Farewell, Sweet Gulu...

January 6th, 2007 (Aimee)

I’m feeling very heartbroken about leaving Gulu. Every person that I have meant has a story. Every person here has been deeply affected by the war. The midwives that I’ve been learning from all have 4-7 orphans living in their home. My dear friend Jackie’s husband was killed by the LRA just a little over a year ago when he was working by the Sudanese border. They have two children. She can’t afford to finish her midwifery degree. She struggles with the bare essentials. With every interaction comes a story like this one…. yesterday another midwife shared that she has been having “social problems” ever since witnessing the murder of her father. She explained that she no longer has the mental capacity to sustain her day at work. This helped me understand why, at times, I have witnessed violence in the maternity ward. The people are so traumatized. This is the psychology of war. They are the ones counseling and helping “child mothers” during obstructed pregnancies and miscarriages. These are girls who were taken by the LRA and forced to be wives/slaves. I wonder when assisting a mother at GRRH from the age of 18-25 if she was abducted? Was she a child mother? What is her story? What are those scars? I have seen so many horrifying scars. During the height of the war in Gulu, the hospital was also used as a safe haven for the children. This is all recent history. Our friend, Amy, told us last night that just six months ago it wasn’t safe to walk at night in Gulu town.

We are touched by all of our friends here. We are in constant dialogue about what to do, how to help? For myself, I can’t imagine coming to Uganda and chalking it up to an incredible “experience”. I am coming home to work on ways to collaborate and continue these relationships. There is so much to learn from these women, and they feel, they have so much to learn from us. It is hard to think of coming back home, but I know in my heart that we will return to Africa. I am invigorated by the spirit of the Acholi people. G-d is in my heart. As Sister Florence said, “You must trust birth. G-d will be with you at all times. You do not have to fear. G-d is Love!”

January 6th, 2007 (Kevin)
I, too, am heartbroken. I don’t know if it is because we are leaving, or just from what it has meant being here. Today I actually had to have a cigarette to calm myself down. And then I cried anyway. Our friend, Teddy, is getting operated on right now at the hospital. Her breast is so swollen from her mastitis (sp?) that they cannot drain it naturally. She has been unable to breastfeed and yesterday, after the family ran out of formula, the 2 month old had no food. They tried to call us for help but the phones were down all day. Until they could reach us, they fed the baby sugar water from a bottle. When we finally arrived at 5pm, the baby was screaming his head off, hungry for some nourishment. The older child, the two year old, was sleeping on the couch, having been diagnosed with Malaria the day before. Unable to keep her antibiotic down, she had been vomiting all day. We gave what money we could so that they could go to the hospital, and to get a three-day supply of formula… This morning I went with Aimee to the hospital and heard the most incredible wailing from the delivering mothers. When Aimee summoned me into the delivery room (we were there to video-interview the “in-charge nurse”, Millie) I saw great pools of blood on the floor beneath where the baby had been born. The mother was crying and holding herself while Aimee wrapped the baby in a blanket… I rushed home because I had promised Steven, the Acholi boy who had driven us all to the Christmas service in Koche Goma camp, that I would interview him and his mates so that they could tell their stories “to America” in the hopes of securing a sponsor for their school fees. I heard again the story of how Steven, only five years old at the time, watched his father get tied to a tree and hacked to pieces by LRA machetes. Then, one by one, they all told me how they just know that if they can go back to school they would be able to raise Uganda up from the ashes of the war. Steven wants to be a doctor; his brother, Fred, a teacher; his friend, an engineer. The way they shyly revealed their hopes to me was just… what else to say? heartbreaking. It is so overwhelming. And then my mind drifts across the sea, knowing that there are so many of these stories in my own backyard, in Brooklyn, in America. I want to empty my heart and my wallet trying to alleviate the suffering of everyone, but know that this suffering is what this world offers. To be in Africa is to be confronted with death. There is no hiding place; it is everywhere. It seems almost too much to take at times. I want to run into the compound, crack open a beer, and hide in my room. Every night there is some person whom I’ve just met waiting for me at the front gate. His father wants me to come to their hut; they would be honored if I could take just a few minutes to come to their home; can I please help them with school fees? I am not the first to say that perhaps America engages in war so casually because it has erected so many barriers between itself and death. Death (except the most sensational and taboid-worthy) is hidden in America. Here it is not. It is in your face. And it is real. And it is annoying to have to deal with it all the time. Realization that “annoying” is a euphemism for saying “I don’t want to have to look at this”. The survival mechanism kicks in and tries to shut my emotions down. Because how can I deal with this?!? How can I keep going about in my insulated life knowing that women with no fingers beg on the side of the street? That children with flies nibbliing at the snot and blood coming out of their noses sit naked and alone on city sidewalks? That men who might sign peace treaties decide instead to escalate the killing because the money is too good to stop? And of course, that’s not all. There are moments of such surpassing beauty, such perfection… and this, too, I think, can only happen in a place without the clean, orderly rules and comfortable environs that we are so familiar with… It is everything. Everything.

