Crowdfunding campaign for AFRIpads launched at Indiegogo

 Girls at Semei Kakungulu High School with their AFRIpads.

I've launched a crowdfunding campaign through Indiegogo to continue supplying 250 Ugandan girls at Semei Kakungulu High School and Hadassah Primary School with washable, reusable sanitary pad kits so they don't miss any school days. Like most girls in the developing world, they're too poor to buy commercial products. And so they use strips of paper or old rags, and stay home during their periods.

The girls will contribute about 90 cents toward their AFRIpad kits. Your donation of $2 will help buy one kit, $10 will help buy five, $20 for 10 kits, and so on. It's easy to help and will make a big difference in these girls' lives. 

Please contribute at www.indiegogo.com/projects/664912/wdgi/4541651

Thank you!

More support for Abayudaya community in Uganda

 Click to donate for Ugandan orphans through PayPal or credit card

The poorest of the poor: After receiving decorative beads from the new Bead Bank, women of Namanyonyi village make paper beads so they can create jewelry and generate income for their families.

There are developments in initiatives to give a hand up to the Abayudaya community of eastern Uganda. Pnai Or of Portland synagogue voted to continue their support for a second year. They are generously supporting six orphan students at Hadassah Primary at Nabugoye near Mbale. And they are also supporting my project to set up a simple Bead Bank so that the poorest women in the villages can receive decorative beads. The women have received training from members of the Abayudaya Women's Association and have created new paperbead jewelry. Their necklaces will be sold at the ALEPH Kallah in New Hampshire in July. The revenue will go back to the new jewelry makers and they can then repay the Bead Bank and have cash for their families. Thank you, Pnai Or!

Chanting & Chocolate in Vancouver has been growing so that we can now support three students from the donations received at the door. We will also be selling beautiful cloth bags hand-made and donated by Mrs. Hung in San Francisco. Thank you, Mrs. Hung!

Abayudaya orphan: Help send Zilpah to a better school

Click to donate for Zilpah through PayPal or credit card

I'm looking for an angel or a group of angels to help Zilpah Mudondo, a very bright Jewish orphan in the Abayudaya community in Eastern Uganda where I lived. She's been going to the Abayudaya-administered high school but wants to become a doctor and the school doesn't have the science facilities she would need to get into pre-med.

Zilpah would like to go to Hamdan Girls High School, a boarding school in Mbale, the district capital, which has the resources and level of academic competition she needs. Tuition, boarding and expenses are about $230 per term in a three-term school year. The Ugandan school year begins in January. For her first term, which begins Jan. 17, as a new student she would need an extra $100 for the materials each student must supply: for example, uniforms, school supplies, mattress, bedding, soap, even toilet tissue. So that would be $790 for this year, and about $690, barring any fee increases, for each of two more years until she finishes her A levels (the equivalent of Grade 13).

Please contact me by email or phone (604-222-3379) if you would like to participate in helping Zilpah. Canadian tax receipts can be supplied by a Jewish-run registered charity in Ottawa. If a tax receipt is not an issue, please help by clicking on this donation link: Click to donate for Zilpah through PayPal or credit card

Zilpah is 17 years old and about to enter Senior 4, the equivalent of Grade 11. Her parents died in 1996 and the four children were raised by an aunt. FYI: In the photo above she is holding AFRIpad kits, which are washable, reusable sanitary pads that I'm fortunate to supply to all the menstruating girls in the Abayudaya schools thanks to many generous donors. Most Ugandan girls can't afford commercial products and often miss school.

Abayudaya women create beautiful paperbead jewelry at Nabugoye Hill

Click to order Abayudaya paperbead jewelry
$25 including shipping. Please include the necklace number
and your mailing address.

Naume Sabano with necklaces at Nabugoye Hill, Uganda. 

Click on any necklace to see a larger version

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Income-generating project helps relieve poverty

Last night I sent more than 1 million Ugandan shillings to Naume Sabano, chair of the Abayudaya Women's Association, for paperbead jewelry made by her members. The jewelry was sold in Portland, OR, where I visited the P'nai Or Jewish Renewal community last weekend to lead an Abayudaya Shabbaton. The money is only $430 but it means a lot to subsistence farmers who rarely have any cash income.

This morning I woke up to this text message from Naume: "Dear Lorne, what exciting news. I wish you could see my smile but all I could say is thank you so much. May God reward your efforts."

Click to order Abayudaya paperbead jewelry
$25 including shipping. Please include the necklace number
and your mailing address.

P'nai Or of Portland partners with Abayudaya for Tikkun Olam projects

Click to donate to the Abayudaya through PayPal or credit card

Jewish girls at the high school with their AFRIpads.

