Last week while I was waiting around in a rural area in Northern Uganda, I was speaking to a friend on the phone and sitting nearby family of ducks in front of someone’s hut—eleven little ducks and a mom. My friend told me to take a photo. They are sweet, here together as a family, but they are dirty, not very photogenic, I said. Ragged and brown where they should have been yellow and fluffy. And they were drinking from a small container of murky and opaque water, more brown than clear. My friend asked if it made me sad. Not really, I said. This was my umpteenth trip North. I was hardened, and I’d seen worse, after all. And ducks weren’t people, after all. People need clean water more urgently, I thought.
For the past two decades, people in Northern Uganda have congregated in Internally Displaced Persons camps (IDPs) for a modicum of protection against rebels who roamed free in the bush. Now that the rebels seem less active and peace is within reach, the government and donors are trying to encourage people to leave IDP camps and move closer to their original villages, to resettlement camps. The only difference between the two, as far as I could tell, is that the homes were slightly further apart from each other in the resettlement camps.
Soon after my phone conversation, I continued on to interview an HIV-positive woman. She was friendly. She bore her burden with dignity and a smile. When I finished asking her all the questions I needed for a story, I asked if there was anything else she wanted to tell me.
Sometimes at this point people will share an insight or a bit about themselves, but often, this is when people ask me for money or assistance. This lady asked me for money to help build a new home back in the village so she can eventually leave the resettlement camp. I told her my practiced line: I can’t help with money, but what I can do is tell her story and this is my way of helping.
I left her small hut feeling content. I knew how to handle such situations. I used to be torn apart by people asking me for help when I really couldn’t help them, but today, I believed my own line.
At the next hut, a woman told me of how she walked thirty-six kilometres from this remote camp to Gulu town every month to collect her ARVs at a missionary hospital. It took her two days in each direction, carrying her four-year-old son on her back. She didn’t smile or even look me in the eye much. When I finished with my questions, as always, I asked if there was anything else she wanted to tell me. She said she needed help with money for school fees for her children. I told I would tell her story and I would be sure to include the challenge of school fees. She told me to also include the challenge of nutrition, materials for rebuilding homes, clean water, and mosquito nets. I copied it all down into my spiral notebook, feeling a little less smug, a little less assured. Her story being told doesn’t reduce the number of kilometres she has to walk every month.
I left her hut and went to wait for the with near the NGO staff who were going to whisk me back to town. A mother who had been in the queue for medical treatment brought her baby girl to an old man who was sitting nearby. He held up the child up and pointed towards her eyes. They were cloudy and grey, with a thick film covering them, just milky saucers where there should have been iris and pupil. He asked me for eye drops. He asked me to fix this girl’s eyes. I told him I wasn’t a doctor, just a journalist. I pointed at my notebook, as if this somehow explained my incapacity to help.
As we stood to leave, woman who had been standing nearby said something to me in Lwo, the local language. I smiled and greeted her even though she clearly hadn’t greeted me, since that’s the only think I can do in Lwo. The old man told me she was asking for my shirt. Her own ragged shirt was so torn that part of her belly was exposed and only a knot tying shreds of fabric together on her back kept it from falling off her body completely. I said I probably couldn’t give her my shirt. She asked if I would be back with this outreach team next week. I said I probably wouldn’t. She made a dismissive motion with her hand.
The family of ducks was right where I had left them, still drinking dirty water. I thought of the woman who walked thirty-six kilometres every month, and how she also needed clean water.
As we were departing, the woman with the torn shirt went over to the NGO staff and offered each one a cup full of locally grown peanuts that she had in a burlap sack. She didn’t offer me a cup. The NGO team would be back next week, attending to medical problems and providing support for the people living here. I would not. I came, got my stories, left with answers, and gave no one anything.
Legong: I know I am replying to this pathetic, racist statement a little late and the whole ignorant rant probably doesn’t even deserve a reply. Wanhenglo, if we were all to generalise about...
Legong: I know I am replying to this pathetic, racist statement a little late and the whole ignorant rant probably doesn’t even deserve a reply. Wanhenglo, if we were all to generalise about...
Sky Goodden: This is startling, refreshing, overdue, and damn good. Thank you, Shary.
Mark: It’s not just in Canada, it seems all over artists don’t get the local recogtnition they should. I was in Malaga where Picasso was born and it is much different, but then he is...
Seenloitering: The “gender analysis” in this article is upside down. Marie Calloway is a threat to the status quo because she threatens the myth that women are morally superior, above...
Jefry: I do not really like to read a story like a novel or a real story but I think this is very interesting and need to be read
Guest: I didn’t want babies or a period any more. I KNEW without a doubt I did not want children so I had been asking for a hysterectomy since I was 19. I finally got it at 39. My...
Djzklj: Pretty interesting article, despite that I don’t wanna make a voyage there
Sanyo Seiki: I love this game! Very addicted! Sanyo Seiki
Anonymous: People are so disconnected from reality these days, it seems like the only thing that matters to them is materialism and celebrity gossip, disgusting! http://poemti.me