Monthly Archive: February 2018

A Few Refugee Stories (including the man who telephoned his own burial)

A portion of the West Nile team after staff meeting

Will I walk the long road? Cannot stay.
There’s no need to say goodbye.
-Vedder

As one of my responsibilities, I interview refugees and write “success stories” about CARE’s interventions and how they transform lives. I also receive stories from staff and edit them. These stories are then attached to reports to donors or used with the media or internally, or filed away to be pulled up for use in the future (or never see the light of day). I try to use the refugee’s back story as a bit of a hook, but of course CARE needs to be the central character in the story. Thus I often can’t tell a refugee’s full story since it would be too long, or it has nothing to do with CARE. But the stories of their journeys and struggles are often compelling, so I will share a few. Some are fairly grim. Names are often changed and certain details altered for the protection of the refugee and those that might be left behind.

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At age 19, Nancy was living in Juba, South Sudan, and attending a school for nursing. She came home from school one day and found that her parents had been murdered. Soon after, at the advice of neighbors, she left her family home for a safer location. She took with her five younger brothers, four younger male cousins, and two more boys from a neighbor. First they spent two days walking to the town of Yei. After a month, Yei also became extremely insecure, so Nancy led the eleven boys by foot for three days to the Congo border town of Libogo. They often had to leave the road and hide in the bush to avoid combatants. They stayed there for one month while the children rested. Next, they walked to Embokolo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and lived in a Catholic Church full of refugees for one year. Nancy eventually decided to take the children to Uganda by walking for one day to the border town of Silia Musala. Today, she lives with the 11 boys in a temporary shelter, and wants to resume nursing school one day.

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Manoah, his five children, and an orphan under his care traveled the 48 miles from his wife’s village to the border. He hired three boda bodas, one to carry possessions, and two to carry Manoah and the six children. They crossed the border in August, 2016. At the border crossing, the luggage was inspected, the family was registered, and they spent one night there. The next morning they were fed biscuits and then were transported to Ocea in Rhino Camp. The family slept outdoors for two weeks before they were given a plot of land in another part of Rhino Camp. Manoah built his shelter with materials given to him by UHHCR.  His pregnant wife arrived soon after.

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Nelson Mandela (his real name!), 23 years old, is manager of the Youth Garden restaurant, which CARE supported as a livelihood initiative with funding help from the Czech Republic.  Nelson decided to flee to Uganda because “Security in South Sudan did not favor human nature,” citing problems in adequate education, medicine and security. Nelson, two brothers and the wife of one brother had to walk for one week from Yei, South Sudan to the Ugandan border. Sometimes they hid in the bush to dodge both rebels and government troops.

Nelson Mandela in the restaurant he manages

When Nelson’s group finally arrived in Uganda in September 2016, they were placed in Rhino Camp Settlement. “We had nothing,” Nelson says “but UNHCR provided materials to build two shelters.”  

Their parents remained behind, but their family home and neighborhood were soon burned down. Nelson’s parents had to shift to a church compound in Wei with 5,000 internally displaced persons, because the route to Uganda has become too deteriorated. He said all sides respect the church. Nelson told me recently that during a cease fire, his parents went back to their old home and currently live among the still standing walls, with no roof for now, but its dry season.

Eventually Nelson hopes to be a politician, and like his namesake, Nelson Mandela, he wants to “bring my people together in peace.” But he has to get funds to finish his interrupted education.

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Annet is a single mother of two girls and two boys, ages 4-14. She was living in the town of Yei. The security of the town had deteriorated. “My children could not attend school, I was always hearing gunshots, and I would fetch water and see dead bodies.”

Annet decided to become a refugee for the third time (Previously she had come to Uganda with her father in the 1990’s and had been in Imvepi settlement in 2004). She left Yei in September 2016. Traveling with her four children plus two orphaned children of her sister, she was able to obtain transport with other members of her church in a large vehicle carrying 20 refugees. All she could carry was a mattress, two sauce pans and jerry cans. The vehicle was stopped several times by gunmen.  Once they had to pay bribes to keep two boys from being conscripted. Another time, six soldiers, two of them armed, demanded that Annet get out and go with them “to the bush”. The travelers complained, “What about her children? You would have her leave six children with us?” Eventually the soldiers allowed Annet to return to her traveling companions to complete their journey.

Annet was settled into Rhino Camp but suffered from depression, and suicidal thoughts after what had happened during her journey. Without going into the whole part of CARE’s story, she received support from Grace, another refugee who was a volunteer trained by CARE (Grace has her own amazing back story but my colleague interviewed her. I will in the future.). Grace guided Annet to a workshop on trauma healing, and persuaded her to join a women’s group. Annet has made a great comeback, and today she is very productive. Her kids are in school, she helps make bricks for a women’s shelter, and cuts and bales grass to sell for thatched roofs on huts.


Sadly, rape is used as a tool of war. (Besides so many South Sudanese women who have been raped, the Ugandan authorities are reporting 9 out of 10 female Congolese refugees from DRC have been raped.) Below is a full story, written by a psycho-social counselor with my help. I liked the first person approach she used:

She met me at the CARE Reception Center in July, 2017 with a smile on her face. A closer look at her however, unveiled the anxiety and stress hiding behind the smile. Her facial muscles were so tight, and her eyes so red, it was evident she might have been spending sleepless nights of fear and helplessness.

