For God

A brilliant few days have passed.

A few nights ago I travelled with CinemArena, which is a locally ran, but Italian funded NGO project that goes to rural villages and talks to people about HIV/AIDS. They then make a film of people talking about it, and do drama plays and traditional dances, and show the video on a big projector screen at the end.

It was a lot of fun, and the people seemed to really enjoy the drama. I'm guessing it was funny, but I couldn't understand a single word. Damn my lack of basic Acholi!

It was quite weird however, as since the bombings, no public gatherings are allowed past 10pm. So the whole time, the village was flanked by guards with AK47s, who got rather insistent that we leave at 10!

Yesterday I went with a new friend, Jeffrey (who works for an Agro-Development NGO in Jinja, but is from Gulu originally) to meet a family he has known since he was a child, in the rather charmingly named village of 'For God'. Its about 4km from Gulu down a dirt track that runs mainly through fields. It was the dustiest and bumpiest boda ride I've been on! At the village the family greeted me like some sort of hero. They bowed to me, bought me sodas, and made me food and deserts. It was rather embarassing, but I couldn't refuse their hospitality.

We had bought a doll to take to the little girl, Regina, and she absolutely adored it. She kept introducing it to her family members. Lucy, the mother of the family, is now widowed due to the war with the LRA, and looks after her three children (Regina 10, Emmanuel 11, and Renato 18) alone. She also looks after Susan, a 21 year old girl who lost both her parents in the war. Lucy seemed incredibly concerned that I was staying in Gulu alone and so I am now invited for Sunday lunch with them. They have very little money and I know they will pull out all the stops with the food, so I feel a little bad. I'm going to take them a chicken as recompense (I just hope to God I don't have to be the one who kills it!)

Today we went back to see Lucy and family again as Jeffrey had got very drunk in the night and had had an argument with Susan, so Susan had decided to go to his hotel room and remove all his valuables to her house "for security". As a result Jeffrey had been unable to travel to his meeting in Masindi becuase all his documents were at Susans. Susan decided I should mediate and so I had to take her to talk to Jeffrey, then take them both to Lucy's house for her to rule on what should happen. It was very strange. They were both clearly very cross with each other, but both remained calm, made their points, then Lucy told them what should happen. Perhaps UN Peacekeeping could learn a thing or two from the 'For God Model of Mediation'!

Talking of God, I told them I was a Christian, as is unavoidable when you are sitting in a room surrounded by pictures of the Virgin Mary, with a Jesus statuette on the table, and with a family that prayed for me before I took food. Unfortunately, this resulted in them inviting me to their Catholic Mass on Sunday. I'm pretty sure I have a meeting on Sunday morning now....