Helping support Jewish, Muslim, Christian children in Uganda

The Abayudaya ("People of Judah" in the Luganda language) first embraced Judaism around 1919. Today this remarkable Jewish community numbers about 1,000 people, basically subsistence farmers, in villages in Eastern Uganda.

P’nai Or has voted to support the Abayudaya Jewish children of Uganda and their Muslim and Christian classmates in the following three ways:

1. Supply schoolgirls with washable, reusable AFRIpad sanitary pad kits;
2. Provide bicycles to girls at the elementary school to make education more accessible;
3. Sponsor orphan students at their elementary school.

I'm a member of the Jewish Renewal shul Or Shalom in Vancouver, BC, lived in Uganda in 2009-2010 and worked in the two Abayudaya-administered schools. P'nai Or will be directly linked with the community through me. I'm a classmate of Linda Zahavi in the Kol Zimra chant leaders training with Shefa Gold, and a friend of Yehudah Winter and Joanie Levine.

Ugandan schoolgirls routinely miss four to five days a month of school because they can't afford commercial sanitary products and are uncomfortable going to school when they use bits of old clothes or newspaper. AFRIpads manufactures low-cost, cloth sanitary pad kits in Uganda to reduce menstrual-related absenteeism and provide schoolgirls with protection for up to a year.

I launched a pilot project at Semei Kakungulu High School earlier this year to give AFRIpads to the 21 Jewish students in the dorm. I'm able to get the kits for $4 and have raised funds to supply another 58 high school students. That leaves 148 girls – 108 at the high school and 40 at the elementary school – who would benefit from the kits provided by P’nai Or fundraising. The current need equals $592.

Bikes make education more accessible for girls.

Many girls live too far from the school to walk every day. So they stay in the dorm, separating them from their families, and putting financial pressure on the school to house and feed them. If they have bicycles, they could ride from home and stay with their families. 20 bikes at a cost of about $60 each would be a great help. Total: $1,200.

Joel, Nathan and Shalon are orphan siblings.

I have partnered with Aaron Kintu Moses, director of Hadassah Primary School (unrelated to the Hadassah organization), and Vancouver donors to sponsor the education of eight orphans at the school. Another five orphans are waiting for sponsorship. The cost is $240 a year each, for a total of $1,200. Except for minor fees to wire the funds, all the money goes to the kids to help pay for uniforms, books, school supplies, dorm fees and other expenses that are usually beyond their reach.

As part of this project, P’nai Or children and teens can develop pen pals with the Ugandan children as they are taught their lessons in English. They do not have computers.

The total sought for the Abayudaya is $2,992: $592 for AFRIpads, $1,200 for bicycles, and $1,200 for sponsorship.

Help empower Abayudaya girls with AFRIpads

Click to donate to my work in Uganda through PayPal or credit card

Top: Jewish students at Semei Kakungulu High School

in Uganda with AFRIpad kits. Bottom: The cotton/nylon
kit includes cover, three pads with wings and two without.

A monthly challenge, a sustainable solution
Millions of girls living in developing countries like Uganda miss up to 20% of the school year simply because they cannot afford to buy commercial sanitary products when they menstruate. The Abayudaya Jewish girls and their Moslem and Christian classmates face this same challenge. They use newspaper or rags and miss four-five days of school each month for lack of sanitary products. This absenteeism has enormous consequences on girls' education and academic potential.
The AFRIpads menstrual kitsAFRIpads manufactures low-cost, reusable, washable cloth sanitary pads in Uganda in order to curtail the high rates of menstrual-related absenteeism among primary and secondary school girls. They are made by local Ugandan women giving them the opportunity to generate an income and send their kids to school. The menstrual kit provides school girls with affordable, environmentally-friendly, washable menstrual protection for up to 1 year at about 20% of the total cost of a year's supply of commercial sanitary napkins. AFRIpads is a sustainable solution for girls and women greatly enhancing their health. It also gives them the opportunity to continue work and school during their period, thereby improving their future progress and development.

How to buy AFRIpad Kits for Ugandan girls
Help a Ugandan school girl fulfill her academic potential and help AFRIpads stimulate rural industry and employment. It costs only $4 for one kit, $8 for two, $12 for three, and so on. Here's how: Click to donate to my work in Uganda through PayPal or credit card

Out of Africa: Moving Back to Canada

Click to donate to my work in Uganda through PayPal or credit card

On the first and third Shabbat of the month, I've been hosting Abayudaya students and others at my Kampala home for Kabbalat Shabbat, dinner, a sleepover, breakfast, morning services, and lunch.

In Ottawa last November with Ted Jacobsen, whose support helped kickstart the orphans' lunch program at the Abayudaya-administered high school.

