Dear Richard,

I do understand your upset at having been asked to leave Gulu by the Life in Africa community there. However, your derisive and judgmental comments about the personal lives of LiA staff members are inappropriate. Perhaps instead of viciously attacking me, Peter and Grace, you might question George, who was (as the story was reported to me) the ringleader in organizing the Gulu community to resolve and implement the decision to send you home.

I am also very sorry you have disagreed so vehemently with the community's decision to disburse the school fees money raised mid-year when the next Ugandan school year starts in Feb 2008. I do remember asking both you and Amber to attend the meeting during which that was discussed - Amber attended, you did not.

Had you chosen to attend you would know that my own proposal to the community included an option to disburse part of the funds now and hold part until the beginning of the 2008 school year. The parents who were there, after a long and heated debate in Luo, unanimously decided that it would be better to wait until the beginning of the school year, to give enough time to study the situation and make good decisions about which children most needed sponsorship. Had you attended that meeting and shared your point of view, perhaps you would have influenced things in the direction you wanted to see the community take. But you did not attend. That you now try to skew your disagreement with the community's decision into an accusation that I am keeping those funds from the children is simply unfounded, and you know this.

At another point when you complained about this issue, Grace and George reportedly asked you which children you were referring to who needed school fees right away. I was told you mentioned one particular child who already happens to be sponsored by Invisible Children. When pressed for more specific names, you told George and Grace they were "there, in the community." Yes - in almost 80 member families we have well over 400 children. We need to carefully think about selection, and that is precisely why (as I understood it) the community decided to wait until the beginning of the next school year.

Indeed, your help on the household survey would have been very useful in helping to determine which children would be sponsored in 2008. That was one of your main tasks as a volunteer, but you also chose not to participate in that - to Amber's 65 homes visited, you surveyed fewer than 10 families. In fact, many members came at scheduled times to take you to their homes for the survey and found you unavailable - usually sleeping all day, often til after 6pm.

All that said, I am really the biggest fool in all this because I thought you and I were friends. The visciousness in your personal attacks clearly demonstrates otherwise. I sincerely hope you find your way out of this duplicity to a place of peace in your heart from which you can move forward in your life. Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out why you would want the recommendation you've requested from someone as evil as you seem to intend to make me out to be. It's quite confusing.

Now please, give it a rest.