Gulu

I'm here on Thursday, May 17, 11;45am in The Coffee Hut in Gulu. Annie and I just came from seeing Dr. David at the Gulu University Faculty to Medicine. It was great to meet him and he clearly likes Annie very much and appreciates the research she did in the fall semester. He believes that she can continue her interviews during these next ten days and be able to produce a paper that will benefit the medical community that focuses on the HIV/AIDS population. But back to our trip here to Gulu yesterday. The Post Bus was an experience. We were very happy to have the bus conductor secure our luggage in a compartment since he said we couldn't leave anything out. We kept our backpacks on our laps the entire trip. The bus was crowded and the ride was bumpy. Whenever we stopped to let someone off or on the bus, people came up with trays of grilled bananas, meat on sticks, cold sodas and other things. They raised them high enough for people to reach out the window take what they wanted. We didn't have anything which, it turned out, was a good thing since Daisy, Annie's mego, told us that the meat might be contaminated bush meat (gorilla, etc.) and the food might be two days old. The post bus is considered the safest transportation to Gulu and I have to say, it's a relative kind of safety. But we made it. Nancy, one of Mego's daughters greeted us and had hired a truck to bring us to her house. Here is where the joy of this trip begins. Daisy and the children who are living with her right now (some hers and some not) made us feel welcome and immediately part of the family. Our afternoon and evening was filled with lots of conversation, laughter and wonderful food. Daisy had prepared a delicious lunch of "bo" (green leaves with egg mixed in), rice, "poscho" (a dense and moist bread made of maize) and pork. We all sat together in the main room (where everything we do together happens). I immediately became friends with Elijah, Daisy's stepson, a thirteen year old boy who is very smart, curious and talkative. He loves to teach and explain as much as he loves to learn. He loves to read anything he can get his hands on and although he says his favorite subjects are English and physics, it's clear that he is a Renaissance man who wants to study the world, local and global. When I asked him if he would like to attend university he very matter-of-factly said that "realities" would not allow that as much as he would like to. Daisy showed me the compound which consists of the main house which has the big room and three small bedrooms, a room for storage, and storage space for kitchen items and food (large sacks of rice, maize, millet and other food stuffs)and a small space for preparing the meal after it has been cooked. The tour of the rest of the compound consisted of visiting the thatched-roof huts and other buildings. New since Annie's time at their house is the small kitchen hut which is close to the house. there are two charcoal-heated small pits for cooking. Daisy is happy to have this since the kitchen hut was far away from the house. There's a chicken hut, a hut for one of Daisy's older sons, a hut with a bunk bed for whoever might need it, a toilet (a hole in the ground with a door), a brick construction for taking a bucket bath. There are plantings everywhere. Currently there are plantings of yams, beans, maize and every kind of fruit tree (I know, it sounds like Genesis 2 :-) ). As Elijah and Daisy told me, "Here in Africa, you just go out and pick the fruit from the tree." When the mango tree is done producing its fruit, neighbors give you some of theirs and you share your papaya, lemons, oranges, or other fruit. EVERYTHING is used to its fullest and it seems that all of it is eaten with appreciation. There's just a gratefulness that I sensed for all that they have. Daisy talked about the Acholi custom of hospitality and sharing with a kind of pride. The hospitality became clearer to me in the evening before supper when we all sat on a large mat outside talking and playing with another Daisy, a little girl from next door. By then the other children had returned from school too. It seemed that neighbors and relatives came from everywhere to greet us. Elijah had been trying to teach me some basic Acholi phrases which I not to successfully used to greet everyone. Everyone met us as though we were family. And it wasn't the kind of welcome for white ("munu") strangers one might expect as though we were a curiosity, but rather an embrace of "you're here, you're family." Maybe this is a bit too much detail for a blog. I will get to the conversation in the small kitchen hut as Daisy and Elijah prepared the supper of rice and beans (best I've had, by the way). Daisy and Elijah gave me a history lesson on the war and the LRA's effect on the district of Gulu and their family. With a sense of emotion as well as detachment, Daisy said that she had been abducted and three (or four?) of her children taken by the rebels. Daisy was left in a place far away from her home and her children eventually escaped one by one to come home to her. Nancy was one of them. Daisy said that everyone in her neighborhood lived in fear during those years. At 4:00 every afternoon, all the families would leave their homes and go to the centre of Gulu for the night. Daisy's family was able to rent a place but many couldn't and had no food nor any way to prepare food. The Ugandan military would chase them back to their homes but they would come back to the city every night. There was literally no safe place. This time of fear and violence lasted thirty years. I hope that in the days to come, I will be able to understand more about the lives of Daisy, Santo and their children during this time but I certainly want to ask delicately and sensitively. There is so much more but for now, goodbye from Gulu.