Drop the Pressure

Well - I was supposed to be travelling to northern Uganda today for the week, but was held up with issues with the EU and another food aid project, and then suddenly we have four days to write a WFP (World Food Program) Proposal, and I think I will be lucky to go to bed this week, let alone go to the north!! The field teams will just have to survive without me for another week! That's not too bad - it is dry season here now and sooooooooo hot up north...makes it really hard to sleep at night. Although I am really excited - up in Pader, which was nothing but a refugee camp a couple of years ago, they now have RUNNING WATER!! It's still insanely cold, but it's running out of taps (sometimes) and makes hair washing soooo much easier!!


Many friends here are off on adventures soon - Sam, Kenny and Julia are going to climb Kilimanjaro on Saturday (I could have gone, but can't really afford a week away from the office at this point, plus...a week without washing? Not really me?!?!) And Charlie is heading to Antigua for a fortnight (me? jealous? Not in the slightest - what makes you ask that!!) I guess I am (hopefully) going to Sth Africa in six weeks for Level Two Security Training (the one where they practice abducting you and holding you hostage etc...should be oodles of fun) so who am I to be jealous?


As part of my attempt to "do stuff other than work" I have started doing personal training with Remmy (the husband of Bettina, my fellow Program Officer and general saving grace). He has succesfully killed me twice now (amazing revival, hey?!) but it's good. He is such a sweetie and very encouraging as he is dragging me up and down hills. I will keep plugging away at this and see if I can't regain some of my former fitness (running 8km kills me about now, and that used to be my standard morning run).


One fun thing...we are now working longer hours on Monday to Thursday, then supposed to leave the office at 2.00 p.m. on Fridays. I have not yet managed this, of course, but it is a wonderfully tantalising prospect, and am hoping to do it this Friday, as it is my birthday - Bettina and I are going to go for Devonshire Tea at the tearoom run by the British wife of the Doctor here - I cannot WAIT!!


Okay...back to it...

Casualties of War

This is just killing me right now – I am approving a list of patients for medical treatment – they are all former child soldiers, or else children who were “born in captivity” – this means that their mothers were abducted and gave birth whilst child soldiers themselves. Reading this list of injuries, looking at the ages of the patients and wondering about their lives in order to have survived, but be living with these injuries. The suffering of the people of northern Uganda, and their continued perseverance with life and hope, in the face of a situation that would just cause me to crawl into a corner and give up hope, totally amazes me. I will give a couple of examples:

· An 18 year old boy paralysed in one arm due to gun shot
· A 20 year old boy paralysed from the waist down due to gun shot
· A 16 year old boy with his jaw blown off – artificial jaw
· Two 9 year old girls, born in captivity, one with HIV/AIDS and the other paralysed due to a bomb splinter in the brain
· A girl totally paralysed and wheelchair-bound due to bullet in the spine, has returned with two children born in captivity
· A 15 year old boy, totally blind because of backfire of a gun
· A 17 year old boy with a bullet lodged between his two lungs – inoperable

This is just an extract of this list, which is just a tiny, miniscule fraction of the number of war-wounded in northern Uganda – and these are just the physical wounds. Forget the fact that the entire region is traumatised and psychologically wounded. The mental trauma these kids have gone through is indescribable.

Think of some kids you know – imagine them living like this? For the rest of their lives. It is such evil. And now the LRA (the rebel army fighting the insurgency in northern Uganda) has turned its attention to Sudan and DRC – they are wreaking untold destruction in Congo right now – hundreds of killed and heavens knows how many children abducted.

At least some small piece of hope – we are bringing some of these kids down to Kampala to the main hospital here where, we hope, they will have some of their problems fixed. Such a tiny little drop in the ocean though…

So that’s my morning…how’s yours???