Sarah Nabirye, right, leads student dancers at an Abayudaya festival at Nabugoye.

My cute RAV4 parked outside the Abayudaya Guest House.

Peace Mutonyi, right, my top speller last year, with her family in Kampala. Dick and Marcia Zuker of Ottawa are helping Peace with her education costs.

With my boss Ariful Islam at the BRAC Uganda country office in Kampala.

Vancouver Is Calling Me Home

I'm coming home to live in Vancouver after 14 months in Uganda. The beauty and lifestyle of Vancouver call to me, I miss my spiritual communities and I want to be more helpful to my sister, who has faced a health crisis. My job as publications manager for BRAC Uganda has reminded me that I retired from full-time work at the end of 2006. I've given a month's notice. Uganda is beautiful but its charms are fading for me. I've caused two minor traffic accidents here in Kampala in the last two months. No one has been injured but I'm afraid of hurting myself or others. I'm accident-free in Canada but here there's a gap in my attention. I had thought of returning in mid-November when my daughter Lisa receives her Masters in International Affairs from Carleton in Ottawa. But that would mean arriving on the cusp of winter, rather than summer. My favourite event of the year, the Vancouver Folkfest in July, is beckoning.

So, I fly out of Kampala's Entebbe Airport on Sunday, June 27, arriving that evening, by virtue of the time difference, in Ottawa. I'll be there a few days, and look forward to meeting Ottawa family and friends who have been so supportive of my volunteer projects with the Abayudaya and others. On Wednesday, June 30, I arrive in Vancouver.

I'll be looking for temporary accommodation during July while I search for a long-term rental from Aug. 1. In July I would be grateful for just about any arrangement in the city of Vancouver - housesit, vacation rental, or sharing a home, including helping with rent, expenses, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. For the long-term rental, I'm thinking of paying up to $1,200 for a nice one-bedroom, if that's realistic these days. I'll also be looking for a three- or four-year-old car, perhaps a Prius again. Any leads for these would be appreciated. My Skype address is lmallin.

I leave feeling that I've been able to do some good work with help from many of you. The orphans' lunch project was a major initiative that has meant so much to vulnerable students at the Abayudaya-administered Semei Kakungulu High School at Nabugoye Hill. Kulanu, the New York-based non-profit I represented at Nabugoye for six months last year, has attracted enough funding this year to expand its nutrition program to the point that it began feeding all the students a daily hot lunch last month. Kulanu expects to keep it going for some time. More than $1,000 of the donations I received remains and I am in discussions with Kulanu and the high school about how to use it. For example, deputy headmaster Jaffer Satte has suggested supplying drinking water to the students to go along with the lunches. The area at and around the school is not suitable for drilling a well so water needs to be hauled from more distant wells in jerrycans. The monthly cost would be about $90. Right now the students find water wherever they can. Clean water is essential and we could provide it for at least a year.

For the five students and one toddler I've found support for, I've begun communicating with them and their sponsors (I support a sixth student myself) about how to switch from funnelling the money through me to probably sending it directly via Western Union, a reliable way to transfer funds. If I haven't discussed this with you yet, I will.

Some of the other ways your donations have been spent since December:

• Eight double bunks for the girls' dorm at the high school
• Two months of feed for starving chicks at Hadassah Primary School's poultry project (after the contractor squandered the budget)
• Support for Hebrew education in the Ghana Jewish community, whose spiritual leader Alex Armah studies in the yeshiva at Nabugoye
• Supplying beading and Judaica materials to members of the Abayudaya Women's Association who've sent necklaces to Ottawa for sale

Since moving to Kampala in December, I've visited Nabugoye to be with and pray with friends from time to time, as well as other Abayudaya villages. But my main way of staying connected to the Ugandan Jewish community has been hosting Abayudaya students going to university here, as well as others, on the first and third Shabbat of the month. We've been developing a Kampala branch of Marom Olami, an organization for 18- to 35-year-olds that is part of Masorti Olami, the Conservative movement in Israel. On the Thursday evenings I do a lot of cooking ahead. After work Fridays I pick up students at Kampala International University about 15 km away. Then we celebrate Kabbalat Shabbat, share dinner, songs and conversation, followed by a sleepover for as many as seven guests. After breakfast, we have a Shabbat morning service, lunch and I drive them back. Marom Olami is reimbursing me for my expenses. I'll be transferring the mattresses, bedding, prayer books and ritual objects to the students. With Marom's help, they will likely rent a space near the university to keep things going. At least I hope so.

