Ofoyo

Ofoyo – it is a Luo word, spoken by the Acholi people here, that has several meanings as both a greeting (hello and good bye) as well as thank you. Ofoyo ba - an enthusiastic hello. We learned it yesterday and when we started to use it were greeted with wide, evidently pleased smiles.

Yesterday (Sunday), my team mates, B, J and I headed 30 km south of Gulu to Manikulu to meet with an Italian ngo, Operation Dove (OD). OD works closely with CPT in Palestine and is similar in its ideology. They have projects in kosovo, Palestine and northern Uganda. We shared some absolutely delicious espresso (instant coffee just doesn’t cut it after a while) while learning about their work in northern Uganda and they then invited us to join them as they visited two families who they have been assisting in near by villages. (our initial plan for a day off to the Murchison Falls National Park didn't pan out as logistics became quite difficult)

The first stop was 15 km into the bush in OD’s 4 wheel drive – a 4 wheel drive which was necessary to get us through a mud patch on the dirt road. It’ likely the road is very difficult to negotiate, if not impassable, during the rainy season. We stopped near a path to the side of the road and then walked in, about another 20 minutes to the family compound we were visiting. We were accompanied by one of the son’s who lives nearby. We met an elderly couple who had left an IDP camp approximately a year and half ago to reclaim their land. The compound contained 3 small mud huts, about a dozen chickens and a few goats. The woman sat on a grass mat in the shade of one of the huts, next to her 3-month-old grandson. The baby’s mother had died not long after giving birth and the father had also died some time ago. The grandfather used a cane to get up from his chair, where he’d been sorting seeds that he hoped to plant. As the provider for the family it was hard to imagine him, leaning heavily on his cane, as being in any condition to till a field, plant and harvest it. Their children are grown and while they care for their parents, it is not enough. Now they have this grandchild to care for. The baby, at 3 months, weighs only just over 2 kilos (sorry I don’t know how many pounds that is, but it’s absolutely tiny).

OD is helping families that are returning to their homesteads with specific needs. In this case, someone had approached them about the health of this orphaned baby boy. The grandparents struggle to care for him – they are not able to pay for the milk needed to feed him and when provided with the milk they do not prepare it properly nor clean the bottle as thoroughly as is desired. OD took them to the hospital in Gulu a few days ago and the doctors said that the baby could survive if it was properly fed. OD will provide the milk, one litre/day, which is to be mixed with milk, boiled and cooled before being fed to the baby throughout the day. This visit was to give these instructions, including utensils for preparing the milk and feeding the baby. The couple does not speak English so their son was interpreting these instructions and promised to try to get them to understand what was needed.

This was a very moving visit – this couple, in their advanced stage of life, were trying to re-establish themselves on the land and now, to care for this new baby. It is what is done, but what happens next?

After we left this family, we traveled to another village compound – again by dirt road and then walking into the bush – I can tell you, as we walk through the bush, the grass is higher than my head – this is partially why the rebels were able to get so close to villages and camps in order to abduct children. It is very easy to get lost in the bush. As we continued to this compound, we found a family that OD was helping to rebuild their huts – which had been destroyed during the war. The family was making the bricks (soil mixed with water, shaped into cinder block sized bricks and then baked in the sun) and two huts were finished and two halfway completed. Cut grass was drying nearby which would be used to thatch the roofs. When a hut is completed, ashes from the cooking fire are mixed with cow dung and presumably water to create the plaster like exterior of the huts, which seals the hut. The exterior often has some design or coloured pattern or stripe as decoration as well.

Both families we visited today, were very welcoming to us and appeared happy to show us how they lived now that there was peace, even as they continue to struggle, to re-establish crops, to rebuild homes, to find safe water…

Ofoyo