I’m just torn up and depressed today… Oh, to be home thinking about football or something, pretending none of this is happening…

January 7th (Aimee)
I left the hospital yesterday with a heavy heart. The day was VERY busy. Six mothers gave birth within two hours of each other. I conducted one of the births and it went really well. The mother’s name was Kevin, which we have discovered is a popular name for a woman here in Uganda. Go figure. The women laugh when I tell them that my husband shares their name. All five beds were full the entire day with about 40 attendants (family members) outside in the hallway. I became close to one laboring mother named Sereneth. She had been at GRRH for three days laboring. She was in tremendous pain. I felt so helpless when I left and she was still in labor. We had asked her family to go to the pharmacy to buy pitocin. The cost is $3000 shillings ($2 dollars). The hospital ran out weeks ago. After administering the medicine, her contractions were unbearable. She was screaming and crying out for help. “Why do you not let G-d have his time?! Why do you fill my head with this?!” It went on like this for some time. It finally came time for me to leave. I felt so torn. I wished her well and told her that I would be praying for her. I went outside to meet Kevin but then had to go back upstairs to say goodbye to someone. By the time I returned, she had pulled her IV out and 20 relatives were swarming around the room. She was crying. They were crying. After some conversation, they all calmed down and it was decided to keep her off the pitocin. These are the moments that feel out of control. I want so much for these women to be listened to. I reiterated to her and her family that she has a right to speak up about what she wants at the hospital. That was all I could do. It is so hard to walk away not knowing what the outcome will be for these mothers…not knowing the long term effects of these births. Not knowing the best way to help. How can you serve when everyone is in such dire need? That is why I have surrendered this desire of service to Love. It feels like it is the only way. Africa is too big. The suffering too great. The alternative is just another repeat offense of colonialism. I see the good intention in the missionaries, in the NGOs, and in myself. But also see the damage we are doing…it is a huge dilemma. I trust the spirit that is here more than anything else. Perhaps that sounds naïve. But the spirit here is alive! It is beautiful, loving, kind, and strong. It is a warrior spirit, a family spirit, a gentle spirit. I have fallen in love with its capacity to hold everything. It is in the drumming and dancing that I hear every night until the wee hours. It is in the cries of the birthing mothers. It is sweet sound of the children greeting you, ”Hello. How are yooou? I am fine.”

We jetted around town on bodhas doing last minute errands and then completed our day at Sister Florence’s clinic. She has been our Ugandan mother. She called us her children and took us in with such love. We will miss her! I asked Kevin what his favorite part of Gulu was and he said “going to Sister Florence’s at the end of day.” We could unwind at her place without any pretenses, promises, or expectations. I feel so lucky to have met her. I hope she can come to New York and speak to midwives/doulas there someday. We have so much to learn from her.

We are now back in Kampala at the Backpackers Hostel. It’s good to be here. We leave tomorrow morning at 8am for four days of Safari and travel out west. We’re both looking forward time in nature and with each other.

sending love,
more soon…
k. and a.