One project that is stuck is the Abayudaya Jewish Cookbook. Last year I worked with Jewish women in several villages to create about 30 recipes, and took hundreds of photos of food preparation and display. But I discovered there is nothing uniquely Jewish about the food. It's everyday Ugandan food, which is dominated by bland, starchy dishes. I tried testing some of the recipes in my western-style kitchen but lost enthusiasm. I don't much like Ugandan food and have found sources for the ingredients for the Japanese-Chinese-Korean dishes I love to cook.

About my job: BRAC is an extraordinary organization helping to raise the poorest of the poor out of poverty through microfinance and an integrated program of livelihood enhancement services. At first, I was sent into the field in Eastern Uganda, Tanzania and Southern Sudan to interview and photograph the people whose lives have been changed through BRAC. Then I wrote the annual reports for the East African countries. More recently, editing dry research reports has been less exciting.

I've led some chants in services here as well as before some Sunday morning yoga classes. But I'm really looking forward to the wonderful chanting world in Vancouver. I want to begin again hosting Evenings of Jewish Chant in Vancouver once I'm settled

See many of you soon!

With the Abayudaya - Ending and Beginning

Click to donate to my work in Uganda through PayPal or credit card

Rabbi Gershom Sizomu reads the last few verses of Torah on Simchat Torah.

Then Gershom's son Igaal reads the first verses of Genesis.

Endings and beginnings. The Jewish world in October celebrated Simchat Torah, when we mark the end of the yearly cycle of Torah reading by chanting the last few verses of the scroll and then beginning anew with the first few verses of Genesis. I joined the Abayudaya community Saturday night and Sunday morning in drumming, dancing and singing our hearts out.

My time at Nabugoye Hill is coming to an end. There are many threads to weave together in the next few days from my volunteer work over the past six months. On Shabbat I’m sponsoring a Kiddush lunch of rice, beans, goat and eggplant (including a token contribution from what survived in my garden). On Sunday, I’m going to Entebbe airport with JJ Keki, who is flying to Amsterdam with me before we separate – JJ to New York to begin his Kulanu-Abayudaya speaking tour (www.kulanu.org), and me back to Canada, first to Montreal, then based in Ottawa, with a week in Vancouver Nov 16-23. I’ll be Ottawa when JJ’s there Nov. 11 and in Vancouver when he speaks Nov. 19. I will be talking about my experiences Nov. 17 at Or Shalom in Vancouver.

And then a new beginning. God willing, I’ll return to Uganda around Dec. 1 to get settled in my new home in Kampala and begin working Dec. 15 as manager of publications and material development for the Uganda office of BRAC, world’s largest antipoverty group (www.brac.net). A great fringe benefit of the job is that with BRAC being Bangladesh-based, the lunch room serves yummy curries.

In Kampala, I’ve rented a brand-new three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for $383 Canadian a month (Ugandans think that’s very, very expensive). It’s a 10-minute walk from my new office, which is about five kilometres south of downtown Kampala. In the ritzier sections of the city it would easily cost three times as much. There are cattle, chickens and small vegetable farms along the dirt road to my place. Unfurnished here means no fridge or stove so I’ll have some significant costs setting the place up. With no legislated tenant protection, landlords have free rein – six months’ rent in advance plus a month’s security deposit.

The High Holy Days were very high here with almost 300 people, many dressed in white, jamming the Moses Synagogue. Services were a combination of Abayadaya practices developed over the 90 years since their community began, and more familiar Conservative songs and prayers from Rabbi Gershom Sizomu’s training in that movement. I walked late into mincha (afternoon) services on Rosh Hashanah to hear something for the first time – Shirat Hayam, the Song of Moses, composed in Luganda by the founder of the Abayudaya, Semei Kakungulu. The rhythm was steady, almost plodding and the melody simple and repetitive, evoking the songs of Canadian First Nations peoples. For many years, this was the centrepiece of Abayudaya worship and everyone memorized it.

Another first was offering the Birkat Hacohanim (Priestly Blessing) by myself. I’m usually one of a number of descendents of the priestly tribe in the congregation. One Israeli visitor on Rosh Hashanah happened to be a Levi and helped me with the ritual handwashing. I also enjoyed being the Baal Tekiah, blowing the shofar that punctuates the services, and reading Torah on Yom Kippur. Friends and I felt very elevated in our full-length, white kanzu robes. The Yom Kippur fast went quite easily, except for when the sun beating down on the metal roof turned the synagogue into a steambath. We all broke the fast with cups of steaming porridge from a large vat.

After returning to Uganda, I’m planning to visit the Abayudaya one Shabbat a month. There’s no synagogue in Kampala. Almost all the 200 or so Israelis there are secular. There are some non-Israeli Jewish expatriates and a handful of Abayudaya students going to university. I love Shabbat and hope to create some kind of prayer/chant/communal opportunity.

