Last Saturday, my Father here in Gulu took me to see the village (a ten-minute drive from our home) that he was born in, grew up in as a child, and lived in up until 20 years ago when he was forced to leave.  He was Principal at the time of Samuel Baker Secondary School (a couple kilometers up from where we live now) and the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) came to his village to murder him.

He had 5 children then, and two of them, Tony, my 26-year old brother, who was born in the camp and lived there for several years, and Wini, my 20-year old sister, who was born in the camp and moved after several months, told me their thoughts on the village.  Tony said he has no interest going back as he does not remember much about the village and does not feel any ties to it.  Wini likes going back to see the family members there, but she does not like talking about it much.  In contrast to both of them, my father talks about it several times a week and took me to the village “so that I would not get lost when I come back”.  He is going to move back to the village once the war is over and will finally have cattle and goats again as the LRA and government military stole his livestock once he left.

The village was several huts in different spots with a huge patch of mango trees where the kids would climb and throw down the mangoes when they were in season.  My Dad was beaming with pride at the village and showed me how the huts have been moved, where the hut was that the rebels burned down and where his aunt was still living (she was sitting outside her door as she was locked out) and where his brother, the father of my cousin Ochii, still lives.  He is a “drunkard” and my father and Ochii kept their distance from him.

We then went to the family’s graveyard where my Dad showed me where his sister, daughter, mother, and other family members were buried due to different deaths, but the most common of which was AIDS. 

I will talk more about the village later, but a quick update on our project is that we are trying to find an NGO in the area to help continue our computer training at Alliance Secondary School.  We want to institute a peer training program to help the one teacher with his 30-80 students per class, but we simply do not have the time.  Also, we are helping out with a literacy program at an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camp, especially with child mothers there, and the lady we are working with is pushing for a lot there, including a nursery, but we are having problems addressing the issue with her of the importance of people returning to their villages and not providing things to make them not want to leave the Camps and instead provide these services in the villages.

Ok that was a run-on sentence, but I have to run.

Apoyo,

Nikolai Anywar