Much more to come tomorrow, including some wonderful old Ugandan stories. xxx
MURCHISON FALLS AND NATIONAL PARK
where we shall pay a visit to soon, just keep watching this space. xxx
DO ANY OF YOU KNOW ;
WHY THE BAT SLEEPS ALL THROUGH THE DAY
AND ONLY COMES OUT AT NIGHT?
You don't! Then I shall tell you why, are you sitting comfortably, then I'll begin.
After Nambi had gone to live on the Earth her father Gulu, the King of the Cloud Land, called a great council together and gave presents to all his friends.
Those who lived far away were called by special messengers and he sent the Bat to call the Sun and the Dove to call the Moon. The Dove is a sweet obedient creature and it flew away swiftly, and the Moon arrived in good time for the Council. But the Bat is a lazy good-for-nothing tramp, and he dawdled on the road and played at every turning and the time passed, and all the guests were assembled and yet the Sun did not come.
Then the King sent the Dove to call the Sun and he came very quickly, but the Council had already begun. The Sun explained that the first messenger had never reached him, and when the King sent to find out where the Bat was, he was brought in tied up like a prisoner. The Sun was very angry and said: "If I ever see you again I will kill you."
Then the King gave the Moon a beautiful cloak of silver and said: "Go and shine on the Earth where Nambi is so that if she wants to walk at night, she may see by your light; and all Nambi's children will love you and rejoice when they see you. They shall beat drums and make music and all the people on the Earth shall praise you and sing songs to you."
And to the Sun the King said; " I give you a cloak of gold, wrap it around you all day so that Nambi and her children may not be scorched by your rays. Shine everyday on the Earth and make the trees and flowers and gardens grow, and make the children grow healthy and strong!"
Whe the Council was over and all the guests had received their presents, the Sun went out to find the Bat but he had run away and hidden himself so no one could find him.
And so it is that to this day the bats hide away, under the roofs of houses, caves and in dark corners, it is only when they peep out to see the sun sinking below the horizon that they know they can come out of their hiding places, and they always remember to tell their children and grandchildren that in the early dawn, when the first streaks of light appears in the East, that they must all hurry home to the safety of their dark corners and stay there snug away from the Sun.
This story Diddily found in a book called: "The King of the Snakes," a little book which belonged to Sir Apolo Kagwa, K.C.M.G., M.B.E., Katikiro of Buganda, called "Engero za Baganda", which was written in the Luganda Language and written down in English by Rosetta Baskerville. She dedicated the book to "ALL THE LITTLE CHILDREN I LOVED IN UGANDA. 1922
THE STORY OF THE FAIRY FOXES
From the book
The King of the Snakes.
by Rosetta Baskerville 1922
and dedicated to all the little children she loved in Uganda.
Can you see the little dwarf man hiding in my garden?
A long time ago there was a King of Uganda who
wanted to make a Zoo, and he called all his chiefs
together and told them to bring animals of every
kind from the forests and jungles and swamps
Then he planted a beautiful garden and put
cages into it, and people came from all over the
country to see it. But the animals were very
miserable; night and day they thought of their
homes, and they hated having food brought to
them instead of hunting for it themselves, and
they hated having water brought to them in water-pots instead of drinking it from the deep forest
pools, but no one was sorry for them except the
King's dwarf, and he had lived in the jungle and
knew their language.
One day when the King was walking in his Zoo
and the dwarf was with him, he said: "Am I not a great King? No one has ever
made a Zoo like this before, in which all the
animals of the country are collected together."
But the dwarf said: "All the animals are not here; there is one
animal which lives in the Mukono Forest which
no chief has brought, because, though it cries all
night and everyone hears it, no man has ever seen
it. Some people say it is a bat, and some say it is
a sloth, and some say it is a fairy fox with wings
made of the night mists."
When the King heard this he said:"I will not be beaten by any animal; I will go
to Mukono and fetch this fairy animal myself."
So he sent for Sekibobo the chief and told him to
build a big encampment near the forest, and the
men worked night and day till it was finished.
Then the King and his whole court went to
Mukono.
For three months the King lived in the encampment, and every night he went into the forest, but
though he heard the fairy foxes crying all round
him he never saw one. Sometimes the sound came
from above his head, but there was nothing there;
and sometimes it came from the ground at his
feet, but there was nothing there; and sometimes
to the right hand and sometimes to the left, but
nothing was there; and the people called them
"enjoga," which means "bullies," because they
teased the King every night.
