Kitgum: The Night Commuters
6th November 2006
I attended a screening of
a movie called Invisible Children in May
2006 and went on a Global Night
Commute in Auckland's business district. Both events were
designed to raise awareness of the plight of the Night Commuters in
Northern Uganda.
There is nothing like seeing it firsthand
though, and me and my volunteer buddies
did just that during our trip to Kitgum.
The Night Commuters
Nobody joins the LRA (Lord's
Resistance Army) voluntarily. To ensure a constant supply of new recruits,
the LRA routinely kidnaps children from the small villages in
the Kitgum and Gulu areas. The kidnapped are desensitised to
violence and essentially brainwashed into become soldiers in the
LRA. Some are forced to kill members of their own family to prove
their loyalty - which makes it very difficult to reintegrate with the families
if they do manage to escape. You killed our mother. How
dare you return! Thankfully many families are showing
Christ-like forgiveness in accepting former child-soldiers back into
their family unit.
To combat the abductions, many children walk up
to fifteen kilometers each afternoon to the relative safety of the night
shelters in Gulu and Kitgum. The make the equally long journey in
the morning so that they can attend school and so on.
My volunteer buddies and I visited a couple
of night shelters while we were in Kitgum.
The First Night Shelter
Amos and Jackson
- who were kind enough to show us around Kitgum - took us out one night
to see a school that served as a night shelter.
As we were heading to the school - about a
thirty minute walk - we were joined along the way by a number of
night commuters. I tried chatting with them, but they proved quite
shy. Sonia and Spike
had brought along some sweets to give out to any kids we happened to
meet. Three of the night commuters accepted the sweets shyly, but
one kid just bolted.
Amos explained to us that they are encouraged
not to accept anything from strangers as this is often a ploy used by
the LRA to lure the kids away to a non-safe place where all sorts of bad
things might happen. "Not accepting candy from
strangers", is good advice in the developed world. It is lifesaving
advice here.
We eventually made it the school and were warmly welcomed by the
local volunteers. I drilled them with a million questions to try
and understand what was going on.
The numbers at the night shelter have decreased in recent times due
to the ongoing peace talks between the LRA and the government. At
its peak the school was sheltering about 900 souls. The numbers
have decreased to around 200.
The longest journey made by a kid was a ten kilometer round trip.
Some of the children attending the night shelter are former child
soldiers who have managed to escape.
The local volunteers run nightly programs for the children.
Sometimes they show a movie, sometimes they preach the Word of God,
sometimes they run drama groups and sometimes they sing songs - like the
night we were there.
We joined in the dancing and tried to do the actions as best we
could.
I would of liked to sat down and chatted with some of the kids.
But I felt like too much of an intruder and I was also conscious of
not wanting to open old wounds. Still, it would of been nice to
find out what their stories were. I am a big fan of stories.
Some of the ladies stories I collected for GrassRootsUganda.com can be
found here.
We returned to the school on
our second night
in Kitgum. The exorcism we witnessed
made it quite different to the first night...
The Second Night
Shelter
The second shelter we visited was quite different to the
first. It had been built specifically for the night commuters by
Oxfam.
Oxfam did a fantastic job. The whole
complex is secure, the buildings have concreted floor and they whole
place is powered by solar panels. Spiffy.
The security of the night shelters is quite
important. Rose was
telling us how the LRA would often park themselves on the outskirts of
Kitgum and attempt to fire into the night shelters. The Army would
fire back from the shelters and Rose would watch the bullets fly
overhead. Thank God that nobody had mortars...
A group of girls sang a couple of songs for
us. Amos translated one of the songs for me. They sang about
how poor they were and how they could never get an education. How
the best husbands they could hope for would also be uneducated and
likely to be drunkards. They sang about how they were resigned to
the fact that they will never have proper jobs and would be forever
tending fields and cooking meals until they die.
It was very sad. We were all quite
touched by the song. Amos translated our words of humility and
appreciation of the song.
The boys and girls both had their own large dormitory
for sleeping in. The dormitories were clean and concreted.
Each child slept on whatever they brought along with them.
Once again, I was glad I visited the shelter but would of loved to
have learned some of the kid's stories.
This is a part of a series of pieces on Kitgum. To see a list
of other entries, click here.
Questions? Comments? Try contacting
me.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
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