For the young

Well…only 1 day to go, and I feel a little weird saying that. Lucky me…yes, lucky me indeed. I get to come here for one month and then leave. Leave back to running water, proper sanitation, health care, education, accessible food, family, friends and peace (to name only a few things that are lacking here in Padibe IDP Camp, Northern Uganda).

We have visited 2 more schools in the last couple of days and I want to dedicate this entry to all Padibe youth, and more generally, the whole generation of children who have grown up knowing only the reality of this war, and the hardships of camp life.

We visited Padibe Primary school (grade 7) on Monday. The ages in the class range from 13 to 18 years old, mostly due to interruptions in studies due to abduction, poverty, being orphans and disease.

After a lot of questions about Canada, and how it is possible for us to have peace since the 1800’s (they were blown away by that! And the concept of a subway system!!!), we gave them the same exercise of writing about their experiences growing up during the war and what camp life is like. Again, reading the answers were difficult.

POEM: female, age 15

AIDS AIDS
Who created you?
You are finishing our life
What is your matter?
One month you kill our mother
One month you kill our father
Now you are leaving us orphans
We wish we knew where you come
These children, in addition to rape, defilement, abduction, child soldiering, disease, lack of clean water, and lack of food also spoke specifically and numerously about HIV/AIDS. Many tied rape together with the problem of the quick spread of HIV/AIDS.

Also, here is also a drawing of one boy’s (age 15) experience of the difficulties of war.

 

On the school grounds were signs warning and teaching children.

Can you imagine these in a primary school in Canada?

We also visited a Secondary school yesterday. We met their Secondary 3 class, ages from 16 to 20.

A new issue that many of them brought up was abortion, and death from abortion attempts. Not surprising, considering the prevalence of rape and defilement.

They also wrote at length about Child Rights, and how life in the camps and at war has led to destruction of their culture, and of a correlating decline in morality.
Here are some excerpts:

“…there was constant death…day and night. I was abducted in 2003 and I stayed for 2 years in the bush as a killer. I am also an orphan because all my parents were killed as a result of war.” -male, age 19.

“For me as an individual, I experienced murder. It was 2003-2004 when I was with the rebels. They forced me to kill my brothers and sisters and I managed to do it.” -male, age 16.

“Personal experience: abducted, tortured, heavy luggage to carry, raped, forced to kill, parents were killed.” -female, age 17.

“When I was in Primary seven, I was taken away from my parents by the rebels and I stayed in the bush for 2 months. Some little mercy came one of them and he told me to run home. When I came back home, I found all my parents are dead of this epidemic cholera. My stepmother always mistreat us…” -female, age 16.
“Rights of children: People don’t respect our rights.
1-Children taken by touching
2-Defilement very common in camp
3-Rape” -female, age 15.

And really, I can go on and on. We have collected over 130 written accounts from the children here, and they all deserve to be heard. We will try and figure out a way to do that once we are back in Canada.

I guess what is really hard to convey to you all is the reality of being here. EVERYONE here has been severely affected by this war. The nice woman who helps us chop firewood, our neighbour “security” man, the bright students curiously questioning us about Canada’s winter, our translator and blogger…everyone we meet, everyone who lives here.

We have been trying to document a lot of these stories for you, to give you a face to connect to…  (we will put out these stories in different forms throughout the year). We hope it has helped show you a little of what happens here, what is needed here and how important peace here really is.

We will blog again once we leave here, but for now, this is the last blog I write here in Padibe. I first came to Padibe in 2004. We were in a military convoy on our way past Padibe to Lokung, when we came upon an ambush right before the camp. We found 1 dead man and some severely injured. We continued traveling with our convoy and I clearly remember the smiling faces of the children as we arrived in Padibe to drop the injured off at the clinic. The children always smiled and waved when we traveled through a camp, but somehow…things were different now. I had seen just a small portion of the death that this war had brought and their smiles seemed so much more remarkable to me this time.

It is those smiles that I still see around me here today. It is the children who desperately want out of poverty, who want to be rid of diseases, who want and believe in peace despite all that they have lived to the contrary.

I’ll leave you with this:

“Oh..our war is not our interest but we got it so innocently
Oh…oh…our leaders…what is our problem about?
Is all about war?
WE are getting difficulty in living in this world.” -female, age 18.

Lara