Emotional Healing...
I have been blogging these past couple of weeks about what I have been seeing in the IDP Camps in Northern Uganda where our mobile medical clinic with Northwest Medical Teams International (www.nwmti.org) is serving hundreds of thousands of people with no availability to health care. I have shared just a little about what causes these people to move to an overcrowded, unsanitary camp far away from their farms and villages; their fear of the Lord's Resistance Army.
The LRA is a rebel group that twenty years ago decided that they would overturn the government and run the country according to the Ten Commandments, while not even displaying any kind of Christian virtues themselves. Since the beginning, they have not had much support in this venture so their way of drafting people into their army, is to abduct children from the various villages in the north and turning them into child soldiers. As you can only imagine the children don't want to be cooperative, so they use horrific initiation methods to "discourage" anyone from running away.
I met Peter yesterday, he is an interpreter for the film makers from Quebec, and he shared with me the story of his sister. About 8 years ago the LRA attacked the Aboke Girls School and abducted about 130 girls, his 15 year old sister was one of those girls. One hundred of the girls were released by the persistence of a little Italian nun that followed them into the bush and begged for her girls back. Peter's sister was able to escape and make her way home in about three months. Now 23 years old she continues to suffer from the emotional scars she received in the ordeal. For her initiation she was forced to beat to death another girl that had tried to run away. Most girls were sex slaves and expected to do all of the carrying, cooking, etc. There are two major rehabilitation centers for the children that are able to escape, here in the north. They do counseling and different therapies to help the children come to terms with all that they went through.
The people in the camps also have emotional scars that run deep. They are in constant fear of their children being abducted, or of being killed themselves. I have met many who have had their homes destroyed by the rebels, most have lost at least one family member at the hands of the LRA, and all have moved to the camps to seek safety. I met one woman today whose husband was killed in January by the rebels, and she is now left alone to raise two small children.
What continues to amaze not only me, but other foreigners that spend time here, is the fact that these people are so friendly, open, quick to smile, and laugh so easily. They are wearing filthy rags for clothes, are infested with various parasites, live in squalor, work hard to produce little, and still have no stability. Yet, if you smile at them or greet them in their Langi they just beam or burst out laughing!
I want to be more like them. I want to be able to smile and laugh no matter what my journey in this life might bring me.
I have been blogging these past couple of weeks about what I have been seeing in the IDP Camps in Northern Uganda where our mobile medical clinic with Northwest Medical Teams International (www.nwmti.org) is serving hundreds of thousands of people with no availability to health care. I have shared just a little about what causes these people to move to an overcrowded, unsanitary camp far away from their farms and villages; their fear of the Lord's Resistance Army.
The LRA is a rebel group that twenty years ago decided that they would overturn the government and run the country according to the Ten Commandments, while not even displaying any kind of Christian virtues themselves. Since the beginning, they have not had much support in this venture so their way of drafting people into their army, is to abduct children from the various villages in the north and turning them into child soldiers. As you can only imagine the children don't want to be cooperative, so they use horrific initiation methods to "discourage" anyone from running away.
I met Peter yesterday, he is an interpreter for the film makers from Quebec, and he shared with me the story of his sister. About 8 years ago the LRA attacked the Aboke Girls School and abducted about 130 girls, his 15 year old sister was one of those girls. One hundred of the girls were released by the persistence of a little Italian nun that followed them into the bush and begged for her girls back. Peter's sister was able to escape and make her way home in about three months. Now 23 years old she continues to suffer from the emotional scars she received in the ordeal. For her initiation she was forced to beat to death another girl that had tried to run away. Most girls were sex slaves and expected to do all of the carrying, cooking, etc. There are two major rehabilitation centers for the children that are able to escape, here in the north. They do counseling and different therapies to help the children come to terms with all that they went through.
The people in the camps also have emotional scars that run deep. They are in constant fear of their children being abducted, or of being killed themselves. I have met many who have had their homes destroyed by the rebels, most have lost at least one family member at the hands of the LRA, and all have moved to the camps to seek safety. I met one woman today whose husband was killed in January by the rebels, and she is now left alone to raise two small children.
What continues to amaze not only me, but other foreigners that spend time here, is the fact that these people are so friendly, open, quick to smile, and laugh so easily. They are wearing filthy rags for clothes, are infested with various parasites, live in squalor, work hard to produce little, and still have no stability. Yet, if you smile at them or greet them in their Langi they just beam or burst out laughing!
I want to be more like them. I want to be able to smile and laugh no matter what my journey in this life might bring me.
posted by BrendaTravels | 7:36 AM
2 Comments:
Brenda,
You do smile!And often. NWMT has a group of wonderful smiling humanitarians. God Bless you all, and stay safe.
Virginia Avila
Brenda -
I have enjoyed reading your journal entires. Your last one dated May 12 especially touches my heart. I feel very much the same about life in the US. I recently returned from Cambodia (with NWMTI) and I am already eager to get back out there. I hope to make it to Uganda some day. Thanks for sharing your story.
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