Northern Exposure

I have been meaning to post an update of the situation in northern Uganda for a while now, for people's information, but am just working so so so hard that I don't get much time for anything else. I'm not sure how much people know, but there was supposed to be a big signing of the Peace Agreement between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and the LRA in April this year in Juba (southern Sudan) that failed - Kony (LRA leader) never showed and it turned out that the LRA negotiator in the mediations had never actually met or spoken with Kony, and was not speaking for him, as he had claimed.

Although there has been no resumption of open conflict in the north following this, small skirmishes have been reported, as have isolated LRA sightings. Additionally, it has had a profound impact upon the IDP (Internally Displaced People - most people in the north fit into this category - IDPs are refugees who have not crossed an international border - they are displaced within their own country - like the Sudanese living in camps in Darfur). People are more fearful - there has been a slow but steady transition of people from the large mother camps to smaller resettlement/return camps which still offer the safety of an army presence, but are closer to original homestead and thus allow some access to their land to farm. These movements are creating a whole new situation on the ground (which is a whole different posting topic!) but people are now reluctant to move from the return camps all the way home, and those that have gone home, or are at the return camps are constantly prepared to flee back to the mother camps. I have noticed slightly more (not much, but a bit) troop movement in the north in the past few months. Another tragic thing is the impact this development has on the psychological recovery of former child soldiers - they are now more fearful with a potential return to conflict - those that have escaped the LRA are at greater danger or reprisal from the rebels.

Anyway - the Secretary General of the UN released a report on Children in Armed Conflict in Uganda - I thought I would post an excerpt here so you can read. Long story short: it aint over yet - all the abducted children are out of reach in Sudan and Congo and they're not being released. We still need your thoughts/hopes/efforts/prayers:


25 June 2008 – Although the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) does not seem to be recruiting children in Uganda, women and children are still present in its ranks, and the rebel group is allegedly enlisting young people from neighbouring countries, according to a United Nations report released today.


The LRA, which has fought a civil war with the Ugandan Government since the mid-1980s, became notorious during the conflict for abducting as many as 25,000 children and using them as fighters and porters. The children were often subject to extreme violence shortly after abduction, with many girls allocated to officers in a form of institutional rape.


“Owing to the apparent absence of LRA from Ugandan territory, there have been no recent cases of recruitment and use of Ugandan children, or other grave violations against children attributable to LRA,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes in a new report to the Security Council.

“However, children and women are still present in the LRA ranks, and there has been no movement on their release,” he adds.

In addition, he notes there are reports alleging that the group has been recruiting children
from southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR).


In one case, three boys from the Sudan and the CAR who escaped from the LRA reported that they had been forced to work for the group as porters. They also reported that girls were present in the ranks, and that they were regularly subjected to gender-based violence, including rape.

On 23 April, authorities in Dungu in eastern DRC reported that 13 people, including four students, were abducted from a primary school following LRA attacks.


“These allegations are being reported while the peace talks between LRA and the Government of Uganda are stalled, notably because of the refusal by the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, to sign the final peace agreement,” Mr. Ban writes.


Last July the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict called on the LRA to unconditionally release children used in their ranks, and underlined the absence of any concrete signs in this regard.


The Group also noted the International Criminal Court indictments against five senior members of the LRA – the leader Joseph Kony, and the commanders Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Raska Lukwiya – on a number of charges, including the enlistment of children through abduction.

The rebel group has maintained that it had released all children and women abducted or
forcibly conscripted some time ago and that those who remained in the bush were women and children related to LRA members.
Mr. Ban says that this information cannot be independently verified because of the absence of any direct contacts between the UN and the LRA leadership.

The Secretary-General urges the LRA to provide a complete list of names and ages of the women and children remaining in its ranks for verification and to carry out their immediate release.

In addition, he says the UN Task Forces on Monitoring and Reporting in Uganda, the CAR, the DRC and the Sudan, in cooperation with the UN missions in the DRC and Sudan, should develop a strategy to increase monitoring and reporting on cross-border recruitment and use of children by the LRA.

