Voices of Child Mothers

The summer of 2014 I am living in Uganda for 2 months to work with ChildVoice International. I will conducting a service project analyzing the cultural norms that relate to sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) against displaced child mothers. I will be interviewing young mothers that have worked with ChildVoice to understand what they need to protect themselves and their children from violence afflicted by their new communities. These young mothers are displaced due to the violence between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) a few years ago. The LRA abducted these young girls and held them as sex slaves. Many became mothers when they were children themselves. Now as they are being rehabilitated they are being moved back into their communities. However, due to their association with the rebel groups, and being young mothers without a husband they are vulnerable to SGBV. My project looks to identify why these injustices occur, and what services these young women need to protect themselves and their families.

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Powerful People

I was thinking about the old man I met while walking through the refugee camp. I couldn't understand how or why he smiled at me and prayed for us while he sat under the tree dying. He had so much joy and peace. In the mist of dying he had joy. Where did this come from? I still don't understand where this peace came from but while i was thinking about him i found this quote: Powerful people are not slaves to their instincts. Powerful people can respond with love in the face of pain and fear. I met a powerful person

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For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the people on the face of this earth to be his people, his treasured possession

Deuteronomy 7:6

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Just then a woman who had been subjected to bleeding for 12 years came up behind him ( Jesus) and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, 'if I only touch his cloak I will be healed.' Jesus turned and saw her. 'take heart daughter,' he said, ' your faith has healed you.' And the woman was healed at that moment.

Matthew 9: 20-22

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Hope in Dark Places

Orange Dust. That is all I could see through those dirt streaked windows of the small truck five of us were stuffed into. The thick, orange dust that hung over that anonymous African highway dimmed the light of the setting sun.  Our only company was the dark shadows of bodies and trucks moving down that endless road.  The sweat droplets hung on my forehead as I stared blankly forward into that orange dust. The stories I heard that week rang in my head, as the faces of the people I met flashed across my mind. The children starving from the lack of food laughing as they played soccer with empty water bottles.  The mothers kissing their smiling babies with tears running down their faces as they remembered the war that destroyed their lives.

I was working with a small NGO, ChildVoice, to interview young mothers in the South Sudanese refugee camp in Adjumani, Uganda about their experiences in war and their needs in the camp.

‘Have you seen a family member killed in war?’ ‘Yes.’ *check*

‘Have you seen friends or neighbors killed in war?’ ‘Yes’ *check*

‘Have you been seriously injured in the fighting?’ ‘Yes’ *check*

We sat together with these women and their children asking these questions in dark churches made of straw and mud as children played and laughed outside.  The strangeness of this space was so unsettling, as the silence of their suffering hung in the humid air. 

By the end of my internship in northern Uganda my heart felt as if it were ripped out of my chest leaving a gapping bloody hole.  I stared blankly down at it, ripped and smeared across the floor at my feet.

But I didn’t feel anything.

Everything of my former self was dead.  I just stared at the old heart torn waiting to feel the pain, desperately hoping to feel something.

The pain never came.

Instead, in the bleeding tears I saw them being filled.  The old, smeared heart at my feet was being rebuilt, but into something I didn’t recognize. God’s hands were inside my chest filling me with hope. But it was this hope I didn’t understand.  I placed my fingers in my ears and shut my ears asking God, ‘Why can’t I hear you? Why can't I see you?’

I was met with mass starvation, traumatization, and displacement. Yet, everywhere I looked people had hope.  This was not what I was expecting when coming to this place scared deeply by war and death. They had this sacred hope that gave them the courage to love as they endured this deep suffering

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Death to Hope

Down the dirt road from our hut were the abandoned walls of former huts decaying in the savanna, overgrown with grass and trees.  They stood as silent reminders of the massacre that happened 11years ago.  

On the very ground where people were murdered, however, became a place of reconciliation.  A place of reconciliation between the women of the community terrorized by the LRA, and the women abducted by the LRA and forced to commit atrocities.  In the same place where death stained the ground, the air, and the people, a place of peace was built.  The hollow ground became a place for these women to rebuild their lives, and to receive hope. 

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Cecilia

The woman responsible for the care of these children, Cecilia, is a woman that blows my mind.  We sat with her one-day to listen to her story about how she survived the war.  She spoke to us about surviving starvation while trying to raise triplets on her own.  She told us of the murder of her husband by the LRA, and the people that helped her survive during the years of war.  She wept silently as she spoke of the deaths of the people that helped her care for her children and gave her a future in the mist of all the violence.

