Tony/Uganda

TONY



Kali and I went up to Gulu and Lira this past week to see the broken towns and broken lives of the men, women, and children who have been victims of the 20 year war between Joseph Kony's Lord Resitance Army (LRA) and the government UPDF soliders. The LRA abducts children to become child soldiers and sex slaves. I'm not going to give a history lesson, but to understand more, there is tons of information on the internet about the situation.

No words can describe or adequately explain the experiences we had today. And no amount of time I spent here in Gulu would ever make me understand how these children feel. At the mere ages of 10 to 15 years old they have experienced more in their lives than I would ever see in 7 lifetimes in America. What follows is the story of Tony, a 15 year old boy I interviewed who is now living in the Cornerstone Youth Corps home in Gulu.

"My name is Tony. I am 15 years old. I am from the villiage Coro abeli. My brother Morris lives in the YC home with me. There are no more children in our home from our village. The village life was not fine. I was abducted by the LRA boys when I was 9. When I first got there I missed my parents very much, but after the LRA told me they killed my father and mother I had to forget. I was in the bush for 5 years. Life is so hard in the bush. I was beaten severely. We had to carry very heavy luggage for many kilometers. The hardest part about the bush was the hunger and thirst. They made us go to villages to loot, burn, and sometimes kill. We were marching back from looting, a two days walk to Sudan. There was an ambush from the UPDF soilders and I was injured. My heel was shot and so was my leg. I was 14 years old. The man who was carrying me had to put me down to run away. I stayed in that place for one week eating roots and leaves. The LRA came back to find me, but there was another ambush. The LRA went away and the UPDF found me. I gave them my gun and they took me to the hospital. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks."

"Then I went to the rehabilitaion center for 2 months. My brother did not recognize me until the fourth time he came to see me. We were happy. After rehab I went to live in the village with my brother. We had no parents. I got pigeons and baked bricks to make money for food. I like to draw. We registered to draw pictures for 500 shillings. We met David Laker and he went and told us to come live in YC home where we would have food."

"Life is very good now because I have opportunity to go to school. I want people to know about my life in the village because my life in the bush is not important now, because it has already passed. Life in the village is a life of struggling until one day you realize your dream. My struggle is when I leave YC home to go back to the villages and there is no food. My dream is to be a driver and a doctor and help."


Tony has been living at the home for a couple of weeks now. He is just a child but holds so much insight into life, as many of the Ugandans do who have suffered from the war. When I asked him what he wanted people to know about his life, he said he wanted people to know about his village, which is his current struggle, and his dream. So many of the people really strive to focus on the future and be hopeful. They have been through things harder than I can imagine, yet they aren't wallowing in pity for themselves. They are looking to the future, and working hard to make it better.
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Ashley S. Zeiger