Warning! These two videos are not for the faint of heart!
Being in Joseph’s “old women” category (thanks, pal!) I probably could not cross this thing by crawling on my hands and knees, let alone with a bundle of market vegetables and/or a baby on my back. And people do it daily, often several times a day. Our next big push is to replace this banged-together bridge with a proper one with timbers, nails, and handrails. Joseph makes this appeal quite eloquently, and I have transcribed it as follows:
“I am Joseph Kasibirehe, standing right now on one of the highest footbridges in Kyarumba, which connects Kyarumba and Busingo villages. This bridge you see here, it is made by the community members by pulling out some logs from the nearest collapsed trees. They collect them together and fix them on their own, tying with ropes which needs some repairs. And this bridge, this footbridge, is used by women carrying some foodstuffs from gardens across the other side of Kyondo, in Busingo, they cultivate a lot of food crops: yams, cassava, beans, matoke, Irish potatoes, and personal fruits which they take to the market every week. This footbridge is being crossed over every day by young children, women, and men, who collect food from the other part of the area. The water down, it is almost like thirty feet from the valley to this footbridge. So we intend to have some fundraising so that we can get some money to buy some logs, timbers, nails, and we can fix and have some supporters on each side, so that when a person is crossing, they can easily go, slowly by slowly, while protected by the supporters of the logs. I’m just here watching the bridge and looking at the water… and like old women, above sixty years, they can’t cross this river, this footbridge, because it is dangerous to them. So… once we get another funding through the GoFundMe campaign, we shall have to support this footbridge.”