The story of her husband was a haunting story of deep love whose existence in this violent world was denied.  One day, when her husband went to gather materials to build a new home for their expecting children he was captured by the terrorist group, the Lord’s Resistance Army.  Hearing of his imprisonment, Cecilia went to meet the LRA to plead for his release.  She asked for her husbands release but the soldiers of this group said this could only be done by the permission of their leader, Joseph Kony.  Instead, hearing that Cecilia asked for her husband’s release Kony decided to kill him. Before he killed him, Kony told Cecilia’s relative to record the last message Cecilia’s husband would give to her.  Her husband said to her that his body was back in the ground but he would always love her.  Kony killed him, gave his bloody shirt to the relative to give to Cecilia.

Cecilia still has the note.

Sitting with Cecilia I was blown away by her strength as she endured so much suffering.  Despite all her hardships she was never over taken by them.  She was faced with starvation while feeding triplets by herself, but she never died.  She was faced with death by a terrorist group, but they left her in peace. She told us of these prayers that she would pray in her times of distress. ‘God my name is written in your book, you formed my body, do not forget me.’ 

Sitting next to her it was evident that God had his arms wrapped around her. Anything that came up against her would have to come up against God, and nothing over came her. Ever.

On my 21st birthday I saw outside my hut Cecilia working out in the garden.  I took up a hoe, slipped on my gum- boots, and headed out to the fields to work next to her.  All I wanted was to be near her, to listen to her.  As we torn up the ground she told me about her life, her parents, her childhood. She taught me the importance of the ability to farm in the Acholi culture. She said that by teaching these girls how to dig a garden they were teaching them to feed themselves and earn an income for the rest of their lives.  As we dug I found these white and purple flowers that I would pick and place them in the scarf she worn around her head.  All I wanted to do was to give her a small token of the affection I felt for her, to show her that I admired her. 

That was the best birthday I ever had. 

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Blessing

One of the memories that stains my mind was when our stay was coming to a close.  We had spent the day baking cookies for the girls and their children and had just passed them out for everyone to try.  The sky became dark and a thick rain began to pour.  One of the little girls that I grew to deeply love, Blessing, took refuge with me under the straw roof of the open- air hut.  We sat on the edge of the hut watching the rain pour on the mango orchards and gardens of maize.  We sat silently as she tasted her cookies and listened to the laughter of the other children playing.  The sound of their laughter is the evidence that there is hope in this world. 

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Fasting

The most meaningful fasting I ever did in my life was when I was working in the refugee camp for the South Sudanese in Adjumani, Uganda.  I sat in a hot, dark church made of mud and straw sitting beside my interpreter, a Dinka elder, Philip.  We spent several days there and I decided not to eat until they ate.  As the day worn on, and the heat persisting as Philip and I went through an interview one after another, I got a small glimpse of the suffering Philip’s people endure still today.  As my concentration suffered and my irritation rose, I saw the same effects in Philip.  We went hunger together as we sat together in the dark, mud church. 

I only got a brief peek into the suffering he endured everyday. 

What threw me was the hope he had for himself and his people.  He was a man of God, and he took care of his people.  He and the other elders made sure we had the interviews we needed because they saw the opportunity for assistance.  The elders said that they were willing to sacrifice their week to help us because they believed the NGO we were working for could help the young women of their community.  I grew fond of these men and we enjoyed our time together. 

When it was time to leave we shared tea together and said our farewells.  One of the elders said, ‘We may be different colors, but we believe in the same God.’

I said, ‘No we aren’t.’

They looked at me curiously and I said, ‘God forgot to color me in.’

We all laughed. 

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The Old Man Under The Tree

I am a believer in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, as the Prince of Peace. Going into refugee camps, seeing mass starvation, and hearing stories of war I expected to loss this faith. Yet, when I walked into the refugee camp and lived in the village in Gulu all I found was hope. I remember one day walking through the refugee camp for the people of South Sudan and coming across an older man sitting under a sickly, thin tree. Looking at him you knew he was dying of starvation. You could see the cartilage between his femur and tibia, and all the bones in his body. He was just sitting on his mat, withering away. When I came to him I knelt down to shake his hand. He took my hand in a firm grasp, looked me right in the eyes and smiled. He had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. They were a pale blue with streaks of brown, and he had a smile that stretched to each ear. We stayed and spoke with him for a while, and asked him about his struggles from the war and living in the camp. Then we asked to pray with him, and he lead us in prayer and blessed us. In all th pain of starvation, homelessness, and war he believed in a heavenly father that loved him deeply. Walking away from that old man under the tree I didn't feel devastated or hopeless. Instead i felt hope, and knew justice was inevitable for this man. I remembered the story of Lazarus the begger in the bible. Lazarus lived a hard life and finally died alone in the streets. But at his death God sent his angles to bring him to heaven and sat him at the right hand of Abraham. I realized i just met a man that would be sitting at the right hand of Abraham. God love that man as a son, and God knew ever one of the injustices that man suffered. God's intention was to bring justice to this man under the tree because he was God's beloved child. Now when I hear the tragic stories and see children dying by genocide I know God grieves over the violence inflicted on his people. And that he will bring about his justice for His people. That is the hope Jesus gives freely to all people. Hallelujah.

