Visiting Gulu, in the Far North

This week i finally made it to Gulu, a town in the war-torn north of uganda, not too far from Sudan, about 4-5 hours by car from Kampala if you travel 60mph/100kph. There's an insurgency going on in this area, led by a guy named Joseph Kony, who for the past 18 years has been kidnapping kids and forcing them to become soldiers, killing and raping and mutilating, burning and pillaging... there are opportunities to learn what the word "evil" actually means, in Africa. The guns apparently come from China; and people locally think there's more to it than just Kony himself and his medium who 'channels the holy ghost' and tells him what to do; there's lots of oil in southern Sudan. Well, there really wasn't any danger to me— Kony's men come at night to the outlying villages, not into Gulu itself, and in any case the insurgency has been less active since peace was signed between northern and southern Sudan, theoretically ending their long-term civil war— now the problems are more to the north, in Darfur. But Gulu is far away from that.

This is Gulu, a dusty town, not unpleasant, very typical of Uganda's larger towns. It's often quite hot here from what I'm told (it's not that far from the Sahara, though it's still pretty green here, and the air was actually quite pleasant until the afternoon. But it's the rainy season right now.) Someone told me the "Gulu" was a river which has long since dried up, but I have subsequently learned that "Ggulu" was the creator god in the Baganda mythology (though Acholi people are not related to the Baganda), so I don't know what to think. But I find myself saying to everyone, Plant trees! Plant trees! We have to plant trees!

Anyway, as a result of "The Insecurity", as it's called here, most of the Acholi have been forced to abandon their villages and to live in dense camps where food is impossible to grow and hard to get, and permanent structures like schools and clinics nonexistent. So the church has made an effort to gather its people who have come from various villages into these camps, and to build little communities, even of 5 or 6 people if that's all there is, within the camps. So after visiting the village of Koro, where we have a new parish that has just built a church, we stayed overnight in Gulu, and then the next day went to Layibi, where a small community has gathered, and then to Lapainat, a camp not far from Gulu, where a fairly big community has gathered.

Here are some pictures from all these places, somewhat out of order but you get the idea.

This was the Divine Liturgy at St Lavrentios Church in Koro, which is not quite finished yet, so there's no iconostasis. The bishop served the Liturgy here on the feast of their patron saint. Then we had a hot afternoon of speeches and presentations, and some of the usual food i'm pretty used to by now-- dried fish, rice, beans, water.

It happened to be Women's Day and some events were taking place in Gulu, so we were unable to find accommodations at any hotel, and ended up having to beg for lodging at the local Roman Catholic church. Because of the insecurity and the danger of being killed or abducted, thousands of children come into Gulu town every night, rather than staying with their families. So as it turns out, the church/school where we stayed takes in from 500 to 2000 of these kids per night; The priest— one of the Comboni Fathers from italy— gave us a little tour and introduced us to the kids.

Here are some of the girls who were camped out in the school that night. The priest asked each of us to say a few words to them. It's really quite humbling to be put in such a position. What on earth can I say to someone in such a situation, much less 500 or so six-year-olds in such a situation? God loves you? And my own mind echoes back, Yeah like, prove it, buddy.

The next day, we went to the little school where the community of Layibi had gathered. The Mother's Union presented a chicken to the bishop. We got a goat later on at Lapainat too, but somehow i failed to get a picture of it.

A good reason to take a camera to these events is that you always have an excuse to duck out of the speeches. I think these three boys had something of the same idea. They weren't too sure they wanted their picture taken, but quickly warmed to the idea of seeing themselves in the viewer of the camera once i'd taken it. I'm actually very pleased with this photo and grateful to them.

After Layibi, we came to Lapainat. These kids greeted us about a half mile down the road and ran along side us all the way until we entered the camp, obviously very thrilled. I'm sort of lagging behind with them; the big crowd way up ahead is the bishop and several hundred very excited people.



The bishop and others receive the speeches and presentations made by the community at Lapainat. The structure is their temporary church, but someone has just donated land, so the day ended with a purchase of bricks to build a permanent temple.



The girls dancing at Lapainat. the Acholi are said to be, still despite the insecurity, one of the culturally richest tribes of Uganda. Certainly they could dance and sing better than anyone else I've met so far. Anyway, my friend Michael explained that this dance is used to express deep joy, like for instance when the bishop comes.



The boys at Lapainat play for the dancers in the previous picture. Some of these children had been abducted by kony's army, but escaped. The rhythms were very complex and fast.



Here's another view of the camp at Lapainat. It seems that when we were leaving, people must have been taking a siesta or something, because very few people were out and about, compared to when we arrived. Anyway, as you can see, poor it may be, but squalid it is not.

The round huts, as you might have guessed, are the traditional Acholi housing— actually, ubiquitous all over sub-Saharan Africa. The Acholi, like all the other tribes, have lived here for millennia and know what works and what doesn't, when it comes to housing or most other issues. So these charming traditional houses are very cool and pleasant even in a hot place like Lapainat. But the mwonos ("europeans", in Luo; "muzungus", in Luganda) came and taught people to build square houses with iron sheets for roofs— what on earth were people thinking, can you imagine living under an iron roof at the Equator! So housing in the cities is, well, almost unendurable, even at midnight. But the Acholi for the most part keep their traditional styles in the villages. If i ever build a house here, i want one of these!

I think we should build churches like this too. All the churches i see here look like they were beamed in from France or Italy or England or America or Greece. They really don't belong.



And finally, here are some people who consented to let me take their picture as i tried to get some sense of village life. Despite the poverty and hardship, the people seem cheerful, if not quite certain what this strange white guy in the black robe is doing with his camera. But everyone's interested in seeing themselves in the viewer afterwards, and it's a human connection, after all, so we had a good time. As for camp life, it's obvious that there are tremendous needs— for one thing, many of the older people spoke excellent english— much better than most of the Baganda I meet in Kampala, in fact (their native language is called Luo, it reminds me a little of chinese— very short words, anyway)— but almost none of the kids can speak english at all. In other words, education is just not happening. Well, forget education when it's nearly impossible to find water!



Speaking of water, halfway from Kampala to Gulu you cross the Nile at a place called Karuma Falls— maybe No. 10 scale rapids, really— and i snapped this picture as we drove by— what my sister calls "high speed photography". Turned out ok!

But dang! I missed the very long-faced baboons that sit by the side of the road just a few kilometers from there, apparently waiting for tourists to stop and give them bananas.