Africa Trip, 2015: Gulu Town, home of the Acholi

“Kop ango?” says the man working a little stand at the bus park who sells airtime (cell phone credit). I smile because I know this greeting and respond, “Kop pe.” I had finally arrived in Gulu, where I will visit my host family from three years ago when I traveled to Africa for the first time as a student. When I arrived at my host family’s compound three years ago, a bunch of uncertain yet welcoming faces greeted me, now when I pull up to the compound, all I see are familiar faces full of excitement. Paula, my host mom, is an older woman with a toothless smile and a soft chuckle. She is raising her late daughter’s three young children, Gabrielle, Joann, and Joshua. During my first trip to Gulu, Mama Paula’s other daughter, Caroline, was happily married. She had just bore her husband their first child, a son, which she carried proudly on her back. However, as I’ve returned over the years Caro revealed a dark reality of abuse that began only after she became a mother. At first, when the topic of abuse arose, I told them I would leave the man that ever raised his hand to me and they laughed so hard as if I they thought I was joking. Then during my next visit, Caro was 8 months pregnant with her second child and as we sat in a crowded hospital hallway, waiting for a doctor who we never saw, she cried on my shoulder saying, “I’m afraid I’ve found a bad man, but I have his children.” I won’t claim to understand the intricacies of relationships in Ugandan culture, but as she explained the details of her abuse to me in that hot hospital room, I knew I needed to do something to help her protect herself. Before she could even contemplate leaving him, she needed to ensure that she could provide for herself and her children. That is when we became more than sisters; we became business partners. For two years now, she has been making traditional paper beaded jewelry for the Mwebaza Foundation that we purchase from her and sell in the US to raise money for our partner schools back in East Africa.

This time when I arrived in Gulu to pick up my order of jewelry and spend a few days playing with the children, I was surprised and proud to learn that Caro had taken her two children and left her abusive husband. She has been working in the market and renting a room in her mother, Paula’s, house. Another lady, who had also escaped from an abusive relationship, was also renting a room in Paula’s house with her two young children as well. I told Paula she is practically running an unofficial safe house for abused women. She just chuckled and said, I don’t mind living in poverty as long as I live in a happy home where we will not be disturbed. And a happy home is exactly what she has created. I spent three full days sitting on her veranda, making jewelry, playing with the children, and laughing the entire time. My last night in Gulu, I laid down outside on a thatch mat next to the fire. Joshua laid on my left and Juilet on my right and little Franklin found a spot right on top of me. We all looked up at the sky and whispered as we began counting the stars. Within 10 minutes Joshua and Franklin were asleep and Juilet’s little voice continued to whisper, 79… 83… 54… as she counted the stars.