At last the time came to return to the capital,
and the King sat sadly in his house, and the dwarf
sat near him and said:"Why is the King so sad?"
And the King
answered: "I am sorry I have no fairy fox for my Zoo,
but there is another reason. I have learnt to love
the beautiful forests and jungles and the deep
glades and shady paths and water pools, and the
moonlight nights are never so lovely in the capital
as they are in the country, and I am sad that I
must leave it all and return."
Then the dwarf said: "If you are so sad at
leaving the country after only three months, how
much more sad must the animals be, for this is
their home, and in your wonderful Zoo they are
only prisoners."
When the King heard that he was thoughtful
and silent for some time, and then he called Sekibobo and said: "Send a messenger quickly to the
capital and tell the Katikiro that all the animals
in the Zoo are to be sent home, everyone to his
own forest or jungle or swamp." "I will have
no more prisoners," he said.
And now there is a broad road which goes from
Kampala to Jinja and passes quite near to the
Mukono Forest, and if you go there you will hear
the "enjoga "crying in the forest all night, but
no one has ever seen them. Some people say they
are bats, and some say they are sloths, and some
say they are fairy foxes with wings made of the
night mists.
Whilst reading the story from nearly a hundred years ago I thought I would look on the WWW to see if the Mukono Forest was still there, but I was sad to see that the forest was there but not the people. Here is a small video about those people.
Removed from their forest dwellings by government authorities in order
to establish the Mgahinga and Bwindi Impenetrable National Parks in
Uganda, the Batwa pygmies now live in slums around Kisoro, a town which
sees tourists stream through each year to visit the parks, which were
created to protect the country's endangered mountain gorillas.
While
conservation tourism booms, however, most Batwa are considered ultra
poor, have extremely low life expectancy, and have been struggling to
have their rights recognized for three decades.
Over recent
years, a Batwa organization called UOBDU has sought legal recourse,
arguing that the land for the national parks was unlawfully seized from
the indigenous people. This is yet to be resolved.
Just a quick HELLO from all around the World
Fun for all the children of the world with Dr. Dodiddily and the Dee Dot's
A little bit about Myself and my Sisters
Kath, (far left) Sylvia, blonde (middle) Dorothy (me far right) Amy (Toni, in front)
Dr. Dodiddily is one of four sisters. First there is my sister Sylvia, she is the eldest and the smallest.
Then there is my sister Toni(Amy)
she is two years younger than Sylvia, Toni lives in Kent.
The next
one born in 1944 was Dorothy, yes my lovelies this is my real name. I am
three years younger than Toni. One more to come and that is my sister
Kathleen, she is the baby of the family and she is four years younger
then myself.
We couldn never hand our cloths down to each other, we were all very
different sizes, and anyone coming after me wouldn't have been able to
wear anything I was such a tom-boy and thing were worn out long
before Kath could have them.
This is a very old picture of the four of us taken in Coed Poeth in North
Wales, way back in 1952/3.
Gosh I am an Ancient Dragon, aren't I ! xxx.
This
is myself and my sisters in 1979 just 26 years later, we are with our
mother who like myself was called Dorothy. We are from left to right
Sylvia, Toni, My Mum, Dorothy (me) Kathleen.
Jayden, Noah Rhys, Brodie Leigh with Diddily in the background you can just see my grey hair.
Summer 2014 in the back garden at my home in Pontybodkin another 35 years later.
This was in the summer children but this was the same garden in January that same year.
A little bit colder that is for sure. I wonder how many children in Uganda have seen snow like this in their garden. I do remember seeing snow on Kilomanjaro when I lived in Kenya.
Dr. Do Diddily and the Dee Dot's
WHICH IS BASED FOR PROTECTION INSIDE
THE DRAGON LORDS CASTLE
UGANDA
We believe that education should be available to everyone in Uganda and we are using our community education programmes to address this.
I found this page whilst looking on the net for things I need to learn about Uganda and her Children. I do hope you won't mind me enclosing it in this , your page, for it seems so sad that a goverment in 2016 does not understand the need to help ALL CHILDREN find a place in school.