When I come to visit Nabugoye Hill, I’ll be able to check on the orphans’ lunch program at Semei Kakungulu High School, which many of you generously helped launch and are sustaining for a few more months. I am always grateful for more help: Click to donate to my work in Uganda through PayPal or credit card. Back in Canada, I will look at the donations and how they’ve been spent and give you an accounting. I just used $55 of the donated funds for a makeshift shelter of branches, plastic and papyrus mats so the students have some protection in the heavy rains. They can’t really take their plates into classrooms where other students with little or no food are escaping the storms. Kulanu’s nutrition program continues to provide a daily cup of breakfast porridge and a chapatti three days a week for all students. 

I leave here with a sense of some accomplishments and some loose ends. Great news: A $5,000 US grant for cervical cancer screening for the Abayudaya women and their neighbours has been approved with the very real prospect of saving lives. The poultry project is back on track with the chicken coop virtually complete and day-old chicks ordered. Aaron Kintu Moses, headmaster of Hadassah Primary School and my best friend here, took back the project from the contractor, who had only worked two days in six weeks. I'm invited every Shabbat morning to lead my teacher Rabbi Shefa Gold's chant for Nishmat Kol Chai with the English part translated into Luganda. I think it will be part of the service. In Apac district I arranged to record songs of the new Jewish community there. In Namutumba, the synagogue has a sturdy bima table, thanks to your donations. 

The Mbale Spelling Challenge was a success even though MTN, the telecom giant, failed at the last minute to provide major sponsorship. But they did give us T-shirts that the students love. In the end, Mbale Secondary School won with 17 points, Hamdan Girls’ High School (a Muslim boarding school) earned 13 and our team racked up six. Still, our students came home in high spirits. They had enjoyed a special day with lunch at the guest house, transportation in a minivan taxi, the thrill of competition, plus the shirts and Certificates of Participation as rewards. Now, the schools know how to conduct a spelling contest and everyone wants them to continue. MTN is talking about a 15-school competition next year but I don’t know whether that’s more than talk.

The Abayudaya Jewish Cookbook project now has a good body of recipes and photographs from several villages. It has been a wonderful and often tasty experience to work with the women and get a glimpse into their lives. In the coming months, I intend to test the recipes in my own kitchen and turn the research into a book proposal to attract an agent who will interest a publisher. All profits will go to the Abayudaya Women’s Association. Let me know if you’ll also test a recipe or two after I’ve adjusted them from cooking by firewood or charcoal to a regular stove. 

In my last e-newsletter, I was critical of the broken promises I’ve experienced here. Over the High Holy Days I reflected on my own failures to deliver what I said I would, from the websites for Rabbi Gershom and the guest house, to your e-mails I haven’t yet returned.  

I am deeply grateful for your support over these six months. Just knowing that you’re reading my newsletters has helped me feel connected and not so alone in a strange land. I'm excited to see many of you over the next weeks.

 

  

 

Abayudaya deliver relief to famine-hit Ugandans

Abayudaya members, from left, Eria Muyamba, Esau Wanani and Igaal Sizomu deliver food relief to famine-stricken villagers in the remote Ugandan village Acegerekinei on July 29, 2009. (Lorne Mallin)

By Lorne Mallin · Jewish Telegraphic Agency · August 2, 2009

ACEGEREKINEI VILLAGE, Uganda (JTA) -- After four hours of driving on ever tinier roads this morning, our food truck becomes stuck in the sand and we have to push it out. We are following the packed pickup in Rabbi Gershom Sizomu's SUV -- four members of his Abayudaya Jewish congregation, two Ugandan TV reporters and me, a semi-retired Canadian journalist volunteering with the Abayudaya.

Just then we see thatch-roofed mud huts in the distance under a bright blue sky dotted with puffy clouds. We see people gathered under a large tree. The high-pitched trill of ululation greets our arrival at last in Acegerekinei, a remote village in northeastern Uganda.

We begin unloading the 2,420 pounds of food relief we have donated to hungry families among the estimated 3 million Ugandans facing starvation in a worsening famine. I was happy to have contributed 220 pounds of corn flour.

The Ugandan government says there are food shortages in 52 districts in the north and east brought on by drought and other factors. Nearly 40 people have died of hunger-related complications in the East African nation of about 32 million.

Rabbi Sizomu says he wants to act before the numbers grow worse, before a high death count is needed to trigger a response. He received ordination in the Conservative movement last summer after a year studying in Israel and four years at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He became the first ordained black rabbi in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Central to our Jewish values is saving lives," he tells the 65 families sitting on the ground in the shade of the tree. "We wish you well and we pray that God brings this to an end."

Rabbi Sizomu is responding to a village elder who thanked the Abayudaya for coming "and for rescuing us." Acegerekinei is in Katakwi, one of the 17 hardest-hit districts that the government says are experiencing famine.

