Evidence of War

Most of the time, it’s easy for me to go about my day without thinking about what took place here for over two decades. The people of Pajule are hard-working and have been nothing but welcoming to me… But I’m sure they don’t go a day without thinking about or somehow being affected by the war that took place in Northern Uganda.  Lately, I can’t stop thinking about the violence that happened here and the continuing effects of the war. I think I’m in rut, so please excuse this semi-depressing post. This week we’re continuing the home evaluations of the students. It’s both enlightening and depressing.

The majority of the students we support at PTU were born in captivity- meaning they were born in camps (internally displaced people camps). As I understand, my town was really founded because of the large number of people that were forced here to live in IDP camps. It seems as though every family in Pajule has lost one or more family members to the war… either through abduction, murder, or the poor living conditions of the camps. All of the students we sponsor have only one or no parents living. One of the guardians of a student is raising 21 children on his own. His wife passed away, as did his two brothers and their wives. He was left with the children of his brothers in addition to his own.

Most of our students sleep on grass mats in their family huts with their brothers and sisters. Most eat only once or twice a day whatever they’re growing in their garden- sweet potatoes, cassava, or beans. Many of them, or their guardians, have serious medical issues, from Typhoid to TB to HIV.

I met an older man in Gulu a while back who was a soldier with the LRA and later turned against them, becoming hunted by Joseph Kony himself.  I met a young man on the street just a few days ago that was missing all of his fingers and his lips and ears had been mutilated. The person that introduced us later told me that he’d been attacked by the rebels.  People like this are everywhere once you get to know their stories. It’s just such a different reality.

This is not at all a normal occurrence and hopefully an isolated incident, but just last week three children were hacked to death by their father in my small town.  He’d gone mad, disappeared into the bush for a month and came back to do this.

There are no institutions for crazy people here… and I’m sure there are lots of people that have PST and other issues that aren’t being helped.  There are lots of NGOs here providing a multitude of services, but domestic violence, alcoholism, child abuse, defilement and murder are still serious problems. To me, the people in my community seem joyful and friendly; not like they’ve just survived over 20 years of war.

It amazes me that people can persevere through such trauma and loss. It also amazes me that the war went on for so long without any meaningful intervention from the ‘Western’ world. I am so lucky I’m not able to relate to what most of the people here went through and continue to go through. It just goes to show, you really don’t know what people have gone through in their lifetimes. I knew that moving to Uganda would be tough, that I’d have challenges adjusting to the language, food, living conditions and such, but I didn’t thoroughly think through the emotional aspect of living in a post-war region.

I really hope we’re able to continue to support our current students and expand over the next two years and beyond; I also hope that our IGAs will soon help improve the lives of their families… these people deserve a little help.