FINISHED

And it was Finished.

Yes, indeed, the 300 child-mother surveys conducted on behalf of ChildVoice International by the ‘Extraordinary Team of Cushing and Brendsel’, aka Apiyo Rebekah and Acen Brittany, is FINISHED!

After many beautiful, warm and dusty boda boda (motorcycle) rides out to the villages of Lacoe, Layibi, Unyama and Lukodi where Acen Brittany and I, along with our translators, conducted these interviews within the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps; the first phase of the interviews is complete. While the work was at times exhausting, the opportunity to hear first hand the stories of these young women was very stimulating.

For example, the following is a story I heard first hand from a 20 year old woman whom I will call Akello Grace. (The name of the subject of this story has been changed in order maintain confidentiality). Akello Grace is an Acholi woman born in 1985 in Lapete, Uganda. She was raised with both her parents and five younger siblings, and claims that they were a very close-knit family.

Although Akello Grace has never been married, she does raise, by herself, seven children. Four of these children are her younger siblings, the other three are her own. In 1996 the Lords Resistance Army attacked her home village of Lapete, raiding gardens for food, and killing everyone possible in the process. Although Akello Grace managed to survive the attack, she, along with her parents and older brother, was abducted by the LRA.

Akello Grace’s first evening in the bush was, in her words, “the most terrifying.” The LRA forces its abductees to carry heavy loads of food (which is often stolen from homes and gardens in the midst of attacks) and ammunition. With this responsibility of carrying the heavy loads, comes an incredibly difficult life or death rule to abide by. After being assigned your load of food or ammunition to carry you are expected to be able to walk and even run through the jungles and rocky paths without dropping any of the assigned items. (An example of a ‘load of food’ is as follows: For a boy you are measured from your waist to your feet, whatever the measurement is will be the identical measurement of the sack filled with beans that the boy will be required to carry on the top of his head, in addition to sacks of cassava on the forearms and guns draped around his front and back.) If you are caught having dropped any of your assigned items to carry, or you are caught falling down, immediately an LRA rebel will run over to you to give you a canning with a metal bicycle chain until you get back up on your feet again with your original items in hand, otherwise he may hit you with a ponga (machete’), cut you up with an axe, take a shovel to the head or bite you to death. The least painful and most desired of ways to be killed by the LRA is by gunshot, however, my research so far has revealed this is not a commonly used method of death. Usually death in the LRA involves much torture.

It was during broad daylight when the rebels invaded her village. After setting many huts in the village including her families hut on fire, destroying nearly every personal garden/property in attempts to raid for food, and killing many people, (including hacking to death with an axe her fifteen year old brother) in the process; the captured citizens of her village, including herself and parents, marched into the forests with the LRA.

After having been given their allotment of items to carry Akello Grace and her family began traversing the thick jungle terrain without any idea what was in store ahead of them. Both of Akello Graces’ parents took a fall at the same time due to tripping over an overgrown tree root that stuck out of the ground.

Because her parents were the first to fall to the ground, the LRA rebels decided to use them as a central lesson to the rest of the newly abducted rebels. Akello Grace shared with me that immediately after her parents fell, there were four LRA rebels that ran over to them and pinned them to the ground, not even allowing them a chance to get up on their own. Then two more rebels arrived with axes. Akello Grace was held at gunpoint with instructions not to run away, not to cry and not to move, while she stood watching her parents hacked to death with an axe. She was eventually instructed to take an axe from one of the rebels and complete the death of both parents. Out of shear fear, trauma and terror, she did. This marked day one of seven years that Akello Grace spent living in the bush with the LRA Army. Abducted at age 12, Akello Grace spent nearly the next 2,550 days traveling back and forth by foot from Uganda to Sudan with the LRA.

Akello Grace explained to me how in the bush, if you are abducted as a young woman, you are handed over to an old man, and if you are an older woman, you are given over to a young man. These men then have their ways with the women, abusing them physically, emotionally and sexually. Polygmy is widely practiced in this culture. Over the course of the seven years in the bush, Akello Grace gave birth to three children, two girls and a boy. These children are still young, all under the age of seven. They have no father figure in their lives as the men who had raped Akello Grace were of age and have since died in the bush. (Not that these men were ever of a father figure to her children while she was living in the bush). Grace was considered ‘married’ to three different men, and each man had between 10-27 wives at one given time,

When I inquired about how these men treated her while she was under their authority, she removed a portion her skirt to reveal to me the scars on her leg that will forever remind her of the previous painful events of her past. One day a bomb that was planted by other members of the LRA exploded right next to her right leg. With many fragments of shrapnel fragments impeded into her leg, she no longer had a knee. With no medical facilities in the field it is of wonder how she made it through this ordeal alive. She explained that after returning back to her man that evening, she received a canning by him that left her nearly dead. She then lifted up her shirt to reveal her back to me. This was a sight that one can hardly explain. This man was drunk at the time, and angry that she was “stupid enough to walk into a bomb”, as Akello Grace stated. Also, on her left leg were scars of being beat with a ponga by a different man whose child she bore after accidently spilling the glass of water she was delivering to him. These scars were laced around the four scars from the entry and exit wounds of two gunshots she received to her lower left calf. Another example of torture and abuse that Akello Grace sustained is when one of these men whose child she bore became angry at her about something (of which I did not catch onto throughout the interview) and had the intent to kill her the same way she was instructed to ‘officially’ kill her parents; with an axe to the head. As Akello Grace looked up and saw the axe coming down towards her she instantly moved her body and shielded her head with her forearm. The man came close to his target of her head, but missed and instead sliced off a part of her elbow. But, at least she was still alive, as she was close to six months pregnant at this time!

Akello Grace spent close to seven months more in the bush after delivering her last born child. Her flight took place during the middle of an attack on a village. Akello Grace along with one other woman (who helped her to carry her children) were able to make a very risky escape. It took a total of three days before Akello Grace, her three children and her friend managed to find safety from the bush.

After finding a hut in a field on day, they dared to approach the hut and share their story with the residents living there. Although the family of this hut was somewhat hesitant to be helping ‘child rebels of the LRA’ they agreed to hand these escapees over to the Uganda Peoples Defense Force (Army Force of Uganda). The UPDF then took Akelo Grace, her children and her friend to World Vision, an NGO which has a strong program with the intent of rehabilitating former abductees, teaching them how to successfully re-integrate back into society through means of counseling, art and music therapy and physical re-conditioning (as many abductees are severely malnourished) amongst other things.

After spending three months in this center, Akello Grace was re-united with her aunt and uncle who were looking after her younger brothers and sisters in the IDP camp of Unyama, a small village outside of Gulu. For seven years Akello Grace dreamed of returning home to her familiar family and friends. She dreamed of a life of community, re-establishing relationships and going back to school to gain an education, she was unprepared for the shock she would endure upon her arrival to her family.

This entry will be continued tomorrow...