Easter with Cynthia in Mbale

Up the mountain, down to the bottom of Sipi Falls

Mbale is 8 hours bus ride from Gulu, near the border to Kenya.   Joyce and I visited Cynthia who recently arrived from Manila.

Love the hammock

Cynthia is a teacher-educator under the UNICEF program, and she enjoys some perks that the rest of us Filipino vols do not have.  Because of the nature of her work, she has a car with a driver, has internet and cellphone allowance and travels regularly around Uganda.  Cynthia is just oozing with talent and varied

View from her main door

interests.  She was a university teacher back home, has a masters in theology, took up fine arts and baking, likes sewing, composed songs, managed showbiz talents, plays musical instruments, goes mountain climbing and rappelling, and perhaps many, many more.  Right now, she lives in a school campus where

Useless as windows remain closed

her window screens are useless because the carpenters just cut the screen to allow her to reach the shutters, her doors squeak, and goats can enter her house if the door is unattended.  Her accommodations are newly-built and superb, but suffer from the poor workmanship of Ugandans.  Cynthia is barely 3 months in her job but with the many activities that she is doing, she won't

Barbecue in the rain

probably notice when her two years volunteering will be up.  Two things I enjoyed most during the Easter holidays at her place:  Lounging in the outdoor hammock that she brought from the Philippines.  It is for military use; very sturdy and comes with a mosquito net.  And her and Joyce's outdoor cooking of pork barbecue.  Since there was no grill, they used a window screen that got detached when someone sneezed. 

As usual, I washed the dishes.

Lucky Cynthia, with her 4 x 4

Kony 2012 comes to Gulu

Kony 2012, Invisible Children

In early March, the video Kony 2012 was released on YouTube.  It was seen by millions of people and it went viral.  I could not watch because of digital poverty.  My daughter and her friends shed tears

Invisible no more

and got carried away by the story.  But I told her that Gulu, the epicenter of Kony's Lord Resistance Army atrocities is now peaceful (see blog post November 2011).  The world wondered by Invisible Children (the organization behind the video) revived the film, and subsequently, IC was getting bad press.  So it went to Gulu last April 13

The public few who came

and 14.  It showed the film on big screen in the stadium and sponsored a program where politicians and presidential appointees of Northern Uganda came in big numbers.  IC's CEO in the US came and said that he met with President Obama who expressed support for their
organization.

Invisible Children's CEO Ben Keesey

Imported testimonials came from some Congoloses who spoke in French and their narrations  translated to English and Luo.  The

Gulu Theater performer

Ambassador of IC in Uganda (perhaps that's how IC calls its country executives) admitted that although the LRA is no longer in Uganda, it wants to expose its atrocities in DR Congo, Sudan, and the CAR, and get Kony (the LRA leader) by end of 2012.  The Ugandan government has released a YouTube response - dismissing the video as giving a false impression of the country, yet

Sing and dance with crutches

government dignitaries were at the event and the Chief Guest was the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament.  Some of the orange T-shirted groups had packed lunch while the others, just bottles of water.

High-tech cameras abound.  The world will surely know.

All I can say is the three IC  founders made Gulu's 20-year war known to the world in 2005, and perhaps, it is making Gulu's experienced peace now known to the world.  Check this link, too.  http://in2eastafrica.net/a-tale-of-a-child-mother-in-acholi/

It was the spring of hope*........

Golden shower starts to bloom

I have stayed long enough in Gulu to have seen the changes in life and season.  Trees shed their leaves when it is dry season, golden shower starts to bloom and cicadas start to sing when the rainy season cannot be far behind.

I went to their wedding

Now they have a baby

I have seen market stalls empty and
overflow with produce depending on the season.
I have seen sick

Before

people now fully recovered.  I have seen couples marry and become proud parents.

Now

                                   

I have seen babies still in their mother's wombs and now starting to walk.




I have seen the best of times and the worst of times* during my stay in Gulu.  And before long, they will just be fond memories.

One week old - comes to work with Mom

Now, still comes to work with Mom

* Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities