"Uganda"
My journey into a new beautiful way of life
Guglielmo Magagna
5/8/20243 min read
Uganda
What can I say about this wonderful country in Central Africa?
First things first: Uganda is incredibly hard to reach. We took off from Rome heading to Addis Ababa (about 6.5 hours on the way out, 8 hours back), and from there, caught another flight to Entebbe (around 3 hours). We traveled mostly at night with Ethiopian Airlines—which isn't exactly the most comfortable airline in the world. And once you land, reaching our final destination—a tiny village lost in the middle of nowhere with a name that’s sometimes hard to pronounce, "Nabikabala"—takes at least another 5 to 6 hours by Jeep, depending on the traffic.
I almost forgot: you’re probably wondering why we went to Uganda in the first place?
Well, I set off on another wonderful mission with the Andrea Bocelli Foundation. The goal is simple: reach this place and the people who live here, and give them the tools to improve their social and humanitarian conditions. Sounds easy, right? But it was during this last mission that I truly opened my eyes.
Our team consists of Laura, Barbara, Selma, and Sofia from ABF; Alessio and Manolo, the choir directors (yes, the VoiceOf project I mentioned in my other article was set up here too); and Joel and Roberto, highly skilled architects supporting the design and conceptual phase of the project.
As I write this, I realize I’m leaving out massive details. This project is truly a 360-degree effort, making it impossible to cover every single aspect in this article.
Leaving the choir and VoiceOf side of things behind for a moment, we arrived in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, during the first few days of the trip. We were searching for companies and suppliers that could help bring the designs created by our two architects to life. That’s where the first issue came up: who do we turn to? In Uganda, we quickly realized that material quality rarely meets basic European standards. Who could we trust with the construction? Finding reliable companies that genuinely understood the project was no easy task.
But above all, how do we actually want to change the lives of the people in Nabikabala?
Once we left Kampala and arrived at the village, I realized that all our doubts and questions were completely justified. What do these people really need? Take their kitchen, for example. Right now, it's just a small shack with a tin roof, its interior completely blackened by the smoke from the open fires they use for cooking and heating water. See what I mean? Do we install gas stoves for them? What happens if they run out of gas and the supply is cut off? Induction? Solar panels?
In short, these were all questions I had never spent a single second worrying about before.
The truth is, this might not be my exact field of expertise—after all, I am in this wonderful place to document, capture, and create video and photo content. But it is impossible not to get emotionally invested in a historic shift for these people. I have one specific image vividly etched in my mind. We are in a room with all the key members of the community gathered in a circle. On the tables in the center, the plans are revealed clearly for the very first time: new classrooms, new dormitories, new water harvesting and purification systems, new restrooms, a new infirmary, and more. A few moments after the project timeline is unveiled—just long enough for those people to grasp the magnitude of what is happening—an overwhelming wave of joy mixed with tears breaks out. It is a moment celebrating what will likely be yet another event that changes their lives—and perhaps, ours even more.