close to home

i have been talking more and more with my host brother, morris. (i suppose he is technically my host cousin, but distinctions like that are a bit vague here.) he is 20, like me, and is a quiet and friendly sort. he's been giving me impromptu lessons in the acholi language, as he is from the north, and teaching me to cook ugandan food. last week, when i had to write a report about land use in the area, he spent several hours taking me around the village explaining what crops were grown where.

we were talking the other day as we played with little jojo and eva, when i brought up a rather heavy question. i'd hesitated to ask about it, but really wanted to hear his perspective, so i asked "do you think the war will end soon?" he paused for a long moment and and then launched into a discussion about the potential and drawbacks of a military solution, the likelihood of a successful peace deal, the complexity of the political situation. we'd been debating about it for quite a while when he said quitely:

"you know, i barely escaped being captured by the LRA."

"WHAT!?" i exclaimed, in complete shock.
"yes. i was in primary school--third grade-- at a boarding school in gulu. i am from there, that's where i was born and grew up, and i still have family there. anyway, at that time there was a lot of rebel attacks in gulu, and schools were the primary target--for capturing children to make them into child soldiers. most schools were guarded by UPDF [government] soldiers. but each day, they changed the guard and gave the soldiers a break--to eat, bathe, take a nap. and somehow the LRA learned of when that change was. that was when they attacked.

"the belltower in the chapel started ringing in alarm. we were so scared. there were two dormitories for the boys--one was sturdy, with thick walls bullets couldn't get through. the other was not very secure, with thin walls and a flimsy door. i was in that dormitory.

"there was no time to try to get to the other dormitory. if i had tried to run there, the rebels would have captured me for sure--they had already broken into the campus, were running between the buildings, looking for boys.

"i didn't know what to do, where to go, there was no way to escape. there was nowhere to hide except under the bed. so i crawled under and stayed there, very still and very, very quiet. the rebels broke into the dorm, burst into the bedroom. i saw their boots as they ran past, and held by breath to keep from making any noise.

"but by this point the UPDF soldiers had heard the bells, had seen that the rebels were attacking the school, and ran back to fight them off. the LRA realized they had to get out fast if they were to escape the government soldiers, and that searching any longer for captives would slow them down too much. so as the UPDF came back onto the campus, the LRA ran away. and i escaped. after that i left school and came south to live here with my aunt in kampala."

after his story, i didn't know what to say. i couldn't say anything, i was in such shock. i just looked at his grave face in the candlelight, trying to process what i had just heard. i thought of the book sitting next to me, an account of a child soldier in sierra leone, of the reports on human rights abuses committed by the LRA sitting on my desk. but for the grace of a few minutes time, the loundess of a bell, the speed of his legs, the luck of his hiding place, the haste of the rebels, that could have been him.

he could have been a child soldier. he could have been forced to commit atrocities. he could have been killed in ways too brutal to even think about. he could have been indoctronated and terrorized and turned into a killer himself. he might still be there, in the forests of congo, forced to attack civilians and wreak havoc in the region. maybe over the years of indoctronation, exposure to and forced participation in such violence he would have come to believe in the rebel cause, and be leading others into battle to capture more children just like him.

and this is morris we are talking about. morris, who loves playing with his little cousins and helping his aunt in the kitchen, who flirts with all the girls in the village, who likes rhianna and break dancing, who laughs good-naturedly when he beats me at cards, who is always ready to lend a hand or offer a kind word, who is one of the most gentle people i have ever met. and he could so easily have been a child soldier.

i am so, so thankful that he wasn't captured, that he escaped that awful fate. but what of the other 66,000 children who were not so lucky?

this horrible, horrible war has gone on for longer than he has even been alive! it has caused such terrible destruction, and throughout, the main victims of the violence have been children. the political motivations seem to have slipped away into a mess of raw violence and revenge. the rebels are brutal, the government is repressive, and the situation is so complex that every step forward towards peace bursts into a hydra of new problems, complications, and fresh violence. i have read about it and studied the situation for years. but this was the first time i had ever come face to face (literally) with the reality of the war. with the force with which it has permeated society, with the people whose lives it has scarred. it affected me very deeply. and i wondered, as i have so many times before:

will this war ever end?