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25th February 2008
Way back in November 2006, I headed off with a bunch of
volunteer types
to the war-torn area of
Kitgum in Northern Uganda. I’m not sure about the others,
but I was a little scared. Everyone from aid workers to Ugandans
told us not to go. “Gulu is safe,” they would say, “But don’t go
to Kitgum. It is too dangerous.”
My good friend Rose
disagreed. Rose had family living in Kitgum and assured us it
was safe. It turned out that Rose was right. The local rebel
group in the area – the
LRA (The Lord’s Resistance Army) – and the government had
just signed a temporary cease fire agreement and so the war was
effectively on hold.
When we arrived in Kitgum, we were greeted warmly by Rose’s
family and friends. They went out of their way to make us feel
welcome.
They provided us with three wonderful meals a day and we
dined like kings. There was matooke (mashed green
bananas); sweet potatoes and plain potatoes - both enjoyed best
when smothered in a peanut sauce; an abundance of rice; big
lumps of ground millet best eaten with your hands;
sugar-saturated sweet African tea; and an abundance of African
fruits.
And to put this in context, many of the ladies in Kitgum are
surviving on one meal every two days.
The amount of preparation that went into these meals was
huge. The millet needed to be ground, the matooke mashed and the
potatoes boiled. All this was prepared over a wood fueled
cooker. The ladies (no man ever cooks) would have had to of
gotten up way before we were awake to prepare this for us, and
then there were the hour long round trips to collect firewood
and water.
One of the ladies who was doing all this work behind the
scenes was called Hellen Oting. Hellen is the sister of Rose and
has lived in Kitgum her whole life.
Hellen’s story
is especially harsh. Not only had she survived multiple attacks
from both the Karamajong and the LRA, but she also had to suffer
the heartbreak of losing her husband. Throw in cancer of the
uterus, a sick mother and extreme poverty and you can begin to
see how hard her life was.
Helen recently passed away.
It was not the cancer, the Karamajong, the LRA, malaria nor
HIV that got her, but rather a car accident. The
over-loaded, poorly serviced cars driven at stupid speeds on
pothole ridden roads are a lethal combination in Africa.
She fought hard for three long weeks, but finally succumbed.
I do not believe that heaven exists, but I wish it did for
people like Hellen. The heaven I would wish for would not
be a place where you worshipped God, but rather a place where
you can sit with loved ones and eat your fill of ground millet,
matooke, rice, potatoes and that sweet, sweet African fruit
while sipping hot African tea. You would laugh and laugh
and laugh until your full belly ached.
But that place does not exist. All Hellen had was the
here and now.
Hellen was my friend and she deserved more.
Such a waste.
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