One day Trevor Stevenson was standing outside his place near Kampala when a strange old man stopped his bicycle to say something. "Hey mzungu [white man]," he said. "Thank you for what you are doing. We used to be afraid to come here, but now it is a place of life."
During the terror of Idi Amin in the 1970s, innocent people were butchered or hanged in the field where the Irish clergyman was standing. Now the same plot is home to a vibrant school that feeds its 500 pupils on maize and mangoes grown on the school farm.
"I first came here in 1983 but I couldn't let it go." said Mr Stevenson, a Dublin-based Church of Ireland clergyman known as "Uncle T" to staff and students. "This place is in my blood." The school became known as the "Fields of Life Academy", and it was officially opened by President McAleese yesterday as part of her 11-day tour of Uganda and Kenya.
Since humble beginnings in 1997 the charity has gone on to build 12 schools serving 2,500 students across Uganda. And although some funding comes from the Irish Government, most comes from private individuals of all religious beliefs, he said.
It costs just £50,000 to build an entire primary school. "I don't have a parish in Ireland so I say that Uganda is my parish."
A student choir sang "Welcome to the Pearl of Africa" as Mrs McAleese left the school by helicopter. The President was escorted by a contingent of heavily-armed Ugandan soldiers and by her normal security detail of plainclothes garda∅.
Earlier in the day, Mrs McAleese paid an official visit to President Yoweri Museveni at State House in Kampala. The conversation focused particularly on the fight against AIDS, which is being led by Irish missionaries and aid workers, she told reporters afterwards.
The President had just come from Hospice Uganda, where she met Yudaya Nazziwa, a 38-year-old mother of four who has prepared for death by making a "memory book" of her thoughts and photos. "I used to fear dying. But now I am planning for it with my children," she said. "It makes me strong." A successful public information campaign has curbed HIV rates in Uganda - once the world's highest - but some 1.5 million people are still infected.
Commenting on the possibility of IRA decommissioning, Mrs McAleese said she was "very gratified to hear of recent moves for bringing about the kind of conditions that will utterly serve peace".