Stories of the teachers...

I was reading Lindsey’s blog the other day, and I was reminded of a significant part of our orientation. Part of our orientation involves hearing about the lives of some partner teachers during the conflict. Lindsey does a great job of sharing Ketty’s story on the blog, so I am going to share what she has written:

“Ketty’s stories from growing up during the war are heartbreaking, and sadly, all too real. Ketty was in primary school when the war broke out. She remembers the first ever LRA rebel attacks on Gulu. She marks this as the first time she ever saw a dead body, and not just one dead body – but several. She states, that is not something you easily forget. Ketty was running from the attacks to find her family, but when she arrived in town (remember, as a 8-10 year old), no one was around. So she decided to run to her family’s village, 10 km away. Young Ketty ran to the village, and there she found her family. But it wasn’t before long that the village was attacked by more rebels and her family was on the run again. This time, she was left with an aunt who asked her to carry something on her head to keep it safe. As Ketty and her aunt ran, the rebels caught them (and others) and lined them up, looking for government conspirators. Ketty’s package was confiscated and the rebels noticed she was carrying salt – which apparently meant that she MUST know the government or be the child of a government conspirator (salt = wealth, maybe???). The LRA immediately began to question her and wanted her to turn over the person who gave her the package (they didn’t fault her for carrying it because she was so young), but Ketty refused to give up her aunt. They even lined all the women up and forced Ketty to look through and identify the person; Ketty refused and insisted she did not know who the person was that gave her the package. Finally, the LRA allowed her to go – warning her to stay away. This was her close call. Ketty says she’ll never forget this, and that living in the north during the war was traumatizing, but at the same time is one of the reasons she became a teacher – so that she could fill a void in a region that needed her most. Ketty recognized the difficulties here and the lack of teachers and education in general, so she returned to the north after her schooling to go and teach the children so that they could maybe become the future.”

I have also heard stories from my teaching partners, both from last year and this year have shown their scars and shared their stories of the war. These are the stories that remind me again, that it is these Ugandan teachers who are willing to face their experiences over and over again to make education and ultimately, Gulu a better place are truly heroes. I feel so lucky to be here and to support them in their journey to change the world. I’m such a small part of their story, but it is their story that is (and will be) such a big part of mine.