Taking a risk

Taking a risk: A year in Uganda

By Kim Chamberlain

e-book 121 pages with over 100 colour photographs

NZ $20    

From July 2008 to August 2010 I was on sabbatical with my family in a small town in East Africa. Taking a risk: A year in Uganda is an e-book documenting the experiences we had during our first 12 months.

What are people saying?

“I read it all in one go and I was in open-mouthed, goggle-eyed disbelief the whole way through.”
“Wow Kim WOW!!”
“Here I am at work - been here for ages and not done a scrap of work because I've been reading your fantastic book for the past 2 hours.  Love it!  Keep it up!  I so-o-o envy you over there!”
“I found it absolutely fascinating, and enjoyed every minute of it. It has inspired me.”
“You write very well Kim, you have a real gift in describing your experiences. Makes great reading.”
“What you report is so dramatically different to our lives here that it is ALL fascinating.”
 

What is the e-book about?

When I was 13, at school in the 1970’s, a missionary Nun who was working in East Africa came to school to give us a talk. She was a pleasant, quietly spoken person. Her visit was uneventful and most likely quickly forgotten by most of the students. However, that brief visit inspired me so much that over three decades later my husband and I and our two children left our comfortable, established life in Wellington, New Zealand and moved to East Africa.
Despite two years’ research and a fact-finding trip over there, we ended up arriving with nowhere to live, no work to go to, no source of income, and no schooling arranged for the children. All we had was a suitcase each, two days’ accommodation in a guesthouse, and a belief that it would all work out.
Over the last year we have lived in four different houses. We have had snakes in the garden, earthquakes, regular power cuts, no water, no petrol, experienced the unbelievable inefficiency in the bureaucracy, learned why it’s useful to have a big bottom, nearly been electrocuted, been the subject of a home invasion, paid our first bribe, learned that if I belonged to one of the local tribes I would have to eat my son, seen beautiful scenery, experienced a country which has permanent summer weather, been to the source of the river Nile, had bugs in my knickers, seen poverty first hand, and have realised that Uganda is so much more than the frozen-in-time image that people have of a country in turmoil during the reign of Idi Amin.
 

You will be directly supporting three Ugandan children

10% of the proceeds from this e-book will go to supporting three young children, Uwimani Jennifer aged 5, Twizerimana Onesmas aged 9, and Niyimpa Joseph aged 10. Their mother abandoned them, and their father died. They live in Kisoro district in Uganda with their grandmother, who is unable to support them on her own.

And my favourite quote!

“...rather you than me in that place. You deserve to survive to tell your tales …”