Title: Ending Wars on Uganda’s Children
Author: Dr. Barbara M. Panther-Gibby
Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media
ISBN: 979-8-88963-012-8
Pages: 284
Genre: Non-Fiction
Reviewed by: David Allen
Pacific Book Review
This book takes an up close and personal look at how the rest of the world lives. The rest of the world — in this case, equatorial Africa, specifically Uganda — struggles with the basics: adequate food and water, shelter, medical care, and education.
In America, one takes these as givens. They are not. In Uganda, Malaria, Sickle Cell Anemia, and AIDS decimate the population. Snakebite remains a deadly threat. Marauding soldiers and terrorists routinely set upon villages, looting, raping, murdering.
The laundry list of atrocities is wearying in and of itself. The backlog of natural obstacles, of recalcitrant nature, lack of water, proper sanitation, is likewise ponderous. Who could ever make things right?
Well, heads up well-intentioned readers: old-fashioned missionary work, in the form of Christian educators, helpers, and well-drillers, came there to make a difference. Dr. Barbara M. Panther-Gibby (origin Salem, Oregon) joined by her sister Joy and two other humanitarian blanco workers, have made it their life’s work to help Uganda and its children arrive alive in the 21st century.
Dr. Barbara M. Panther-Gibby writes, “I arrived in Uganda in 2004, not knowing what to expect, amongst protests by friends and family who equated the country to what they saw happening in South Africa. At that time we grew to expect the frequent loss of electricity in Uganda.” And, she continued, “It seemed similar to our America on the surface, but then it began to look so very different. People dressed immaculately in work clothes, carrying cell phones and briefcases as they stepped out the door of a dung-covered hut topped by a tin roof and no windows. There didn’t seem to be any water sources other than the yellow jerry cans that people lugged to their homes on their head or on bicycles.”
Once you start this book you won’t be able to put it down. Readers will be amazed and delighted at the folks encountered on the way. They are colorful, amazing, marvelous. This book is a tonic to placidity, passivity, to know-nothingness. Notions of colonialism become themselves superannuated in the careful reading of this book: in this case at least, the white man/woman brings relief — food, water, medicine, equipment to dig wells. What could be more impressive? More generous? More loving?
The foregoing aside, the book is exceedingly well-written. Using a conversational, informal tone throughout — always keeping to the real, the human, the present — the author vivifies and broadcasts the plight of millions in this region. The historical background on Uganda’s wars, infamous leaders, corruption, is likewise trenchant, accessible, and hardest of all, difficult to accept.
It has been said the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Dr. Barbara M. Panther-Gibby and colleagues took it and made a difference. Although the work is never done, there are now schools, churches, clinics and water wells were once there were none.
