ABOUT GARD OKELLO

 

Gard Okello

In the 1980s, because of the political turmoil in my country Uganda, I went to live with my family in Australia. We lived near a road intersection in Ipswich Bandamba. But something terrible was always happening at that point where the two roads crossed each other. Cars kept crushing into each other. In the short while that we lived there, there were many car accidents.

I took interest and studied the intersection for a while to find out why this was happening. I noticed that in almost all these accidents, one of the drivers didn’t notice the road sign put by the roadside to warn drivers of the intersection ahead.

A question then came to my mind, “what if the sign was written on the road itself where drivers where more fixated while driving?” At first it was just a question that kept lingering in my mind. But when the accidents kept happening and I kept witnessing human sufferings, I decided to do something about it.

One day I sat down and wrote to the mayor of the town. I wrote telling to him that as a person who live in the neighborhood, I have noticed that the reason why there were too many accidents in this particular intersection was because most of the drivers involved had not noticed the road sign. I suggested to him that the words “Give Way” should be written on the road itself.

To be sincere, I actually never expected the mayor to head my advice. But I was surprised when the mayor took my advice. He had the road marked “Give Way.” Not only that, he wrote to me to acknowledge my letter and thank me for the suggestion. And just like that, the accidents disappeared.

That was the ‘ha-ha’ moment for me. That was when I realized that a problem afflicting a community can be eliminated if we study it with the sole purpose of looking for a solution.

So when I came back to Uganda. The country was really suffering from the effects of the perpetual wars that it was suffering from. There were human sufferings everywhere you look. I decided to use the approach I had in mind that helped solve the problem of accidents at an intersection in Australia.

 The issues were overwhelming. They were just too many. I decided to choose the one that I could concentrate my energy on. I noticed that there were just too many people suffering from syphilis. Medicine was hard to come by so many people were dying of syphilis.

I did some digging into ancestral wisdom and found a very effective remedy for syphilis. It helped relieve the suffering caused by syphilis from so many people I treated.

One thing led to another and now I have an ‘arsenal’ of herbal solutions to many of the common ailments afflicting our community.

Am currently living in Lira, a city found in northern Uganda. Am 85 but I am not about to slow down. The fight against human suffering is still raging on. And am right at the forefront!