My Uganda diary

Shropshire student Laurence Whitaker spent five months volunteering to help rebuild Uganda.

The country is still recovering from a civil war, and there are thousands of displaced people who have been released from refugee camps.

Laurence, 18, of Shifnal, worked for the charity Aid Africa, teaching and helping to drill deep bore holes for water.

"It was hugely rewarding," said Laurence, who will begin a business course at Bath University next month.

"People are returning to villages where they have not lived for 25 years.

"The work of Aid Africa is helping them to survive."

He added: "As much as I was out there teaching people, I was learning from them about how to cope in any situation.

"They have been through absolutely horrific experiences but they're still so open and friendly."

Laurence has sent in pictures of his time in the country and, on the following pages, writes about his feelings on returning home.

"A typical shot of daily life in Gulu market. With row upon row of traders you can get hold of anything from fried ants to avacados the size of footballs. Sadly, all this food is just out of reach for the two million internally displaced people returning home from government camps after 26 years of rebel activity in northern Uganda."

Laurence said meeting childen like this, who live lives of unimaginable poverty, "revealed the real strength of the human spirit".

Laurence and the staff of the Aid Africa drilling shallow bore holes to provide water.

This work will help tens of thousands of people left with no access to clean water after the Ugandan government asked the UN to stop providing emergency food aid earlier this year.

"Buying avacados and mangos from a wonderfully friendly man who visited the school where I lived and worked. The avacados were the best I've ever tasted and each one cost just 3p!"

"The hustle and bustle of Kampala's taxi park is almost impossible to capture. These small white vans are licensed to carry 14 passengers but most often there are over 30 people crammed in on torturous journeys to all corners of Uganda."

"To me, this picture really captures Ugandan life, says Laurence. This is a collection of brightly-coloured jerry cans beside a tap where water flows for the first time in days."

nextpage

Laurence's thoughts on returning home

"So I've just got back from four months living out of a backpack in a cockroach-infested spartan room in the African bush.

"Amid the barren surroundings, with TV and 24-hour internet access an entire continent away, imagination and spontaneity were more of a necessity than an attribute.

"As my venture neared its end I spoke increasingly fondly of the UK and looked forward to returning to a country filled with entertainment at every corner: music, film, theatre, engaging politics and endless summer days out.

"Alas, what I returned to was entirely different. These things were less entertainment and more of a distraction.

"What struck me, though, was the predictability, the lack of risk or danger. With regulations and rules for everything there is now no role for chance. How can a nation learn when they have no opportunity to lose? Everything insured, everything dictated, life just slow transit along a speed restricted safety padded slip resistant weather proofed conveyor belt.

"Last month a trip to town could take an hour or ten minutes, it could mean sharing the back of a bike with goats and chickens. Dust would whip into my sunburnt face, shrieks of children would meet my ears as I struggled to wave back while clinging desperately to the hot metal as we jolted over ripped up roads … and now it's just a five minute trip in the car, strapped into comfy seats with extra leg room and reassuring airbags, passing slowly along endless grey tarmac, speed limited and full of warning signs and tutting back seat drivers when the needle nudges 30.

"No doubt this is progress in safety, but is it really progress in life? Is this really what we wanted, a safe world where we have to worry about terrorist threats and financial crises because all the small natural risks have been eliminated by paranoid pencil pushers? A world where the greatest choice of the day is split between voting off the annoying lesbian or the overbearing spiritualist in Big Brother, or whether to have one sugar or two in your mid morning cup of tea.

"Surely we need to lighten up and re-embrace the pioneering cave man in all of us. Two hundred years on wouldn't Darwin be saddened to see that it wasn't the fittest that survived but the meekest, tamest worriers!

"I'm sure that I will go back at some point in the future, the vibrance of life and the openess of people in Africa is really endearing. I'd love to go and explore more of the continent and also go back to Uganda and see what progress is being made."