Today was such a moving day. We began at the COHU office, meeting Esther and Solomon. Esther told us about the beginnings of COHU, under a tree, with no building or resources. She had been an elementary school teacher, but after the war, she just wanted to find a way to help the children and women who were so affected by the war. COHU now has many programs that help the children and widows. The grandmothers received training to make beads, baskets, toy animals, and clothing. They sell the products to receive money to support themselves and orphan children they agree to take in. some also receive seeds or livestock or ox plows to support themselves in exchange for supporting the children of COHU. Esther showed us a project she did with the children in which they drew pictures of before and after being supported by the women and/or the Barlonya School. The before pictures are filled with guns, soldiers, hangings, fighting, coffins. The after are happy pictures.
We then traveled to Barlonya, the site of the largest massacre of the war. It was an IDP camp, and the rebels entered on Jul 27, 2006(?) in the evening. It was a day of a national holiday, so all the village was celebrating. Rebels forced over 300 people into the huts and burned them alive, forcing the rest of the village to watch. They also killed people with machetes. There is a memorial there (though the number of those killed is inaccurate, at just over 100). The caretaker of the memorial said that bones are still appearing as they dig near the mass grave, and they had to close one of their water pumps because human remains were found close by.
The students at Barlonya are teens and young 20-s who were either in IDP camps or were abducted. They have very few resources and are in need of classrooms, provisions and dorms for teachers, and a kitchen (they feed all the children using a large pot over an open fire-see photo; this is a problem on rainy days). The total school populations is about 399, but not all students show up regularly because they must often search for food.
The widows of Barlonya offered us a program in which they danced and sang. The first was about the terrors of the war and moving past that tragedy. The second was about HIV and protection. Then all the students arrived. A group of girls began by singing two songs. The first was “We march together, we march together as a family – We march together…with additional verses on we sing, we pray, we work, we dance, etc. John has added captions to his video on this song for a You Tube and Unity Project video explaining what the children and women endured. Then a boy drummed on a plastic water bucket and other students danced. John, Solomon, and I all spoke to the students and women, thanking them for their beautiful performance. It was very moving.
When we returned to Lira, we were invited by Consy to dinner with the family. Consy, her husband Richard, Grace, the grandmother, and the children there were so welcoming. We ate, and then Consy, Richard, and Grace all told parts of the story. We did not probe into the details of Grace’s 8 years of captivity, but we did hear the details of how she escaped and was reunited with her family. Grace is now quite a leader at Gulu University, where she heads the group of formerly abducted girls at the university and does other peace-building work. She has a 7-year old daughter (her son died during their captivity; both children were fathered by the rebel to whom she was given as a “wife”).
From a moving day, John and I returned to Suites 291 (our hotel) where we were greeted by thousands of “white ants” hovering by our doorways. It reminded me of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”! So, again, we ended up laughing hysterically as we each battling our ways into our respective rooms. Mine was far worse, as my porch light was left on, and I couldn’t escape entering with a battalion of them. Laughing like crazy, I armed myself with my insect repellent and must have used half the bottle killing them, then sweeping them into a wet pile on the floor before taking my cold evening shower. It is great to travel with John, because he is also able to be completely patient and see both the humor and the lesson in everything that happens like this. Cold shower? Big deal – so many have no clean water at all. Bugs in the rooms? Hey, at least we have a rooms for protection against the rain. We’re picking up the local phrase, ‘s ok, that basically means “no worries; all is ok.”
No comments:
Post a Comment