MR. KRISTIAN CAME TO UGANDA

It all started when Mr. Kristian made his first visit to Uganda. I came to know Kristian through my brother DAVID who works for MR. BIRGER,a Danish investor here, who is Kristian's friend and mine, too. When we met David, Birger, Michael[Germany] and me, Mr. Kristian shared with us his vision of what he wanted to do for his art project. In the beginning, to me it sounded weird for the entire village to add his name to theirs. It was really going to be impossible in my sense. But Mr. Kristian went ahead to explain that it was trade between the villagers and him. They give him something by taking up his name and in return, he gives them something[money or animals].There were also other benefits of taking up HORNSLETH's NAME. These included:
- villagers will be able to trade with the outside world under the HORNSLETH name.
- villagers were passports bearing Hornsleth name to theirs for free.
- the name given to the villagers was to bring us together under one family regardless of your tribal, religious, political background and ideologies.
- villagers were to get money in form of animals to boost their income and many other benefits.

The task was left to explain it to the villagers, and David and I organised a village meeting for Kristian to meet the villagers. Kristian himself explained to the villagers about his art project and what he requires of them and what they get from him. They agreed to trade with him by taking up his name. Later that day, he talked to the opinion leaders and all agreed on what was to be done with the money Kristian was giving, that they should have them in form of pigs, goats and sheep. And each villager will take one of his choice.
Before Kristian went back to Denmark, a month was set for the grand opening of the project and we got a lawyer by the name of Shaban Muziransoga based in Jinja. Kristian talked to him and he was supposed to
help in the legalising of the project, drafting of the constitution, taking oath of affidavit and securing passports for the villagers.
David and I were meant to do the ground work cos we are from this village. Kristian went back, but we kept communicating and him sending the money for the processing legal documents and the setting up of the project.
We started with the process of getting the villagers to fill the forms and taking the vows of affidavit. I got the forms from the lawyers office and took them down to the village. Villagers were waiting cos we kept notifying them through the project co-ordinator Henry and mobilizer Sarah. The local council chairman 1[Giduno]also helped in the sensitisation of the people with the other village leaders. The people willing started filling the passport forms and taking the oath with the
added name Hornsleth to theirs. Every bit of the entire process could be video recorded cos by this time, Kristian had sent a camera trough DHL.Mr. Edwin Twino does the video coverage to this day.
In the process, people were so excited about the project and what was promised to them from adding HORNSLETH to their name, this caused other neighbouring villages to feel envious and coming to us asking to be included in the project, but we kept telling them that their turn would come also.
Almost forgetting, according to Kristian, he needecd 110 participants in his photographing, but the villagers were more than 400 so we had to tell the people that the selected 110 were the ones going to represent the entire village, but everyone would benefit from the project.
The village leaders helped us in selecting out the 110 people. It wasn't a simple task cos other p'ple thought that they will be left out. But we had to convince them that more than 400 people are to benefit cos our target was 10,000 p'ple in the coming 5 years to be reached.
Runours started spreading, discouraging the villagers from adding the Hornsleth name to their names like:

-its not good to take on a foreign name.
-Kristian's promises of giving money in return was not real.
-maybe we were registering rebels.
-the people were going to be used and in the end get nothing. And many others.

The people disagreed with the rumours one by one, especially the issue of taking on a foreign name. They remembered that when Kristian first visited, they too gave him a name BIRUNGI,KIRABOirger], MUKISA[Michael]. About stealing them, they saw that we asked no single coin from the p'ple not even registration, yet other organisations here
ask for registration fee. The villagers agreed that we should register the project as a C B O with the help of the chairman local council 3,KAFUMBE, from Kasawo parish and chairman local council 1,Giduno,signed the letter that was taken to the district[mukono] with the constitution. Everything was verified and later given a certificate. Theproject was registered in the name of HORNSLETH VILLAGE.
After being registered, the project had to find a place to set up its office. Before we were doing all the work in a church building. Having looked here and there for a cheaper land to put up project offices which Kristian was willing to pay for and not finding it, one of the village members willingly offered to rent us her house and the land on which it's
located.
Kristian sent down the for rent and setting up of the office, like fencing the land, painting of the place in national colours of BLACK, YELLOW and RED. On the construction of the place, we hired the villagers for labour and paid them according to their labour.
In one of the meetings with the villagers, one by the name of HENRY Kayondo suggested that it's time to change the name of the village from BUTEYONGERA to HORNSLETH cos literally buteyongera means things do not
progress.
The camera man, Julie, the vet doctor and me started visiting different farms in search for pigs, goats and sheep, at the same time making bookings. Meanwhile Kristian came back to Uganda, he started sending down money to buy the animals. We started the buying and shipping in the animals to the farm which by this time was through with construction.
We also had other help in the process from Henry Kayondo as co-ordinator,Sarah Nakalemaas secretary, Mawanda as mobilizer, Godfrey as helper, Ssengendo Francis as watchman. These p'ple are still working with
the project up to today.
Kristian came with a group of photographers from Denmark and the people from the village had been waiting and prepared the village. They also practised songs, excitedly waiting for him and the grand opening. By the
time Kristian came, the passports we had applied for hadn't yet been issued, but we had made the village cards with their new name. the L C 1 chairman signed the I D cards bearing Hornsleth in them. Kristian and the group came to the village and the p'ple were many waiting for them. The first three days, they used it to photograph every person among the 110 participants who were representing the entire village in this art project as agreed upon with them.
The opening day came and there were very many p'ple in thousands, some from neighbouring villages who had come to witness this new idea of art of all villagers to take on ONE name. We had two members of parliament, L C 3 chairman kasawo, religious leaders, local leaders, news reporters and others.
It was a big opening with a feast of drinks and food. We had slaughtered a cow for the day. The p'ple in the village made presentations of songs, dancing, poems to the visitors. And afterwards, it was speeches and then eating and drinking with joy.
Now the time every one was waiting for anxiously for a long time came to give out what was promised. THE ANIMALS. Kristians' son ADRIAN, who was representing his father, gave out the first animal to a very old man by the name of ABI in his 70's and it was a pig. This marked the beginning of giving out animals and about 307 beneficiaries got animals

.
The project is moving on smoothly though there has been many a challenge we've faced. Challenges like; the planning to close down the project by politicians giving reasons like we are recruiting rebels. Villagers loosing their animals to sickness and bad care. Visitation of police to the site. Having to move many miles a day to sensitise the villagers about how to take great care of the animals. And many more. We have so far lived up to the expectations of the villagers and Hornsleth and the project is growing strong day by day. We have been cleared by the police that there are no illegal activities taking place. We have been replacing the animals that died and giving back to the villagers whose
animals died with others. We have a vet who goes around the village treating all animals and
we provide medical care to each and every person who benefited.

As I am talking now, the project is stable and moving on well.
In conclusion, we on behalf of the Hornsleth village p'ple are most grateful to MR KRISTIAN for what he has done to uplift the everyday living standards of the villagers. THANX A LOT.

YOURS RICHARD MULONDO.

Richard Mulondo, Project partner of The Hornsleth Village Project, Uganda, 2006