Three strikes

There have been some major occurrences in the last few weeks. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Murchison Falls on safari. For the safari, we woke up at 5:30 in the morning. An hour later, our mutatu was crossing the Nile River on a ferry. Watching the sun rise over the river was incredible. When we crossed the river, it was time to go on the driving safari. The cool part? We were able to sit on TOP of the mutatu. We weren’t even inside the vehicle. When we were driving, we saw kobs, elephants, giraffes, water buffalo, and warthogs. Madness. It was a wonderful experience.

For the second part of the day, we boarded a boat. We drifted down the Nile looking for hippos, crocodiles, and land animals that would be by the water. A few hours later, we reached our destination. The falls is an area of the river where three parts of the Nile waterfall down. Awesome.

The safari was unreal. When we got back, everyone looked so tan. We weren’t. We were just so caked in the orange clay dirt from the roads that we looked like we had a tan. After people got cleaned up, we all met at the pizza place. That’s when I got my phone call from my mom. It was about a student that I had last year.

She sat in the row all the way to the left, three seats from the front. She was quiet at times, but you could see that she still was infected by the contagious excitement for her senior year. She just graduated. She was just killed by a truck driving erratically. When I received this news, I kept saying that it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. A few days before I received this news, I was at a conference in Gulu with Ugandan and American teachers. We were discussing K.O.B.S. (Knowledge of Behavior and Self). The curriculum focuses on the healing process of students who had been traumatized. There were many strategies on active learning and how to check in on the students. Some information was new, some was not so new. One thing did remain the same-relationships with the students helps. The whole conference was about how the relationships benefited the students…But I realized on Sunday that the student-teacher relationships benefited me as much, if not more than the students. I feel so lucky to have known a student who worked so hard to graduate. Who did it. Who was excited over dressing up during spirit week. Who loved bulldogs. She sat in the row all the way to the left, three seats from the front. I’m honored to have known her.

The next morning, July 12, I woke up to news that there were bombings in Kampala that killed over seventy people. The American that died was here with “Invisible Children.” He seemed like such a wonderful person. Still feeling the heaviness of the news from the night before, I again though about how it wasn’t fair. He was 25 years old. It changed how the next couple of weeks in the program was going to go. Pablo and I were going to move from Pabbo to Gulu. We were going to stay the night there, and then be picked up the following afternoon. We would have to commute the last two weeks. There were so many phone calls, and there are still some questions left unanswered.

So the next afternoon, we were waiting to be picked up. Before we were supposed to be picked up, we had to take care of finances with our cook and housing staff. We also had to do an inventory to make sure that we had everything and we had to make sure that all of our stuff was packed. So we are standing there with all of our stuff in the courtyard. Pablo took out an envelope of money that belonged to “Invisible Children.” The money was for food and other necessities. There was a guy waiting in the lobby. We had met him when he came into the hotel a few weeks ago. He told us that he saw that he would meet us in a dream. Then he kept calling us “his people” for the next few weeks. He gave us both a bad vibe, and we knew that he wasn’t mentally stable. Anyways, he was at the hotel while all of our packing and arranging was going down. While Pablo was handling the inventory list, he had the money in his room. The guy went into the room and took the envelope of money. Then he hugged Pablo and said, “I am a sinner but I hope you will remember me.” Then he started begging Pablo not to go. Then he came to me and told me not to go. We explained that we had students in the states and that we had to go. Then he went and sat down at the table in the lobby. Pablo noticed the money was missing so we started to look all over the place for it. Finally, Paska (most amazing Ugandan cook ever) and Patricia confronted the guy. That was when he got up and started grabbing mine and Pablo’s stuff and throwing them back in our rooms telling us that we couldn’t go. Someone went and got the police. When the police came, he started to get physical and holding on to a pole. That was when the police started hitting him and grabbed our rolling pin. I became too stressed to watch. We did get our money back, but I feel bad for how the situation went down.
The next week was pretty normal. Well, except for the fact that we had to commute via “Invisible Children” vehicles everyday, and that we couldn’t go to big hangouts, or leave at night. However, there was one bright spot in my life. Katherine’s teacher (Sister Helen) owns an orphanage. Mother Theresa’s…or Momma T’s as I like to call it. ¼ of the population is deaf there…and they understand most American Sign Language…so the group wanted to bring me. I went there and we taught the kids how to sign a few songs such as “Jesus Loves Me” and “Amazing Grace.” It was so cool to see them involved and excited. Sister Helen explained that these kids often get left out when people visit because they cannot communicate. They were so excited just to be able to tell us their name. I kept going back to this place and will continue to go back. It’s one of my favorite places in Gulu for sure.

On Sunday, exactly one week from my phone call, people from group 2 went to St. Jude’s orphanage. That is the other orphanage that we have spent our time visiting here. When they arrived, they found out that a kid had just fallen into a well. When the group went back there, there was a man trying to put a ladder down a hole, but it wouldn’t fit. Then John (who we have deemed the dad of the group) pushed the ladder out of the way. The hole was filled with water that had crap in it. John reached down and started to feel around. Then he felt what he thought was a wet loaf of bread. Then he felt the leg, so he pulled the kid out of the well. They started to try to get all of the stuff out of his mouth. Min and Colleen tried to give CPR, and the “Invisible Children” truck tried to drive to the hospital. It took them ten more minutes to find someone to help them. They put this kid in a bed with another kid that was already hooked up to something. They unhooked the other kid and hooked up our kid (Samuel is his name). Despite our best efforts, at 3:06 on July 18 the boy died. He was about 2 ½ years old. Definitely one of our more somber nights. John kept trying to blame himself (if only I had moved that ladder sooner). As Andy told him though, he remembered a quote from “Cider House Rules”…the kid is adopted now. John hugged me later that night because we had both lost a student during this trip and now this kid was gone. He said that the kid had good people with him.

Parts of Africa have been so unreal (like the safari) and some of the connections that I have made. However, there have been moments where reality hits pretty hard. It is such a hard thing to swallow. The lessons here are deep and something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Peace,

Aber Jenni