The villagers all clutch cards from the Ugandan Red Cross, which is helping coordinate relief, entitling them to a share of the corn flour and beans that the Abayudaya trucked north from their home in the Mbale district near the Kenyan border. The Abayudaya first embraced Judaism in the 1920s and now include about 1,000 members in several Ugandan villages.

The Red Cross chose the most vulnerable in Acegerekinei to receive relief -- the elderly, the disabled and those suffering from HIV/AIDS. They line up as best they can; some are in wheelchairs fashioned out of plastic lawn chairs.

Each receives about 33 pounds of corn flour to make corn porridge and the staple dish called posho, plus about 3.3 pounds of beans. Each pound of corn flour is about enough for a meal for three people.

“Our community responded overwhelmingly to the call to donate,” Rabbi Sizomu says. “Everybody wanted to help.”

The response is considerable from a community that mostly lives on subsistence farming. Though the Mbale district has less rain than normal, crops are still growing.

“I believe that life takes precedence over everything,” the rabbi says. “God is not going to stretch out His hand physically, so we are extensions of God's arm.”

I notice that we are here just hours before the Jewish holiday Tisha B'Av, when practicing Jews fast for a day. We have the luxury of turning on and turning off our food consumption.

The rabbi's son Igaal, 15, helps distribute the food we brought.

“It felt good to donate,” he says. “If we get hungry, maybe there would be others who would help us.”

More relief is coming; more food was collected than the truck could hold. And on this morning, students visiting the Abayudaya from the California Institute of the Arts of Los Angeles donated $190.

To contribute to the food relief, donate at http://www.kulanu.org on the Web site of Kulanu Inc., a U.S. nonprofit that supports development in the Abayudaya community; write "Uganda Emergency Fund" in the comments field.

(Lorne Mallin is a semi-retired Canadian journalist volunteering with the Abayudaya.)

Being of service: A Vancouverite goes to Africa

CITIZEN BYTES

Published Tuesday, July 7, 2009 | 02:28 PM ET

Submitted by Lorne Mallin

About/Bio: A lifelong journalist, I took early retirement at the end of 2006 from The Province newspaper in Vancouver where I was an editor. I then spent about two years doing newspaper travel writing on five continents. I'm 62, divorced, with one daughter, Lisa, 26, a masters student at Carleton in Ottawa.

My take: Volunteering for a year and a half in Africa is my answer to the recession. I based most of my retirement income on stocks and bonds in an investment management account. When the market nosedived, I decided to stop drawing income from the account and pursue a dream to volunteer in the developing world. It's a chance to let my investments recoup, I'm hoping, and do some good at the same time.

But to do what?

For years I've been intrigued by the Abayudaya of eastern Uganda, an African community of about 1,000 that first embraced Judaism in the 1920s. I'm a Jewish chant leader and they make beautiful music with Jewish prayers and African melodies. Last December I googled volunteer and Jewish and up popped the Abayudaya and Kulanu, a U.S. non-profit that supports their development. I applied to be a Kulanu volunteer for six months and studied teaching English at Greystone College in Vancouver for three months to prepare.

Since arriving April 21 I've been living in the new guest house at Nabugoye Hill, a village outside the town of Mbale. I focus on improving the written English of Grade 7s and 11s in the community's schools. My other initiatives include forming a spelling team, working with the Women's Association on an Abayudaya Jewish cookbook, helping Rabbi Gershom Sizomu develop his web site, reviving the Abayudaya Girls' Magazine, helping secure a grant to launch an egg farm, and coaching a community member, Athalia Nalongo, for a Kulanu-Abayudaya North American speaking tour. I pay all my expenses and live on about $1,000 a month.

I'm a city boy but I love the village life with its dirt paths and mango trees. Time is elastic. Chickens, goats and cattle forage for food everywhere. Lizards dart across the inner walls of the synagogue where I go to services Friday nights and Saturdays. The Abayudaya mainly survive on subsistence farming and cook outside over firewood or charcoal. I feel loved in their midst and have made good friends who I greet in the morning in Luganda: Wasuze otyanno? (How did you spend the night?). Children play, laugh and cry, and suffer malaria with frightening regularity.

I leave Oct. 18 and will spend some time with my daughter in Ottawa before heading to South Africa for all of 2010 at a black township high school outside of Cape Town, sponsored by Vancouver-based Education Without Borders.

Here are some of my photos:

Traditional singers, dancers and drummers perform in Mbale,
eastern Uganda. May 17, 2009.

Young musicians of the Abayudaya community practise their
songs at Nabugoye Hill, Mbale, Uganda. They have videos
posted on YouTube. April 30, 2009.

