Ugandans gift local businessman with goat for providing fresh water to African village

It’s a warm day in Uganda halfway or more around the world. George Karnes of Front Royal is beginning his 8,000-mile journey home, where the November weather is cold and rainy, satisfied with what he has accomplished for a village in this third world country in Africa.

Karnes, who with his wife Lanette and family live in Rockland – he’s a close neighbor – sat at his dining room table talking with me about how he and his Rotary International group had either dug or upgraded fresh water wells serving a community of 10,000. Water is a commodity in high demand throughout much of the African continent. and most rural populations have neither the money nor the ability to dig wells deep enough to get a fresh supply.

Karnes shakes the hand of Ugandan Minister of Health, Sarah Opendi, who attended the ribbon cutting marking completion of the water project. Courtesy photos

His journey home in November was the fifth and last 16,000-mile round trip to the Ugandan village of Merikit, an object of Rotary International’s “Clear the World” program to help poverty stricken populations that lack sufficient water for drinking, bathing, personal hygiene, toilet flushing, and all of those things most of us take for granted.

To show their appreciation townspeople presented Karnes, at the end of his final journey last month, with a white goat. He contemplated buying a “kid seat” (goat joke!) for the plane journey home, but returned the animal to the community before leaving. The goat presentation by Norah Owori, widow of Samuel Frobisher Owori, only the second president of Rotary International from Africa, marked the end of a two-year, $240,000 program that began in February 2018.

George Karnes with his goat.

George Karnes with Norah Owori

Needs assessments and reassessments were made and saw Karnes, in real life a senior vice president and financial advisor for Wells Fargo in Front Royal, back in Uganda the following May.

Six months later, Karnes returned with his group to meet Awico Engineering, which firm was to drill, build water tanks, and all the other things that replaced the shallow, hand-pumped, often bacteria-ridden water that was carried back and forth in cans, sometimes for miles each day, by villagers, often young children and women.

A water tower, Ugandan style, part of the Rotary project

“It was less than an ideal situation,” Karnes said, as he described another 16,000-mile round trip (all travel at his own expense) between Dulles International Airport and Uganda’s major air terminal at Entebbe. He remarked, “I wish everyone could work on a humanitarian project in a third world country. Being able to be on the ground, to meet the people, has changed my life for the better. It not only makes one feel great when you are doing good in the world, it makes you so much more appreciative of how wonderful our country is.”

In May 2019, Karnes returned to Uganda, then again last month, to complete 80,000 miles of travel, and to see the newly drilled wells, some as deep as 1,500 feet and providing at least 200,000 litres (62,000 gallons) daily; the water towers, faucets that provide drinking water and working toilets in hospitals, clinics, and five area schools with a population of 3,400 kids.

Back home, Karnes, a Rotary past district (7570) governor, told me: “When we see the plight of others with our own eyes, our desire to serve is elevated to another level.

One person can make a difference; a dedicated group of Rotarians can change the world.”

Presentation of the white goat saluted a two-year project that appeared to be one of the proudest moments of George Karnes life – No kidding (second goat pun joke!).

Above, George Karnes with local children walking to see what is happening at their village; below, Karnes is lofted by locals celebrating final installation of the new water system.

(George Karnes II has lived for 12 years in Warren County. He is a member of Warren County Rotary Club. He plans to join a team going to Haiti next month to establish a partnership with Rotary International, USAID and UNICEF.)