Trip to Pader and Gulu

Wow what an awesome 11 days in Gulu and Pader, with lots of fun, challenges, impressions, hardship…… A new view of life and appreciation on what we have.

The whole trip started on the 10^th of May when 3 buses left from the home in different directions. They were all overloaded with people, they could take 29 passengers, and they had 35, 37 and 44 people. A bit squeezed, but we had a good time.

The bus I went with was the one to Pader, the children were singing praise songs along the way – but the most amazing thing was when we crossed the bridge into Pader district we saw the rainbow. The kids started shouting and got even louder when they saw the telephone tower in Rackoko. Their relatives were there to welcome them, and it was quite emotional. 4 of the kids had to spend the night with me – and early in the morning they came to me saying that they wanted to go home. And within a short time, their relatives came….

During the few days I was in Rackoko, my time was spent with the children who live there – some of the kids live quite far away so I wasn’t able to visit them in their homes. Some of the children and I walked the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp to find the huts for the other ones and see their previous living condition. I had to keep my tears back a few times, cuz it was quite something. One of the boys got emotional when he saw me coming to visit, so I asked what was wrong. Got him close to me, held my hand around him and showed him some love. And after a while he said, we only eat 2 times a day – and we don’t have soap for bathing or for washing. I went straight to the “store” and bought them a bar of soap.

Then I went to Gulu to visit some of the children that live in the IDP camp there. My transport over to Gulu was what they call a bus, but it’s a pickup. Like you can see it was overloaded, but seemed that there always was room for one more – that is typical for Africa. The trip went well, and we only got one flat tire. The road that we used was opened officially in November 2006, because the LRA (Lord’s Resistant Army) the rebels used to ambush people/vehicles there all the time.

After a quick shower, the trip went to visit the children in the IDP camp and that camp was quite different from the one in Pader. Many people from this camp in Gulu have moved back to their villages – so many of the huts were empty.

The next day I went with 2 of the mama’s that works here in Kasozi, to visit her mother. The journey took up far into the bush – with an amazing scenery. They had told me that there was a big mountain there that there had been some fighting on in 1911 and that people had lived there. So we wanted to climb it, and see what it looked like. It was quite the climb, where we at times had to get on both hands and knees to get up the cliff. But the view from there was amazing and it was worth all the emotions that we went through. Sweat, fear, happiness….

The plan was to stay for 1 night, but then there was no diesel in Gulu town so they had to wait in line… meaning that we had to stay another night there. Guruguru is a place quite far from the rest of civilization, and the marked was empty. There was nothing to be found, most of the people had peanuts and a sort of beans. So it was difficult for them to do trading with their goods. We brought food to Jaja (which means grandmother) and ate of that – and left what was left. They got up early in the morning 5 to start digging in their garden, and they would come back early afternoon b4 the sun got to hot. Hard working people, living in hard conditions – yet they shared the little food they had. I was yet amazed over their hospitality. We slept 2 adults, 4 teens, and 4 children in one hut with a diameter of 4 meters….LOL no need for a blanket. Quite the experience, yet I found myself thinking that it could have been worse… knowing that the conditions we were in were hard. Yet there are people other places in the world that has it worse than what we experienced there. Some of the children that came with us said “this is hard”, they have seen that life is different for other people.

Then it was time to take the trip back to Kasozi village, I had to go back to Pader to pick the children there – so we left Gulu at 6:30 and drove 2 hours to Rackoko to pick the children there. It was a long drive but it went very well. The kids were happy to be back home, and to see their friends again. It took us 12,5 hours to get here. Tired and exhausted – but with a gratitude to God that all had gone well that He had kept us all safe on the road.