Hearing Their Stories

May 19th, 2004. I was a junior in high school, most likely preparing for upcoming finals and looking forward to summer. For the people of Lukodi, life was completely different. At around 5 or 6 in the evening, the LRA had surrounded the village and killed forty people within one hour. They burned down huts, killing whole families inside. It was one of the largest, quickest massacres of the war. Yesterday I saw the memorial that ChildVoice built for the community. When CVI first came to the school building (where the center is now) in 2007, they had to clean blood off the walls and pick up bullets. Even this past summer bullets were still found in the compound.

My first impression of the girls and the children at the center was,“This is poverty. This is what life is like for war-torn Ugandans.” That was nothing. These girls are so lucky. After seeing the memorial, I was taken into the Lukodi IDP camp right next to us. This camp was only established a couple of years ago so it is one of the “nicer” ones. I had no idea that life could be worse than at the center. The center seems like a palace compared to the IDP camp. There are tons of mud huts packed together and there are some places with rubble still from burnt down huts. Two little naked girls, no older than two, came running up to us. They were filthy. There were other young children hanging around too, left by their parents who went to work in the fields. They were malnourished, with huge, protruding stomachs. They do not go to school because they can not pay the fees, let alone for food for three meals. They are lucky if they eat some rice twice a day. I wanted to come and give children here an education. But there are so many basic needs that have to be met first. The Acholis have not always lived like this. Before the war, parents did not leave their toddlers to fend for themselves all day. There was food, tradition, and a sense of family. After 20 long years of war, their culture has been destroyed. Many people went mad. Alcoholism is a tremendously huge problem is the villages.

It is said that this is the worst war affecting children in the history of the world. Despite all of this, the Acholis are incredibly resilient. After suffering again and again from past wars, they are still working at getting their lives back. There is a presidential election in 2010 and an Acholi man is running. The Acholis are trying to rise up and be heard after 20 years of silence.