Kakanyero

A year ago today, I woke up on my birthday in a room in a mid-range hotel in Gulu District, Uganda. I was sharing the room with Chris, a UNICEF protection officer based in Kitgum District, Uganda where I also work and we had three other female colleagues based in Kitgum staying in the hotel. One of them is Italian and she worked for an Italian NGO while the two others were academic researchers both working on their PhD degree but from different universities. One of them is American while the other I think is European, probably German.

The name of the hotel we stayed at was Kakanyero which was recommended by our German colleague and she told us that the name literally meant "House of Joy" in Acholi. I found the name personally interesting for its meaning and for the occasion.

But how in the first place did all of us end up being in this hotel away from the district that we worked in?

Three days before, all of us travelled together from the district of Kitgum to Lira to attend a UNICEF supported workshop on reception centers. All of us being involved in this topic through our work in one way or the other were invited to attend this workshop. Organizing the trip from Kitgum to Lira was a logistical challenge for UNICEF. Travel by road was still considered dangerous on the Kitgum-Gulu road while there are no flights that take the Kitgum-Lira route. The safest way to travel was to take a chartered flight from Kitgum to Gulu and them from Gulu take a UNICEF convoy on the road heading to Lira. The flight leg of the trip took at most half an hour while the road leg between Gulu and Lira took almost 2 hours. The roads were good though and the travel smooth. Travelling with other people in vehicle is also a wonderful experience as we were able to know each other and share stories.

The workshop itself was the typical workshop of so much talk, speeches and grandstanding among speakers and participants alike. There were some learning points that I gained from it which I hope to share in future posts.

What I found interesting and striking about this trip was our return to Kitgum.

The workshop ended around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and it took about another hour for all of us travelling from Lira to Kitgum to eat lunch, pack our stuff and get ready for the travel back. Time was of the essence here as we needed to make it to Gulu to be able to get on the chartered flight from there to Kitgum. We needed to make it to the airstrip at the latest by 5 pm as the chartered planes will not fly once it gets dark. The travel to Lira to Gulu went smoothly and we reached Gulu just a few minutes before 5 pm. Once in Gulu, we were greeted by a heavy downpour. We were quite confident that we will make it to the airstrip and most probably the chartered plane was already in airstrip waiting for us. However, with rain still pouring, there was no sight of the plane. Chris, who was in charge of the logistics for our travel, called his colleagues from Kitgum and inquired about the whereabout of the plane. He was told that the plane is en route from Kampala to Kitgum stopping by Gulu to pick us up but was having a hard time getting through the heavy rain. The pilots were trying to fly around the downpour to be able to land in Gulu but eventually decided to just fly straight to Kitgum where the skies were relatively clear. From there, they were planning to fly back to Gulu, pick us up and then fly back to Kitgum. We were relieved by this news and that the plane will still be able to fly in to Gulu to take us to Kitgum. But 30 minutes passed and the plane which landed in Kitgum 45 minutes earlier was still nowhere in sight. It was already almost 7 in the evening. After another set of calls, we learned that as soon as the plane landed in Kitgum, heavy rains started and continued to rain for an hour which forced the pilots to ground the plane, stay the night in Kitgum and hope for clearer skies the next day.

Thus, we ended up staying a night in the House of Joy.

The next day, I was greeted by clear skies and a rainbow over the airstrip. I was coming home!

On Writing

"Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood. Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit." - Nietzsche

I have always wanted to write - put down my personal thoughts, emotions, ideas and experiences on ink and paper. I find it very difficult though to put into words what I am thinking, feeling and experiencing. A reason is that I feel I do not have the proper faculties to fully express myself in words. Another is that writing just can't seem to catch up with my day-to-day and I end up getting frustrated by this.

A personal resolution that I've thought of is to look back rather than to keep up. Writing about something long after it has happened will never be the same as being able to write about something right as it is happening or soon thereafter. But it is still an account, a portrayal of my thoughts, feelings and experiences.

That is what I am trying to do here. And hopefully through modern technology, I can try to bridge the gap between writing about the past, living the present and looking forward for the future.