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 From: Dave Zamierowski Ugandan Journal Essay #2 (trip date May, 2009); Essay date June 9, 2010 Felix When we started our van trip to Gulu from Kampala, I was fortunate enough (but in reality to listen to everyone's "stories" afterwards, everyone was "fortunate" no matter whom they met or what different experiences they had . each and everyone's experience was so telling, so life changing) to sit in the middle row behind the passenger seat. I had missed the orientation so I introduced myself and he said "Hello, my name is Felix" in just perfect English. He didn't elaborate and I didn't pry. Every street corner we came to, every new vista and land feature was just so interesting to me, that I couldn't resist asking him what it was or what it meant. And he was so knowledgeable, so good at explaining. He soon became our tour guide as I would pass his soft spoken comments on to the rest of the van. Because, the next morning when we started out from Gulu on our first trip out of town and he was in the same seat, I assumed that Felix was just part of our party. In retrospect, I should have picked up on his increased animation and engagement when we crossed the bridge at Karuma Falls on the Nile. The Nile crosses Uganda from southeast to northwest and separates it into "north" and "south." This is the only bridge between. He now seemed to look at everything with the same wonder that I did. It turns out that we were just transporting Felix . taking him to Burcoro (pron: Boor-CHORE-row). Now, Burcoro holds special significance for our group because it is the hometown of our Parliamentarian who was our host, the Hon. R. Reagan Okumu who won his last election by over 90% of the votes from his district, the northeast section of Gulu. He went to school in this little village and the amazing thing to me was that he had to compete on national exams for a spot in the big university in Kampala with just the education from his little village and he made it. Besides the committees in Parliament that he is the chair of, he carried the title at this time of Shadow (or opposition) Foreign Minister. We were privileged to essentially accompany him as he visited all the sites that he thought would be of interest to us - schools, churches, villages, IDP camps, orphanages, quarry work sites and of course, clinics, hospitals and the new five year old Gulu University and Medical School. Because he was making "legislator rounds," we got to meet all the powers that be and, because of his presence, to sit in on serious discussions and be part of them at each location. As we drove toward Burcoro that morning, Felix seemed unusually quiet. But as we stepped out of the van onto the little green in the center of the five or so buildings that formed the village center , he could not contain himself. He said to me, "This is my home. I have not been back here for 10 years." A few people saw him, recognized him and came running up to hug him. After the tears stopped, he and Reagan took us on a tour. Our timing was good. The majority of the village was in the largest classroom of the restored school at Sunday Mass. We had gone to the Cathedral in Gulu that morning to start our Sunday. So the compound in Burcoro was quiet for the moment and we had it to ourselves to tour. "That berm," Felix said, pointing to the rise at the back of the compound just before it dropped into a little valley and opened up into a wide vista of the beautiful rolling hills of this Acholi land, "was where the LRA suddenly appeared while I was teaching school that morning." It would become clear to us through our visits during the rest of that week that the modus operandi of the LRA seemed to be to attack schools, seminaries, and convents. And to carry out each abduction and attack in such a way as to instill and maximize terror. The method was the same even for every little village, those without schools but with just food and a few children. "In the confusion," he said, "I was able to grab a handful of children and escape over the berm back into the woods and get away." Neither he nor Reagan, who had left the village and was pursuing his career by this time, were there to witness all of the massacre. But it was as if they had recited this over and over and they knew what had happened on every foot of the compound. Reagan told me later, when he privately reconfirmed these numbers for me, that Felix was able to take 11 children and get them over the berm and through the woods safely. "Here," Reagan said as we walked around the grassy area at the opposite side of the green from the school house, "was where they buried 15 children and villagers alive." The grass was mowed, but unlike the rest of the green it was obvious no footsteps trod this ground. One only needs to reflect a moment to realize that the LRA didn't come there to use shovels themselves in the hot sun to dig graves and cover them up. It was a well known part of their campaign of terror to force the villagers and children to kill each other. "This giant old tree," he said as we walked back across the entrance to the green, "is where they put one of the village leaders who resisted and shot him with an AK-47 - 3 magazines worth - each magazine has 30 cartridges. There were only pieces of him left when they finished." We could see, even 10 years later, the scars of the bullet damage in the trunk of that tree. "Up there on the main road is where they lined up the parts of the 21 people they hacked to death as a message to the village and all travelers." We walked across the green to the rebuilt schoolhouse - really quite nice - and looked in a few of the open windows at the classrooms. One young girl was lying down and crying in the doorway of one classroom as a few young friends sat near by for support. Tom, the ER physician and representative for Medical Missions,inc., based in Kansas City (and which is planning its first full surgical camp and mission to Gulu, Oct 15, 2010), felt her forehead and she was burning up. Malaria most likely. All we had to offer was water and Tylenol but it seemed to help after a while. We continued to the back of the green. Right next to the berm edge, in almost defiant contrast to the rebuilding of the school, was the rubble of this building, as if deliberately left as a memorial to the massacre and the sacrilege. The village church was in ruins and in the midst of the rubble, a solitary marble post that had previously held the altar was still standing. I must tell you, that was stark. I was just fixed at that spot for a long time, looking at that pile of bricks and that lone post still standing . imagining what had happened here. Later, Reagan told me that it is a strong Acholi cultural imperative that if you come across a dead body, you must "make it known." You cannot just walk away and let someone's death be silent. And so this was our first stop, the first place we visited. And we listened to the recitation of the death of these villagers so that their deaths "would be made known." "My dream is to someday rebuild the church," he told me as we walked to the largest classroom where the noon Sunday mass was finishing up. And so we returned to the pressing needs of the moment. We were introduced to the congregation and the young Ugandan priest who had just celebrated Mass (yes, the language of the professionals is English, but the services and songs here in the village are the native Acholi) said "We must sing them a welcome song." And he pulled off his chasible and vestments and grabbed this long-necked string instrument attached to a pot-like wood base and started to play, and the drums and other instruments joined in and the whole congregation sang and when the song rose to the women ululating, I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes. "Make it known," I thought. As we left to go back to our vans, I realized Felix wasn't coming with us. He wasn't part of our party. We were in fact his transportation "home." I could see the hugs and cheers and shouts of the exiting churchgoers as they began to realize he was there. Our reception song was really something - but it was - well,,,,"polite." The women all smiled but the old men (you realize there are no young men anymore in Burcoro - they were all killed or abducted) just seemed to look with vacant stares - as if they are still seeing ghosts. But I bet the welcome song for Felix brought down the roof.
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