northern Uganda

Yesterday I returned from a week in the northern regions of Uganda. This is the part of the country that suffers from devastating poverty and the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection. It is also the region that has experienced 20 years of armed conflict; the area where tens of thousands of children were abducted and forced to serve as soldiers and sex slaves; and the region where 53 camps were constructed so that hundreds of thousands of individuals could live indefinitely in inhumane conditions while the government attempted to kill rebels. It is the part of Uganda for which a peace agreement is currently being negotiated, a process that has brought a hopeful but precarious state of security.

My first destination was Masindi, a town 200 kilometers north west of Kampala. At first glance Masindi is a quietly quaint village nestled amidst lushly green lands. Coming from the chaos of Kampala, it feels like an oasis. That is, until I looked and listened closely enough to see that children are thin from malnutrition and that the adults carrying them are weak with hunger or HIV or very likely both.

I spent Tuesday sweating under the sun with the over 100 women, men and children that turned up for an HIV/AIDS outreach. Over the course of the day, several female Drama Group members shared stories of being abandoned by their husbands. The Drama Group’s eldest member - a frail and graying old man – proclaimed that HIV/AIDS is not just a disease of the young. He told us that he is HIV positive and his wife is HIV negative – he made public his pledge not to infect her. A 13-year old girl brought tears to my eyes and many others as she described that at birth she lost her mother and her health to HIV/AIDS.

Previously, people getting tested for HIV, sharing stories about HIV infection, or pledging not to infect loved ones with HIV would not have struck me as exceptional. However what I saw and heard in Masindi forced me realize otherwise. I learned that here HIV/AIDS is commonly thought to be an ailment of the bewitched. The small percentage of people who have the privilege of accurate information often choose not to get tetested. One reason is that lack of medical treatment and knowledge means that whether they test positive or negative makes no difference. An equally as common reason is that they cannot afford the few dollars it costs for transport to a free testing site. For the very few who do get tested, a positive result is cause for instant transformation into being a “walking corpse” often alienated from family and community. In light of all this, my co-workers and I were thrilled when 83 people streamed to the tent for free HIV testing on Tuesday afternoon.

On Thursday I traveled north from Masindi to Gulu. Unlike Masindi, which experienced an influx of internally displaced people but did not experience direct violence Gulu knows armed conflict very well. It was the center of conflict and is now the epicenter of much of the rebuilding.

There is one (mostly) paved road that runs north through Uganda – this is the road we traveled on. As we crossed into Gulu district my co-workers announced that we were entering “Kony [rebel leader]’s land;” they described the ambushes that occurred along the way; they pointed out over-crowded internally displaced camps as we passed through them. All along the way the roadside was lined with a steady stream of women, men and children on bike and on foot carrying wood, water and a hoe. With the recent lack of violence, hundreds of people walk many kilometers each day from camp to their land and back again in hopes of harvesting at least enough food to eat.

We reached Gulu Town - a bustling center of people and activity – on Thursday afternoon. There was a level of energy in the air that was palpable. Aside from the large number of people mingling in the streets and the appearance of a Ugandan army convoy carrying a white-flag reading PEACE, the most visible manifestation of the town’s hopeful transition from war to peace is the overwhelming presence of non-governmental organizations. Ninety-nine percent of the vehicles we passed were land-cruisers with one of any number of NGO names boldly on display: World Vision, Save the Children, Care, Medecins Sans Frontieres, etc., etc. There is no doubt that the resources for rebuilding are present; the questions remaining are: will the resources go to good use, will the peace be sustainable?

Conversations I had with co-workers, clients and by-passers alike were marked by comments like: “since the war ended” or “if there continues to be peace.” One of the clients I spoke with was a man who recently tested positive for HIV/AIDS. Without work or land he has no way to feed himself or send his children to school. However now that “the war is past” he wants to go back to his land – the only thing stopping him is his ill health. Despite her reluctance this man is committed to remarrying his first wife, a woman who is also HIV positive (as he put it: “sometimes when a woman says no she means yes”).

After a short time in Masindi and Gulu, the picture I have of Northern Uganda is one in which the devastating impact of poverty, malnutrition and AIDS fills the foreground while violent conflict is slowly shifting to be an important but obscured backdrop. Unfortunately poverty and HIV/AIDS don’t make headlines or attract funding quite the same way war does.