
Apart from this surprise diversion of funds, we have managed to build a rock-solid 180 square meter school for £16,000 as against quotes of £100,000. And it will be finished on time!
Celebrations outside the newly built
Starchild School for Creative Arts
In August 2015, just prior to Rony’s surgery, our shipment of equipment arrived at the school. Seeing the photographs of the joy-filled children and teachers receiving these gifts made the hard work involved in getting them there worthwhile.
I know having both the school and Art for Africa to focus on has helped us get through Rony’s illness. When faced with a prognosis like Rony’s, some people put their slippers on, feel vulnerable, and stay home rather cocooned. It’s not unusual to feel fragile and afraid to continue participating in life to the same extent. But for Rony and me it was important to try to have as normal a life as possible. Of course, despite a desire to do so, he was not physically able to do what he did before. Although he didn’t have the same energy levels and was battling deep seated fears about his mortality, he was determined to push through the emotional and physical pain and engage in life as much as possible. As his partne
r, I was fighting my fear and anguish of losing him. I was also learning to be less mollycoddling and allow him to do things, even when I was anxious that they would be too much for him. Again, some well-meaning friends suggested we both slow down, but for Rony and me nothing propelled us more than the feeling that time could be taken away from us. We had to make the absolute most of every day! Also, I truly believe knowing that we are helping others, helps us in so many ways.
Our treasurer, Iain Andrews, turned out to be fantastic at helping us work out the exchange rates and in dealing with a lot of the financial practicalities. Iain is an old school friend of Frankie’s, and I have always seen it as a lovely twist of fate that he ended up being our treasurer. And, of course, our friend, Moses Apiliga, has helped enormously with the legal preparations and negotiations in Uganda. Lisa Trainer of Red Door Interiors donated all the furniture to our school, and it looks spectacular. All in all, Starchild is blessed with a great team of people without whom our dream of this school wouldn’t have stood a chance. And now there is just one week to go until the school is officially opened.
My heart beats as fast as the loud African drums I can hear from a mile or so in the distance. I see Grace Primary first, then the children, all lined up to greet us, dancing in their grass skirts. I take a sharp intake of breath. I cannot cry. Wow, wow, wow, I say to myself. This is for real. We did it!
I feel like royalty as we step out of our vehicle. A procession of children and teachers dance, sing and tongue trill before us as we walk, shimmy, and clap through the Ugandan pomp and ceremony on the red carpet of murram dust.
My thoughts are on the other side, with Frankie, Janet, and my parents. I imagine that they, too, are here waiting on us. I imagine Frankie and his great big smile, waving at me from the top of the steps. “Would you just look at this place, Sister—it’s jumpin’!”
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