In previous posts, I have indicated Gulu’s violent history, a history I knew before I came. But being here adds a whole new level of understanding. I know I can never understand the lives of the people here, but there’s something about being here, about being in a place where such systematic and despicable evil has taken place, that makes one feel closer to the terror felt in the land.
When I’m lying in my bed, staring into the pitch blackness, unable to see three feet in front of me, I think of how my only recourse would be to hide under my bed if the LRA rebels were banging on my door. When I move through the tall, dense grass, I can see how the LRA could sneak through the bush undetected. When I’m in a car that’s driving through that tall, dense grass, my heart stops, waiting for the landmine explosion, rationally knowing they have all been removed. When I wake in the middle of the night to deafening thunder and barking dogs, I instinctively think that the rebels are returning and the thunder is their warning gunshots.
The majority of these thoughts are not rational. The landmines have been removed. The rebels are in the DRC and, if they did return to Uganda, we would know about it before they ever reached Gulu. We would have plenty of time to reach safety in Kampala. But rational thought has nothing to do with experiencing Gulu and its people.
I don’t know fear. I have no true concept of pain. But being in a place where people do, where they lived with fear and pain for 15 years, hearing their stories, brings me closer to the conflict. While I’ve heard many stories and seen many things during my time in Gulu, I want to share one story that hit me on a personal level. This is a story as told to me by my friend, as told to her by her homestay mother.
In 2005, right before the Juba Peace Talks, all but one of the seven kids in the family were kidnapped by the LRA and taken as child soldiers and child brides. On that awful, awful night the LRA came to the Gulu area. The mother woke in the middle of the night to loud banging, demanding she unlock the door. She knew who it was; she knew they would take her children; she knew her children would be forced to kill. She opened the door. She had no choice – they threatened to throw a grenade through the window if she didn’t.
This part of the story freaks me out. She told this very dead, very matter-of-fact. “I opened the door.” No explanation, no excuses. Just acceptance. To open the door, comprehending that the act would destroy your children, would annihilate their soul, must have been the hardest decision she had ever made. Her children’s death or the worst life a child could lead. She allowed her children to be kidnapped. She opened the door.
They were all taken, all but the baby on her hip. The LRA worried the baby might cry and alert the Ugandan army. In one night, she lost six children. This loss was amplified by the questions of whether they were alive, whether they had been forced to kill, whether they had been tortured or raped.
All but one of the kidnapped children have escaped and returned home. They are in school, continuing with their lives, all the while living with the horrors they saw in the bush. The parents claim that the girl who did not return is dead. They didn’t give details on her death or how they knew this.
The part of the story that strikes me is the return of the children. It is an amazing thing that most of them returned, particularly with the children so young – they ranged from 7-15. They returned from oldest to youngest. The older siblings left their younger siblings behind.
As the oldest of four, it is disconcerting, even disturbing, to imagine my family in the same situation. It is difficult to imagine me leaving behind my sisters and brother in such a despicable life, while I, who am old enough to plan a probable escape plan, flee to safety. It is difficult to imagine, but not impossible. In that situation, theoretically, you take any chance you get to escape because another may not come again for several years.
Escape is uncommon and dangerous. If you are caught, you will be killed, usually by another child soldier. The younger you are, the less likely you will escape successfully. It must have been difficult to decide to escape for the two oldest children (they escaped together). They left behind their brothers and sisters who were less able to escape. But it’s understandable, particularly considering they had probably been separated from their siblings for weeks. They had to get away.
That people were forced to do things that doomed their family or to abandon them makes me uncomfortable. Because those are the decisions, the acts that would drive me mad. The human brain can process many horrible acts, thoughts, or sights. But the personal element, the participation in a loved one’s destruction, is too awful for processing or comprehension. The human heart and the human brain are not built to handle the onslaught of that intensity of psychological violence.
I don’t know if I could do it. If I could unlock the door and watch my family walk into the night to live in hell. But I would.
I don’t know if I could flee to a better life, leaving behind my younger, more fragile, more incapable siblings to live in that hell. But I would (have to).
I don’t know if I could handle the guilt of the consequences of my decisions. I don’t think I could.
Thank God that most of the children returned and after less than a year in the bush. Thank God they escaped successfully. Thank God they have managed to continue with their lives.
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