The Hard Road

I’m just full of the sadness right now…

There’s a BBC News Documentary about the current election violence in Zimbabwe, which just makes me crazy – how can anyone in the world think that this could possibly be okay – how can other African leaders not be screaming and jumping up and down? How can Mugabe look at himself in the mirror? Such evil. And to stop all the NGO work – my NGO was supposed to distribute food to 400,000 people this month – what are those 400,000 people eating right now? Aurgh – shouldn’t dwell on it – I’ll just become more furious.

I went to the burial of a nine-month old girl last week. Shalom was adorable – with chubby, chubby cheeks and curly hair. She would grab my little finger and hang on so tightly – I last saw her a week before she died and had to prise her little fingers off mine – I now wish I had just kept hanging on forever. She was the daughter of a colleague – a wonderful man who was shot by the LRA rebels in 2002 (I met him the first time I came here, just after he was released from hospital) whilst driving for us, and yet still does his work. Richard has a gentle heart, a fabulous work ethic and a wicked sense of humour. He and his wife also have a four year old boy – a rambunctious little fellow called Solomon. Since Shalom was born, every time I would ask after her, Richard’s eyes would light up and he would tell me her latest development – she was smiling, rolling over, sitting up – all those wonderful things babies do as they grow. But then, when I was in Gulu last December (for the burial of another colleague’s 29 year old wife), Richard was at the hospital with Shalom. She was having problems with her liver. For the next six months, Shalom was in and out of doctors and hospitals – she eventually came down to Kampala for treatment, and then we managed to get her to Nairobi to try to help. So many people fought to save this little girl, but eventually, she died in her mothers arms last Tuesday…"waiting for the doctor”. I wonder how many people in Africa die while waiting for the doctor?

I drove to Gulu (the biggest town in northern Uganda – the base of northern operations for most NGOs, as well as the army’s base for its war against the rebels – about six hours drive north of Kampala) for the burial with Peter, another driver who used to be based in Gulu. He has children of similar ages to Richards’, and was telling me that there have been times when he and Richard have both been in hospital with their children near death. I was thinking about this during the burial service and realising what a tremendous accomplishment it is for all the adults in this country – just to have made it to adulthood. It is something we would never even think about at home, but to even just stay alive is a great accomplishment.

Of course, once you hit adulthood, you aren’t necessarily going to have smooth sailing. The ravage of AIDS here, let alone other diseases, is staggering – what we read about as abstract facts in newspapers, is real flesh and blood. I have a friend who has already buried three siblings from AIDS and is caring for their children now (all but one is completely orphaned – one boy still has his mother). He was telling me that he went back his village a few weeks ago for the burial of another brother, only to arrive and find him still breathing. He packed him in the car, brought him to Kampala and got him treatment, back on the anti-retrovirals and the brother is now walking again.

The constant presence of death overshadows life in Africa. Staff are constantly going to burials – most staff would bury a relative (taking into consideration the much larger size of the families here) every month or two, and then when you consider friends and colleagues, much of one’s time is spent at burials. I have only been to two in my time in Uganda (although that is two more than the number of weddings I have made it to) and have been harshly reminded of how less sanitised death is here – the services are conducted under trees in the village (in both cases, next to the burned-out remnants of houses destroyed by the rebels) right next to the coffins. When we buried Joyce, her mother started screaming and throwing herself onto the coffin – she had to be carried away and passed out. And then after the service, everyone gives speeches, and the local dignitaries decided this would be a good opportunity to do some campaigning!! Blew my mind a little.

I apologise for the excessive absence – I have just been working and working – almost all I do nowadays is work and sleep, with the occasional self-indulgent window for eating and personal hygiene. Okay – I exaggerate a little – I did make time to see the Sex and the City Movie twice (I have my priorities in order) which was lots of fun. All this is about to change however – I’m about to embark on a fair bit of travel, in Africa and then in Europe.

