Threads - Uganda

First, an explanation. I've been home for about a week and haven't written you. I caught a cold in Uganda that didn't bother me much. And I flew from Entebbe to Addis Ababa to Dubai without incident. But then my right ear became stopped on the next leg to London. Upon descent, the pressure change caused extreme pain. Cutting out many details, I then had to land in Las Vegas and again in Los Angeles. Irene took me to my doctor on Friday and I have an antibiotic, an antihistamine, pain pills and anti-inflammatory. I'm recovering but it has been rough. My hearing in my right ear has not returned but my Ear Doc says it will over time.

Now back to our story...

Alice Lakwena, age 51, died on January 18th. I can hear the collective "Who?" She is one of the threads that pulls me and binds me to East Africa and Northern Uganda in particular. Born Alice Auma in 1956, she married twice but both her husbands divorced her because she was barren. It's very difficult for a woman to live without a husband in Africa. In May 1985, the spirit Lakwena (messenger, disciple) possessed her and made her run amok and she could barely speak. In August the spirit told her that her mission was to lead a war against evil in Uganda. Her enemy was Yoweri Museveni's Uganda National Liberation Front. Museveni helped topple Idi Amin and is the present president of Uganda. Alice's soldiers knew her as a mysterious person and they were never sure if they were talking to a woman or a spirit. In October 1986, she led an attack on Gulu Town and was badly defeated. But her movement gained momentum and she was well on her way to defeating Kampala. In November 1987, the Holy Spirit Movement suffered its final defeat in Jinga, just north of Kampala. Lakwena is said to have abandoned Alice and she fled to Kenya. Most of her fighters were killed as they tried to flee back to northern Uganda. She lived quietly in a refugee camp the rest of her life.

What's that got to do with me? There's more!

It turns out the surviving soldiers joined Alice's nephew, Joseph Kony. Now there's a name some of you may know. He formed the Lord's Resistance Army (L.R.A.) which for the last 20 years has attacked villages in the north, trying to destabilize the Ugandan government and replace it with one based on the Ten commandments - all but the one about "Thou shalt not kill." He told his child soldiers that if they truly believed, that the soldiers' bullets would not harm them and that their rocks would defeat the enemy. His forces have burned villages, killed tens of thousands and left 1.6 million people homeless in camps. Boys (age 7 to 12 or so) were kidnapped and made to become killers. Girls became wives of officers. Last spring, his forces failing, he and his top leaders turned themselves in at a camp in southern Sudan. They are negotiating with the Ugandan government about their futures. I don't really know what they have to talk about. Negotiations are not going well and may break down. What will that mean? Books will be written about this epoch.

That's the ancient history of my travels to Uganda and the longest historical threads. Let me list several more threads.

Ken Goyer I have known for about 40 years. Irene and I met him in college and we worked together on construction projects in Mexico. He and his friend, Larry Winiarski, developed the Six Brick Rocket Stove over the years.

My daughter, Christine, joined the Peace Corps and went to Tanzania. At her going-away party, Ken brought along his stove and demonstrated it, hoping Christine would introduce it to Tanzania. She didn't because she had enough other stuff to do there. Irene and I did go to visit her for a month and met her neighbors, Adelitus Mgao, Sekela Sanga, and their children, Anna and Basil.

Rotary International heard about Ken's stove and sent him on a world tour, introducing his stove in Ghana, Uganda and India in 2004.

John Kirkwood is a member of the Rotary Club in Jinga and heard about Ken's trip and invited him to conduct a training there. John is a Mzungu (first world person) who runs a vocational school in Jinga and helps the Rotary Club in many worthwhile projects, some sponsored by clubs here in the U.S. He is a most admirable person.

Mathew Langol, project director for All Nations Christian Care, attended the first training in Jinga. He convinced Ken to return to his hometown, Lira, to see the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps there. Seeing the unbelievable conditions there - as many as 20,000 people living on ten acres with absolutely nothing - Ken decided that Lira was the place to start his mission of building highly efficient wood burning stoves. Of all the places Ken had been, these people needed help the most.

Some of these threads are frayed at the end, but they will be tied back together later - or not. So that's enough threads, along with a sense of adventure, to lure me to Uganda the first time - just to see what it's like.

I went to Lira with Ken, Christine, and my friend from church Chuck Wojnowski. Adelitus joined us from Tanzania.

Adelitus was amazing. He was the assistant medical officer in Christine's village, Mfriga and asked if he could join us. He doesn't speak any of the local Ugandan languages, of course, and had to depend on trust for the mothers to hand over their children, but he could look at sick babies and know fairly certainly what they had and what treatment they needed. I lost track of how many lives he saved there.

