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 Ugandan Journal Essay #4 (trip date May, 2009); Essay date July 22, 2010 Walking...... For the sake of accuracy, let me say that (after corresponding with Fr. Tony) the spelling of the honorific for "elder" is "MZEE". The elder who had the vision to donate land for the school, Mzee Abononi Okumu, was elderly and frail and I did not meet him when we were in Gulu in May, 2009. In fact he died this past February. It was his younger brothers Francis and Roger whom I met. I believe it was Francis I stood at the foundation with and it was Francis who fired, not his son, but his nephew for not following orders and instructions. So with that clarified, let us "walk" across the compound of the Ocer Campion school site, from the foundation of the new classrooms at the south side against the fence, north to the existing small but nice classroom on the north side of the initial compound. First, some background to introduce you to the person we are about to meet. Our first introduction to the nuns in Gulu was actually our first event (after breakfast), our first morning (Sunday) in Gulu. We went to mass at the cathedral. I tell you, it does something to you, to hear those young women's voices accompanied by these huge African drums and strings. The choir for the mass we went to were the women from the novitiate at the convent in Gulu. We found out that if we had planned ahead and been a little earlier, we could have attended the 9:00 mass with the formal procession in traditional tribal dress with head dresses and costumes and all manner of African instruments. Church becomes a parade and a cultural event - not a chore. What a delight. Anyway, Fr. Tony took us to see St. Monica.s, the home that Sr. Rosemary (a CNN Hero) and her order run in Gulu. Sr. Rosemary has made it her order's project to care for the returning abductees from the rebel war - particularly the girls. Many of them were maimed or disfigured (you become much more compliant after a nose or ear or hand is chopped off). As the rebellion wound down into peace negotiations, many children returned with children of their own ("child brides" of the rebel LRA commandants) and unfortunately were not always welcomed by their original villages. So Sr. Rosemary and company set up a vocational school, daycare, and rehab center for these girls. Fr. Tony, with Sr. Rosemary's help, was able to recruit 3 of her best nuns as the first faculty "hires" for the new Ocer Campion. They had come on board just a few weeks before we arrived for our visit. We were walking across the compound at Ocer Campion to meet the 3rd nun, the one we hadn.t met yet. Our entire group got to have dinner with Fr. Tony and 2 of the sisters the night before (under the stars). That's Sr. Teddy Etoru (teaches English) holding the bottle of beer. The other is Sr. Martina with the big, ever-present smile (teaches Social Studies and Christian Religious Education). It was great to get their take on life in Uganda in a relaxed atmosphere. But what was most fun was to get their recommendation on beer - "the local beer - Nile Beer - is the best and freshest". We followed their advice the rest of the trip, even in Kampala. It was great to see the Nile Brewery on our trip to Jinja . but that is another story. Now we were on our way to see a class in session and meet the third nun. Sister Philomena, who is a nurse and also has a degree in counseling, had a small class in session - about half a dozen girls, a few boys and a few older men. She had another lay male teacher from the village for the session. As I walked in, I immediately noticed the 4 young girls on the front bench sitting together. The look on their long gaunt faces told me they were tackling a difficult subject - a haunted look, as if they were seeing terrible ghosts. I thought to myself, "what in the world would I do if it were my job to talk to them?" Our arrival interrupted the session. We were introduced to Sr. Philomena. That.s her in the colorful smock with Fr. Tony in the classroom. I felt it was inappropriate at the time to take pictures of the students at this point. Instead I took a picture of the board Sr. Philomena was writing on. The first heading was:
Counselling is a supportive talking relationship used to help the problem person to address and solve particular problems, making decisions, coping with crisis, walking through feelings and inner conflicts (disagreements) to improve on a relationship with others for growth and development of a person/ group of people." Additional headings included Counsellor, Counsellee, areas of concerns, and the topic they were on when we interrupted, "feelings" - probably explaining the long faces. I may have not known what to do. But Fr. Tony had his own ideas! "We need a welcome song for our guests," he said. And he started them on the hymn which has the name of the school in it - "Ocer, Ocer." He is risen, He is risen. A joyous song that they all joined in on - and the looks on their faces turned to smiles and great singing. Later that day we met Fr. Steven Msele, a Jesuit from Rwanda. He founded the Undugu Family Movement as a response to the massacres there. It is a program that teaches brotherhood/sisterhood and forgiveness and reconciliation instead of tribal revenge. Learning this sense of community is the only way to put an end to the cycle of violence. He does it by organinzing Undugu groups who meet and sing and have programs and projects that promote this sense of "Family." There are many other groups and individuals involved in Rwanda, Uganda's Southwest neighbor. My understanding, as reported in a recent "Frontline" on PBS is that Rwanda is the first place in history in which actual survivors and murderers were able to reconcile to the point that they were able to stand shoulder to shoulder and rebuild the destroyed villages together. Immaculee, another prominent Rwandan spokesperson for reconciliation, who was in Kansas City recently at a huge forum on Women.s Issues, made the point that many of the perpetrator leaders in Rwanda were college graduates, some with advanced degrees, many educated in the US. These were the elite. Education alone is not enough. "You cannot just teach the head," she said, "you must also teach the heart." Sr. Philomena, Fr. Steven and Fr. Tony are trying to teach the heart, trying to teach the same reconciliation in Northern Uganda after the 20 years of war there. As I have reflected through these months on this blackboard message, the image of "walking through feelings" has become stronger. What can we do? We can't lecture them away. Empathy is important, but not enough. We can join hands and sing together. At first that sounds too simple to be worth even that little effort. But studies from concentration camp survivors in WWII showed that victims could only talk comfortably with other victims and just putting them together so they could share with each other was one of the strongest remedies found for PTSD. So, as Sr. Philomena was doing, we can just enable their being together and show them that it's okay to talk and share "and walk through their feelings." When our little group from Kansas City was debriefing on our trip back to the US, we were asked "what was the single most vivid moment/memory for you?" My answer instantly came to mind: we were touring an orphanage. But you were not allowed to use that word - this was a model program, a collection of small homes forming a small village arranged around a family concept. Each house had a "mother," and many had a parenting couple. This place was for children who had nowhere to go, nobody left. Not any relatives so they could return to their own biologic "family". Not even a village that would take them back. As we stood among the children walking through their compound, a little 2 year-old boy reached up and grabbed my little finger. My younger grandboy was also 2 at the time. I found I had to turn away from the group so they wouldn't see the tears streaming down my face. We just walked and walked, this little boy and I. At least this was something, some kind of message between us, just like the singing in Fr. Steven's Undugu Family and in Sr. Philomena's classroom counseling. Sometimes all you can do is hold hands and walk together.
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