There and Back Again

So much to say, but so little reader-attention-span to not abuse!! I must be succinct (you can all stop rolling your eyes now!) here and see if I can fit it all in.

So – it’s February already, which is truly terrifying – where is the year going? Where is my life going? I turn 30 in a couple of weeks and as far as I’m concerned, that is officially OLD. So I’m bracing myself. My plan was to be skiing on my birthday, but due to our organization being audited, and my presence being required (my project is one of those being audited) I have to stick around and will have my birthday in Kampala. However, a few days later I am heading to Chamonix to ski and then spend another week rocking around Europe so I’m pretty excited about that. I just booked my flights and am making arrangements – can’t wait. Mum and Dad are currently skiing (well – Dad is skiing, Mum is nursing a broken arm) in Aspen with a bunch of friends. They have terrible weather and I think they are only getting to ski half the days, but the thought of them out on the slopes has given me itchy feet and I can’t wait to get back onto skis.

In the meantime though, I have plenty of work to occupy my time! I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions any more, but I did vow to try to work less this year. However – I think we can put that under the heading of ‘pipe dream’ at this stage.

Home leave continued to be brilliant. My parents had a party for my 30th while I was still home which was totally awesome and I got to go to the first day of the Australia Open (love me some tennis) which rocked (thank you Mike!) Other than that, the time was filled with usual things – lots of eating out, seeing friends, trying to stay cool in the heat. I seem to have improved at poker – I won a few games (pity we don’t play for money, hey?) and adored getting quality time with Phoebe, who has to be the naughtiest dog alive (Mum is making noises about boot camp – if only there were such a thing for recalcitrant dogs!) I also got up to Queensland for a week – a few days in Brisbane, running around madly seeing people, then Noosa for a few days, to say a final farewell to the house as my parents are planning to sell it. Sadly, the weather in Brisbane was insanely hot and humid – real Brisbane summer, and then there were storms and rain the whole time at Noosa – I got one quick run on the beach in between the rain and enough of a break for Kara and I to check out Hastings St., but it wasn’t a great goodbye to a house that I have adored for over ten years. There are so many happy memories in that house, so many people have visited, so many great times – it has been a haven many times, for me to escape to when everything was too much. So I am really sad to part with it…

Emirates put on its usual production of debacles (which reminds me that I haven’t written my nasty letter yet – I need to get on to that!) for my return, so it was delayed by a couple of days while they tried to get their act into gear. When I finally did get away, my flight from Melbourne was delayed by three hours (gave me time to buy a watch in duty free, which was a birthday pressie from the paternal family) so by the time we landed in Dubai, my connection to Entebbe had already left. More lack of customer service ensued, and finally, I was rebooked onto a flight leaving Dubai that night at 18.00 and going via Nairobi (there’s only one flight per day to Uganda). Luckily, before I got on the flight, eventually some bright spark at the airport noticed that they had scheduled me to arrive in Nairobi twenty minutes AFTER the connecting flight to Entebbe took off. Not such a good plan after all. So I wound up spending the night in Dubai and flying out to Entebbe the following morning. That was okay – I got to see Gabriele (known to us all as Mama) from the Afghanistan office, who was in Dubai (and meet the new National Director too). I haven’t seen Mama since I left so that was all kinds of awesome and I loved catching up on the news. And then I finally made it back to Kampala – two days late!

So now I’m up in the north again – Kitgum today (up close to the Sudanese border). I have a week or so traveling around monitoring the landmines project (plus a little School Feeding in Pader) before heading to Soroti to check on the flood response. I can’t wait to get to Soroti – my friend Eli has relocated there from Gulu so she has a house I can stay in, and I can’t wait to see her. No more Soroti Hotel and two hours wait for dinner for me!

And on that note – I think it’s lunchtime….

That was then...

