Peter CostelloUganda: My Mission
by Fr Damien Grimes MHM
(Published by the author, Llanwrst, Wales, €9.40; available on Amazon.co.uk)
This very personal books provides a startling account of Fr Grimes’ years as a Mill Hill missionary in Uganda. The very first Victorians to reach the court of King Mutesa found this lovely region beset by violence. It has remained a place of violence.
The author worked there from 1959 to 2000, for most of the time as the headmaster of Namasagali College, in a rural part of the country well away from Kampala.
He saw the end of British rule, and lived through the regimes of both Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Yet against the dreadful events of those years he struggled to provide a second level education which provided his students with the knowledge and skills to play important roles in the life of their country.
His chapters are all filled with striking information. One entitled ‘Choosing a School Uniform’ vividly illustrates the cultural clashes between tradition, Christianity and Islam In Uganda.
Though a book with dark passages, there is at the heart of it a message that the missionaries did their best they could to change, improve and maintain the lives of those around them.
Fr Grimes is now retired to the rural peace of North Wales.
For anyone interested in the development of Africa and the influence of modern missionaries this is an important text.