Taking my first steps into the tiny village of Rackoko in Northern Uganda, it appeared to be a typical African village. While very different from what I have ever seen or experienced, the people seemed to go about life as if all is well and normal. They have their tiny mud huts that are actually quite cozy on the inside. They tend to their daily chores of fetching water, shelling peanuts (or gnuts as they call them), sweeping their dirt floor, and working in the gardens. The children attend school and love to spend their free time playing football. The women selling fruits, vegetables, and dried fish at the market are always quick to greet you with a smile and an "afoyo!"
You would never guess that this tiny village, too remote to be found on google maps, is recovering from a 20 year war that wreaked havok on their lives. We made visits to some of the people's homes and heard their life stories, or rather their war stories. Stories that I know I've heard about in books and documentaries that I can't even fathom experiencing myself. It's much different though when you are sitting in a mud hut listening to the stories from someone who lived through it. You spend enough time talking with the people and you realize that everyone has a story from the war. And they are all still living in the aftermath of the war. AIDS. Poverty. Emotional scars. Physical scars. Displacement. Fear.
Where we were living was once an IDP camp that housed more than 10,000 people trying to seek safety from the LRA (Lord's Resistence Army). Emmanuel, a sweet 87 year old man missing an eye and all his front teeth, told his story of how there was so much running and hiding during the war. His home was not safe and so he had to leave it to go live in the IDP camp with his family. When the war left Northern Uganda, he tried to return to life before the war but found his home and plentiful crops to be completely gone. Before the war he lived a comfortable life…and now he is poor.
The LRA or rebel soldiers consistently raided the village, engaging in murder, rape, and torture. Several people we talked to told stories of how they were held up at gunpoint and narrowly escaped getting shot. We heard stories of people getting their ears and lips cut off with machetes. Sylvia, a woman unaware of her exact age and who is crippled but still filled with so much life, was raped by a rebel soldier and now has a 7 year old daughter to care for. Many women now suffer from HIV or have a child or both as a result of rape being such a common practice with the rebel soldiers.
School could only be held one day a week because it was too dangerous to have every day. Many children and youth were abducted to be trained as child soldiers, often being forced to kill their own family members to keep them from ever wanting to return home. One evening around a campfire we got to hear the stories of some of the youth and what it was like during the war for them. Many of their friends and school classmates were abducted and never returned home. They described how at night they had to go sleep in the bush because it was safer there. After a few chuckles they further explained that it wasn't so much sleeping as it was laying there with at least one eye open. When the rebel soldiers would show up in the village, they would ran as fast as they could into the bush to hide. We asked them how far they would have to run, and their response was until they could no longer hear the gunshots. These boys telling these stories grew up only knowing war.
There is still so much healing to be done in Rackoko, as well as the rest of Northern Uganda. Many are still gripped by fear and struggle with coping with the memories of war. But there are glimpses of hope that can be seen here and there – in the smiles and hospitality of the people and the way that they recognize that they can now enjoy things, like sitting out under the stars, that they once couldn't. My prayer will continue to be that the people I had the pleasure of meeting in Northern Uganda can grow into a life of freedom and joy and fresh beginnings, and that when they look to the past it isn't marked with pain, but rather with thanksgiving for how far they've come from it.