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Leaving Uganda was one of the hardest good byes I have ever experienced.

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Silent Lightening

The strangest thing I found about Uganda was the silent lightening. There was no sound of thunder or rain, only the flashes of light falling down to the ground. Many people do die from these lightening strikes. Sudden, silent deaths by violent flashes of light. But these people suffer from other forms of silent violence. The corruption within their government is repulsive and blatant in front of the whole global community. The government denies them basic health services because they are too interested in the profit of selling the supplies. The police rarely achieve justice as the party that can give them the highest bide wins the case. Silent acts of violence striking these people at any moment is a common part of their lives. They have accepted it, so they go on with their lives inflicted with this injustice. The acceptance and commonality of this violence makes it silent and goes unnotice. Yet, this is what makes this violence so dangerous and ever present.

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Ebola

May I tell you something that really bothers me. The news about Ebola. Coming home I see on the news all about this Ebola outbreak in western Africa that has killed about 1,000 people. This a terrible outbreak , and all the world is absorbed in it, I know. But where has all this attention been for the tuberculosis epidemic in the past decades? The HIV epidemic, the malaria epidemic? Tuberculosis has killed millions of people over many years, and is becoming worse as new strains emerge that are resistant to the drugs we have to treat it. This is not another disease that Americans can watch from afar and say, 'oh no that's terrible.' This epidemic is happening in Harlem. But you wouldn't know that because the news has little interest in that kind of story. Why is it of little interest you ask? Because it affects those that are inflicted with poverty. Let's be honest, no one is really interested in the problems of those with little income. This is incredibly evident in the policies of the very companies meant to make drugs to cure this disease. Pharmaceutical companies call drugs that treat tuberculosis 'orphan drugs'. 'Orphan drugs' are drugs that are meant to treat rare diseases that affect only a small portion of a population. But tuberculosis drugs are needed by millions of people internationally. These drugs are 'orphan drugs' because they don't make a massive profit as making a drug like viagra. Do you see the problem? This disease is becoming worse due to structural violence. Funding for tuberculosis treatment in Harlem was reduced causing the availability for treatment to deminish. Consequently, the spread of the disease has increases. But only among those living in poverty, so who cares right? The DOTS program run by the World Health Organization was meant to help fight the spread of the disease. However, the program does not check for drug resistance tuberculosis. So, people that already had the disease and relapse are given the same drugs as the first time. So these patients don't take the pills because they are not improving since their tuberculosis is resistant. Consequently they are deemed by the DOTS program as uncooperative. But really the DOTS program was treating them ineffectively. Ebola is not curable and needs a vaccine to prevent this type of crisis, that is also important. But tuberculosis is completely curable. Yet, the global community turns a blind eye to the millions of deaths by this disease. My friend, do you see the problem, do you understand the injustice?

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Chol

Her name was Chol. I spoke to her for only 15 minutes. At the end of that time I was not the same. I couldn't be the same. My Dinka interpreter, Philip, and I sat in plastic chairs waiting for the next mother to be interviewed. We sat in a dark church made of mud and sticks in the middle of the refugee camp on a hot, humid day. The first thing I remember when Chol sat down across from me was her 7 month old baby. Chol's baby must have been one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. He was smiling, laughing, and bouncing in his mother's lap as she gave him kisses all over his chubby face. But when I looked at Chol, as she kissed her happy child's face, she had a blank expression. As we progressed theough the interview we came to the section about her experience in the war. I looked at her and she had all her attention on her happy, smiling baby. Then I started the questions. As I watched her face she had these tears sitting on the edge of her eyes as she bounced her little boy in that hot, dark church. After writing a note I looked up to see two deep streams of tears rolling down her face. Not a sound besides the happy chatter of her baby and her kissing his cheeks. I set my pen down and said she was free to go. She got up and was gone.

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For a week Childvoice conducted interviews of young mothers (17-25) living in the South Sudanese refugee camp in Adjumani, Uganda. The purpose was to identify the problems they face in the camp. Ultimately, the goal is to address these problems in a center located within the camp. If a center set up by Childvoice is established counseling and skill training will be provided to these mothers. The point of all of this work would be to enable these mothers to provide for their children, and to overcome war trauma. The time we spent there was difficult, yet these people had so much hope. It was a surreal experience and a privilege to meet these strong, beautiful people.

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The personal love Christ has for you is infinite. Christ created you because he wanted you.

Mother Teresa

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Habakkuk's complaint: How long, o lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "violence! " but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. The Lord's answer: Look at the nation's and watch- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if I told you.

Habakkuk 1: 2- 5