So I’m up in the north again, and I realise that, at some stage, I need to give a potted history of the conflict in the north so people can understand the context of what I am discussing. Sad to say – it won’t be today. I am too hot and tired!! I’ve been up here for over a week and still have a while to go, and have just discovered I have to come up again next week as a donor is visiting. *heaves big sigh*

On this trip, I have come to Pader, as on previous trips, but also to Kitgum and Gulu, for the first time since I moved to Uganda two and a half months ago. Those of you who have been reading my missives since 2002 may remember that I visited Kitgum and Gulu that trip, and it was the impression those towns left upon me that made me want to return to work here. It was certainly interesting to see the changes that five years, and more importantly, a ceasefire, have wrought. First of all – we can drive to the towns, and between them, with no problem. Five years ago we had to fly, due to the danger of ambushes. Indeed, last time we came, one of our drivers had just been shot (we saw his vehicle and met him then – and he still works for us – in my department actually) and we met others in the hospital in Gulu who’s car had been ambushed – they were covered in the most terrible burns. This morning, as we drove along the road from Kitgum to Pader, we had no military escort and wore no flak jackets (which were both mandatory a year ago) and the road was filled with children going to school, men riding bicycles and women carrying water or wood on their heads. People were tilling their fields and going about their everyday life, but a year ago that road would have been completely deserted – the only sights to see the frequent crosses marking sites of ambushes (“this is where the priest and two nuns were killed”, “this is where fifteen people from that camp were killed”). The joy of seeing children freely walking the road without the fear of abduction is pretty huge.
Similarly, in Gulu, we went one evening to visit the wife of a colleague who is seriously ill in the hospital with meningitis. This hospital is a very large complex and set in a big compound. For many years, it housed the ‘night commuters’, who were children, or whole families, who walked in to town every night to sleep in the relative safety of proximity to army barracks. They would walk up to five hours each way and needless to say, this dominated their lives. However, the fear of remaining in their villages, with a fairly high guarantee of eventually being attacked by the rebels, meant that the trip was a no-brainer. If the rebels came to your village, chances were all the children would be abducted and taken to Sudan for service in the rebel army, most women would be raped and then perhaps killed, and most men killed. This is the fear that the inhabitants of northern Uganda have lived with for twenty years, as 20,000 children have vanished into the rebel army. We visited this hospital in 2002 and met several thousand people sleeping there through the night – in the rain or the heat, battling mosquitoes and cockroaches, they made their nightly shelter there. Now, however, although the hospital was certainly filled with a large number of miserable people this visit, there were no frightened children huddled under trees or on verandahs, or even out in the open, trying to sleep.

I also went to the office of the Children Of War. This is a reception/rehabilitation center we run for children who have escaped from the rebels, or been captured by the Ugandan army during battles. These children had been brainwashed into soldiers, some of them living with the rebels for years, and received care and counselling at the center before going home to their families (who often also required counselling to understand the trauma their children had gone through and how to support them). I remember meeting children there and hearing their terrifying stories of gun-battles and lost friends – from a 12 year old! They had scars on their wrists and ankles from being bound and many of the girls had children, as they are given as concubines to army commanders. The center now stands empty – all of the rebels are either holed up in Congo or Sudan, or have gone to the reception center in Sudan, where they are meant to wait out peace negotiations under the care of the Ugandan Army. Candice – I was thinking of you so much as I wandered around there again, wondering where you had sat and worked! I remembered having the child sit on my lap and wee all over me – it was so hot I think I dried off in about 20 minutes!!

Altogether, the north is a much more hopeful place now. I become fiercely protective and hopeful as I see these children moving around freely, attending schools that have stood empty for 20 years, moving back to their villages, but perhaps missing siblings, cousins, friends who vanished one night and have never returned. I pray that not a single other child vanishes in the night, winding up with a gun in their hands and a glazed look in their eyes, returning from Sudan to wreak havoc upon their homeland. I desperately hope that the fear fades from the hearts of these children, and they become like most other children in rural Uganda – desperately poor, malnourished and trying to survive, but at least feeling secure. It will be a start – then we can begin working on the rest…