Lowri Davies

Let me introduce Ivan, not the gatherer of the Russian lands, but an inspirational young man from Uganda…

Ivan is an orphan to aids, who suffers from both polio and spina bifida, which has resulted in a large bulbous chest, hunch back and causes him great pain. For the past few years he has walked down from his village to the bank of the Nile by the Nile Special wave train at about 9.30am and again at about 4pm to watch the kayakers playing on the Club and Nile Special waves. Able to speak a little English, he often chats to the paddlers and over time some of the long-term residents of the Hairy Lemon have trusted him to operate their video and digital stills cameras.

It turns out that Ivan is an excellent cameraman and really enjoys the privilege of using the technology! His arms are steadier than a tripod and you can even tell him to film only certain kayakers in a line-up. A couple of times he had more than one video camera, with instructions to only film certain people on each and he didn’t miss a ride! In order to save both tape space and batteries, he will film only once you are on the wave so you don’t have hours of empty wave captured. Despite this economical approach to filming, he will film a few pretty wildlife shots and is switched on enough to point the camera at any tom-foolery that may take place! When shooting stills, he has seen enough kayaking to anticipate when people are likely to throw a move and will even delete the rubbish ones for you.

Ivan is saving for a bicycle. When asked what he was going to do with his bike he answered simply “ride it around”. Second hand bikes cost about 50,000 Ugandan Shillings (about £15). For filming us everyday for about a week we gave him 2,000 shillings (the average wage in the area is roughly 3,000 shillings for a full-day’s hard graft – be careful not to over pay, even if it seems very little to you or it will unbalance their local economy).

If you go to Uganda to play on the White Nile and see a young man with a large bump on his chest enthusiastically watching you paddle, say hi to him (if he hasn’t already started chatting to you) and perhaps consider letting him film or photograph you for a few shillings towards his bike.

Is this kayakers sponsoring a child in a sustainable and ethical manner? I’d like to think so.