The main synagogue of the Abayudaya Congregation is
at Nabugoye Hill, Mbale, Uganda. April 23, 2009.

Athalia Nalongo and two of her daughters behind their
home in Namanyonyi, Mbale, Uganda. May 15, 2009.

Swinging a hammer helps rebuild swinging New Orleans

Father-daughter team Lisa and Lorne Mallin volunteer at a Habitat for Humanity house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. Aleis Tusa photo

Volunteers Jessica Hopkins and, top, Mike Valdez work with New Orleans musician Jesse Moore building a Habitat for Humany house. Lisa Mallin photo

Volunteers work on putting up siding on a Habitat for Humanity house in New Orleans' flood-hit Ninth Ward. Lorne Mallin photo

Some of the homes built by Habitat for Humanity in the Musicians' Village in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. Lisa Mallin photo

Volunteer serves Christmas dinner to seniors at a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in suburban Harahan. Lisa Mallin photo

Chef Chiqui Collier introduces her half-day New Orleans Cooking Experience – a four-course gourmet meal that guests help prepare. Lisa Mallin photo

St. Louis Cathedral towers over the palm trees on a warm winter day in Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Lisa Mallin photo

The beautiful Houmas House Plantation and Gardens on the Mississippi River is less than an hour's drive from Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. Lisa Mallin photo

The steamboat Natchez takes visitors on New Orleans-area cruises along the Mississippi River. Lorne Mallin photo

Trumpeter William Smith leads the 726 Jazz Band at the famed Preservation Hall in New Orleans' French Quarter. Lorne Mallin photo.

The historic French Quarter in New Orleans is famous for its nightlife, music and food. Lisa Mallin photo

Parade celebrating the Sugar Bowl brings more music and colour to the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Lorne Mallin photo

Strolling the streets of New Orleans' French Quarter with its Spanish-influenced buildings. Lisa Mallin photo

One of the energy-efficient homes built well off the ground by Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Lorne Mallin photo

Published April 4, 2009, in the

By Lorne Mallin

Voluntourism. Noun. Combines vacation travel with volunteering at the destination visited.

NEW ORLEANS, La. – Our building crew arrived as strangers from different directions in Canada and the U.S. but we were all spending part of our vacations helping this wonderful city recover from the still-visible scars of Hurricane Katrina.

"We wanted to come to New Orleans just because we've never been here and wanted to help out somehow," said Jessica Hopkins, 29, who flew here from Glendale, Calif., with her partner, Mike Valdez, 33.

That roughly parallels the motivation for my daughter, Lisa, 25, and me, plus the opportunity to see relatives we'd never met before – cousins whose shared ancestors' paths included Winnipeg.

We found a unique and welcoming metropolis, hurting to be sure but bouncing back and eager to show visitors the kind of good time the Big Easy (more easygoing than the Big Apple) has been famous for almost since it was founded by Montreal-born Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1718.

We were marking my birthday at a Habitat for Humanity construction site in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, which was hard hit when 80 per cent of the city was flooded after Katrina swept in from the Gulf of Mexico on Aug. 29, 2005. When levees failed, at least 71 percent of the city's homes were damaged, many completely swept away, others ruined by water several metres high that stewed for weeks before it was pumped out.

More than a million voluntourists (volunteer tourists) have responded and more are needed. I signed up for the Habitat opportunity online (see If You Go) and at 7:15 a.m. we took a $10 taxi ride from the tourist-magnet French Quarter, passing hundreds of derelict and abandoned homes and an alarming number of weedy, vacant lots where families once lived. There were encouraging signs of new and restored homes and businesses bringing life back to the area.

We gathered with a few dozen other volunteers at a corner of the Musicians' Village, a visionary project of 72 homes conceived by Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis after many of the city's beloved musicians were forced to flee by Katrina.

A Habitat supervisor assigned us to a crew of seven putting up siding at 2113 Louisa St., a typical single-level Habitat home of about 1,100 square feet on a 35-foot lot with three bedrooms and one bathroom.

Some of us were experienced but Lisa and I were pretty much novices. While measuring was challenging at first, the fiber cement siding was easy to cut and hammer and we got into the swing of it.

Everybody brought their own lunch and sat around on building materials in the warm 16C sun in the backyard getting to know each other, including musician and budding homeowner Jesse Moore, who was putting in part of his 350-hour sweat equity by working with us.

The homeowners' sweat equity constitutes their down payment and then they pay off the $75,000, 30-year, no-interest mortgage at about $600 a month.

Moore, a 61-year-old singer-songwriter, had been living in Austin, Texas, when he returned to New Orleans and was approved for the last available house in the village.

