Kitgum!

Last Wednesday we set off for Kitgum.  It was a long, hot, bumpy ride out here, and when we arrive, it was only hotter.  It is a smaller town more north of Gulu, very dusty and dry.  We thought they were joking when they told us it would be hotter, but really, its much, much hotter!  Good for drying laundry though.

The first few nights we stayed at a nice hotel just out of town called Little Palace.  There we had our classes and meals and occasional internet service!  However, since there are not enough rooms to accommodate all 14 of us, 6 of us, including myself, were told we would stay in the “annex, just around the back.”  However, when we put on our backpacks to see our new rooms, we were told to hop in the Land Cruiser, because this was somewhere we could not walk to.  Turns out the “annex, just around the back” is a completely different hotel in another part of town, maybe 3 K away!  It’s also called Little Palace, run by the same management, but really such a joke.  Where the rooms at Little Palace One had nice closets, beds, hot showers, mosquito nets, we were finding rooms with no electricity, smelly water, maybe no bathroom even or lock on the door!  We could only laugh at the situation. Luckily, we are all friends so we still had fun being far away from the rest of the group.

During this time at the hotel, we took a trip out to Corner Ogwech Memorial Site in Lamwo District.  This is where 417 people were massacred by Idi Amin and Joseph Lagu, leader of the then Anyanya fighting group from Sudan in April 1971.  These people were taken captive because they had tried to go into a military training camp with an intention of coming back to overthrow Amin’s government.  Unfortunately, they were captured on their way back by Lagu’s men who brought them to this site to be killed.

As I’m realizing here, there is not a centimeter of land that does not have history.  Though everything may appear nice at first glace, when asking a few questions, you learn that things are not so perfect.  What looks like an overgrown garden actually turned out to be a mass grave.

On Saturday, we moved into our rural home stays.  For this, we were paired in a team so we could conduct research about local resources.  Olivia and I were in the home of Okello Moses Francis.   He is 25, the oldest of his seven brothers, who all live in a compound of four huts in the middle of a field.  They live with their widowed mother who speaks no English at all, but who I would have many extensive conversations with, her in Acholi, me in English.  I like to think that we knew what the other was saying.  The family actually turned out  to be very surprised to find that both Olivia and my parents are all living.  Unfortunately, after our focus group, Olivia was too sick to continue in the home stay, but I enjoyed the rest of the time getting to know the family.

I became closest with Michael, the second oldest.  He has lost the use of both legs, but is not slowed by this in any way.  He makes the 40 minute walk to church on his bicycle that he has made to peddle with his hands.  He is quite the inspiration.  He told me all about Acholi culture, why they live in the compound the way they do, why the neighbors and them share literally everything, etc.  He even told me about the conflict. For someone who is so completely down to Earth, it’s hard to believe that he used to have to commute every single night to a hospital to hide from the rebel attacks.  He told me about the humiliation that his family suffered when they could not even grow their own food, relying on food distribution to eat only once every few days.  Even now, he told me, they are forced to live in this compound on the edge of town because their village is not ready for them to return too, they are still too dependent on outside help and the resources in town.  He hopes that they can soon move back to where their ancestors lived, but he does not see it happening soon.

Other than the two older boys, no one spoke English, except for Joyce, a sixteen-year-old girl who lived next door.  She did everything for us, her family, and our family.  She cooked, she washed, and at the same time, she is a full time student.  Usually women here want to marry and have security when they turn 18, but Joyce made it clear to me that she wants to be independent.  She wants to go to university and get a good job then she wants to bring a man back to her family.   This goes against tradition, and when she told me this, she was ridiculed by Francis and Michael.

Even though this was a short stay, I feel like this family really accepted us quickly.  It wasn’t as hard as with my Gulu family to become a part of activities or dive into deeper discussions.  Although I was treated as a guest, I think the family began to understand by the end of my time that I am not the weak muzungu they initially thought I was.