northern uganda, 2007

In 2007, two of my fellow team members and I made the journey to the northern part of Uganda. We wanted to see the area that had been devastated by Joseph Kony and his LRA rebels' 20-year long war, We wanted to see displaced persons camps; we were actually helping two half-orphans from St. Mary Kevin find their mother in one of these camps (a mother they had not seen in four years). We were also hoping to find some children to bring back to the orphanage for placement there.

We felt safe during our explorations there. We'd been told the civil war had ended and that Kony had retreated to a bordering country a couple years earlier. Peace talks were on-again off-again, but there were no skirmishes, abductions, murders or rapes taking place anywhere near our location, which was in and around Gulu town.

We were shocked at what we saw in the displaced persons camp: filth, extreme poverty, overcrowding, deplorable living conditions, disease, lack of food, lack of sanitation, lack of clean drinking water, torn clothing or no clothing at all. Carol, Lynne nor I had ever seen anything like it. The stories we heard were horrifying.

We were warmly greeted wherever we went, though, and we were greeted with gracious Ugandan hospitality. The children had clearly been through an astonishing, unfathomable amount of pain and loss; most were still able to play and laugh in our presence. Over and over again, we were struck by their resilience.

All the talk this week about northern Uganda made me go back and look at some of the pictures I took there.


Gulu Town
















Displaced Persons Camp