Every day we traveled with Mathew through the IDP camps where there were thousands more threads, people in need; desperately poor, sick, and hungry. But people leading good lives and making the best of what little they have. Women cooking, men working (well, some), older children pumping water and younger children making improvised toys. They are all woven together in community fabric and find strength in each other. I know many of their names and can see their faces. They welcomed us all and we became a part of the fabric, too.

As an aside, I think that the homeless people that Irene and I help feed every month in Pasadena are somehow poorer that the IDPs - at least in spirit. Even though the homeless needn't worry about starvation, they seem to have little hope, little ability to see a way out of their misery.

More names of threads - JK, Mary and Frances. We had just begun our goal of building 10,000 stoves when it was time for us to leave. Ken employed these three to carry on for us, and by the following February we received an e-mail from JK telling us they had built all 10,000 stoves. Now they are working on a 100,000 stove project!

I am saddened that Frances was stabbed to death by his wife in a domestic argument. He was a great young man.

Before fleeing to an IDP camp, JK was a mid-level bureaucrat and beekeeper, is well educated and has the drive to follow through on these difficult tasks.

Mary was one of the people who had originally joined Mathew in attending the stove building demonstration in Jinga. She has the fire in the belly to see justice done. I have a very fond memory of her preparing dinner for us all one evening at her home. Yes, she had two Rocket Stoves she cooked on. I think her homemade ground nut (peanut) brittle was my favorite.

Rozette and Monic came to Lira for a week on their own time to volunteer. Now Rozette is our administrator for Aid Africa in Jinga. I heard from Monic just a couple of weeks ago and she wants to volunteer with our new program in Gulu.

Bam Daniel is the project coordinator in Maunda Village for Aid Africa and the Jinga and Tororo Rotary Clubs. Kinda quiet but communicates easily and sees what there is to do and does it.

Freida, Priscilla and Martin are our new staff in Gulu. Even though I was in Gulu just over a week, I feel they are life-long friends. All three have the heart to invent their jobs. There are no classes for what they have to do; they must use their vision of justice, imagine what they must do and see that it gets done. They don't have to do everything themselves, but coordinate with the other over 140 NGOs in Gulu.

We sent Martin to Lira to train with JK for a week and his first day there the vehicle he was riding in with Moses from ANCC was rear-ended. The body of the car was crushed clear up to the front seat. Thank goodness they were both wearing their seat belts! Both of them were found unconscious and taken to Lira hospital. Moses recovered quickly, but Martin is still having problems with communicating. I keep him in my thoughts and prayers.

Also in Gulu I met two Aid Africa volunteers, Ronda and Hugh. Both are from Eugene, will stay in Gulu until mid-March and have a special interest in our medical program. I'm thankful for their friendship and commitment.

Nick was our driver for a week. He's been to college in England and has a wide world view and the ability to foresee the long-term outcome of present events. He's from the south and is identified as an outsider as soon as he speaks. He was my shepherd through the week and went back to Kampala with me on the bus. A great new friend.

When I returned home, I returned to all the threads I have here - all of you. It's difficult contrasting the great need of the IDPs in Uganda with the wealth we have here in the U.S. Even as I walked along the streets of Kampala, the children call after me "Fathah, Fathah!" begging for a donation. I still struggle with the imbalance of wealth and poverty

And it's all those personal threads, the faces I still see, that tie part of me to Uganda. I spoke in the Entebbe airport with an Ethiopian man who is working to reforest the Nile basin - all the way from Lake Victoria to Alexandria. He says it's fine to do grass roots work like we are, but that real change has to be in policy making; if you don't change the system you'll always have the same results. He has a point, but I've seen lives changed, lives saved, because of what our small band has done.

For what I spent on this journey, I could have had a three-week trip to China, staying at 5-star hotels and seeing the sights. Better yet, I could have stayed home and saved my time and money. But it's those threads running back decades that pull me off the couch away from the TV .

It's a physical and emotional burden working in the camps, living in a way that's uncomfortable, being in difficult circumstances. So I share my stories with you so that you can help me with the load. Just hearing about it, you all carry part of it with you. The more people who learn about the needs of the world, the greater chance we have of making permanent improvements. Thank you for reading all this stuff. Perhaps it's just the result of my cold!

Irene, the strongest thread in my life, probably won't be happy to hear it, but I'll probably go to Uganda again when I can. Maybe next time she'll go with me! Maybe some of you will come, too. You are welcome to volunteer any time.

I still have a couple of letters worth to write. Thank you for your support.

Peter