"I was very excited about that," he said. We were excited to hear Moore's music and most of the crew turned up the next night when he performed at a French Quarter pub.

Music is central to the New Orleans experience and helped make another opportunity to volunteer great fun. A local couple, Keith Crawford and Deborah Frydman, hosted a Christmas dinner for seniors and posted on the New Orleans craigslist site for 30 people to help serve. We signed up.

They hired caterers and a three-piece band that set a warm and lively tone for the 300 seniors who were bused into a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in suburban Harahan. We enjoyed chatting with the guests and serving the lunchtime meal.

That night we volunteered at a New Orleans Hornets NBA game after finding the chance online. We were given official Hornets shirts with "Volunteer" on the back to wear and keep, and assignments. I put temporary Hornets tattoos on young and old while Lisa coloured fans' hair with purple and gold hairspray.

By halftime we were sprung loose to watch the rest of the game, a 100-87 losing cause against the L.A. Lakers, but it was a thrill to see Kobe Bryant play.

Our tastiest "volunteering" was the New Orleans Cooking Experience, a half-day extravaganza with chef Chiqui Collier at the House on Bayou Road, a circa-1790s Creole plantation house. Guests pay $150 each for the privilege of helping prepare elements of a fabulous four-course meal, sipping on wine and then sitting down to enjoy the fruits of their and the chef's labours.

That's a great splurge. But eating here is a passion that doesn't need to break the bank. The brand-new Zagat guide credits New Orleans with the lowest average meal costs in the U.S. – $28.52 compared to the national average of $34.31.

We ate at the tony, venerable Galatoire's restaurant but also budget meals like splitting a heaping roast beef Po'Boy (like a sub) for $9.95 at Messina's. Another day we popped into Frank's Restaurant for takeout and carved the $13.75 Muffaletta, a massive sandwich with a round, flat bun of near-Frisbee proportions, into quarters for two meals.

On Christmas Day, we feasted on a Louisiana specialty, a deep-fried turkey dinner, for $9.50 at 13 Monaghan's in the Faubourg Marigny district, and later on I sipped a frozen Irish coffee for $4.50 at Molly's at the Market in the French Quarter. (Full disclosure: both places are run by my newfound family.)

As much as the food, people are drawn to New Orleans for the music, and more specifically the jazz. We sat on the floor of the famed Preservation Hall a few feet from hot trumpeter William Smith and the 726 Jazz Band. A few times we caught sizzling musicians at the Spotted Cat on Faubourg Marigny's Frenchman Street, which has better music than Bourbon Street.

A special treat was the gospel-oriented Christmas Eve midnight mass at St. Jude's Cathedral. Gospel in a Catholic church? That's because of New Orleans' history of slavery and French and Spanish rule. There's a Canadian element too here in the Cajuns (local pronunciation of Acadians) who were expelled from Nova Scotia in the 18th century.

New Orleanians love to celebrate. Mardi Gras, which falls this year on Feb. 24, is New Orleans' signature street party. I kept hearing that the city's Jazz Fest, April 24-26 and April 30-May 3, is unbeatable for music lovers.

Most celebrations emanate from the French Quarter with its narrow streets and Spanish-flavoured architecture. "Like Havana with newer cars," said my daughter Lisa. The Quarter is on higher ground and was not flooded.

We enjoyed browsing the antique-store treasures on St. Louis Street, café au lait with doughnut-like beignets dusted with icing sugar, pecan pralines at Aunt Sally's, touring grand old homes and cruising by the house that Brad Pitt and Angelina bought. Pitt's Make It Right Foundation is building homes in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Beyond the Quarter, we recommend a Cajun Encounters tour to get oriented to the city, the excellent National World War II Museum, the funky boutiques on Magazine Street, the powerful IMAX film "Hurricane on the Bayou", riding the vintage street cars down St. Charles Avenue for $1.25 and the state ferry across the Mississippi River for free.

And if you want to help New Orleans, the city wants you. "We have come a long way but we've still got a lot of work to do," Mayor Ray Nagin told me in an interview. "Come down, do some good and enjoy the city of New Orleans."

You'll feel good. "It almost felt like we were being ambassadors for Canada," said Lisa. "We were making a difference in people's lives."

IF YOU GO
• Getting there: Flights from Winnipeg connect through Chicago, Minneapolis and Denver
• Accommodation and food: Fodor's 2009 New Orleans guide is hot off the press, and you can get a free visitors' guide from www.neworleanscvb.com
• To volunteer: www.handsonneworleans.org and www.habitat-nola.org
• Thing globally, act locally: Habitat Winnipeg www.habitat.mb.ca
• What's happening: www.neworleansonline.com (also click through to "voluntourism")
• Get a feel for New Orleans in Brad Pitt's hit movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"