Violet was a 22 year old South Sudanese living in Imvepi refugee settlement. She arrived with a group of refugees in February 2017, after the onset of civil war in her country. She had two boys aged 6 and 3 years, and was expecting a third one.

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Violet narrated that as the war intensified, her husband urged her to take the children, join her neighbors, and flee to Uganda for refuge.  She did as her husband advised, since she saw the dawning of every day bringing in greater tragedy.

Violet and the other refugees moved through the bush, due to fear of both the army and the rebels “who killed ruthlessly.”  She feared for her two children and hoped they would safely reach Uganda. But before they arrived, a group of soldiers attacked them. They took the men away, beating some and killing others. Then the women and some of the girls were beaten and raped.

Violet told me she was raped by a number of men, leaving her with multiple wounds and unbearable pain. She lived under the fear and tension that she might have contracted HIV/AIDS or other STDs. The biggest storm came when she realized she was pregnant as a result of the rapes, which she could not imagine living with. “I only wanted to live for my two children, but now here I am carrying a result of wickedness done to me” she said, bursting into tears. She didn’t know how to explain all this to her husband and in-laws, whom she definitely knew would not take her word.

True to her fears, when Violet told her in-laws what happened , they became furious and insulted her as being wasted and not good enough to be a wife for their son. Her in-laws quickly advised her husband to quit the marriage on claims he would be infected with HIV/AIDS. When Violet’s people tried to talk to her husband, he said he couldn’t live with a woman bearing a child of wickedness. He told Violet, even if there’s a possibility she may be HIV negative, she needed to abort the child, which by then was six months along. When Violet declined abortion due to fear of losing her life, her husband abandoned her and their two children, taking away all their belonging and even their ration card. Violet was helpless, living at the mercy of neighbors, who were getting tired of accommodating and feeding her and her children, taking the little rations they received. She said she hated the child she was carrying and hated herself too. She was so helpless and restless and harbored suicidal thoughts.

THE RISING SUN

One day, CARE volunteers were conducting a community awareness session on Gender Based Violence (GBV) near where Violet stays. She decided to go and “just spend time” there, to relieve her of so much stress and worry.  At the session, she learned she could get help. “Maybe there is still hope, and a reason to live,” she thought to herself. The community was told where to find help for issues related to GBV, and what kind of help was available at the CARE desk. That’s when Violet came to the reception center, where she met me, and narrated her ordeal.

During our first psycho-social support session, Violet and I made a care plan together. We agreed to meet at least once a week to talk. We visited the medical center for an examination, and she was enrolled for antenatal care. Then we visited her area Refugee Welfare Counselor to write a letter to confirm that her husband took away all their property. We went together to the police and Office of Prime Minister to ensure her safety, and to get her a new ration card. We also agreed that we will have to talk to her mother to support her and this worked as her mother agreed to take care of the unborn child after the child stops breastfeeding.

Through the above process with the help of CARE, Violet was able to get a new ration card for her and her children, find a provisional shelter to use, and enrolled for antenatal care where she learned that she was HIV/AIDS free. We continued with psycho-social support through visiting her at her shelter, and occasionally accompanying her to the health center for antenatal visits and some material support for the unborn baby. Violet made a decision not to abort her baby but rather to raise the child together with her two boys. Violet gave birth through Caesarian section on 26th September 2017, a beautiful baby girl. She seems happier now and wear a beautiful smile every time I pay her a visit and whenever she sees a care staff or even the vehicles passing. For she sees hope being restored.

She thanks CARE International so much for restoring hope, especially for women and girls whom she says encounter greater sexual violence and are stigmatized by society. She has joined a CARE women’s group and she says she uses her testimony to support girls and women whom she knows are going through the same injustice. She henceforth encourages women and girls in her village never to hesitate to report any cases of gender based violence to CARE for they can be sure to help.

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Joseph was educated at a prestigious university in the U.K. and had been a part of the South Sudan government in various capacities, with international travel. He fell out of favor with the current regime. One night, seven police came for Joseph with orders to execute him, but due to someone’s intercession, they decided to put him in jail instead.  He spent three nights with 95 cellmates. The police would come in the middle of the night and take a few away. On the third night, at 2 a.m., they came for Joseph. Fortunately he was shown the gate, and set free by a friend.  “I ran for 50 meters fearing I would be shot. Once I realized I was really free, I walked 121 miles for seven days to the Ugandan border.”  After arriving safely, Joseph borrowed a phone to call his wife. It had been ten days since he had been dragged off. The phone call came literally during his own burial service (I am told some Africans will still do burials without a body, and they even do it in the settlements when they hear about a death back home). His wife put the phone on speaker and held it out to the mourners to see if they would agree and confirm it was his voice. Joseph’s wife and child needed to get away quickly and joined him three days later.  He became an immediate leader in the settlement and trained by CARE as a Role Model Man, influencing the behavior of other men toward their families.

He is seeking asylum, hopefully in the UK, but is trying elsewhere too. He says he is still fearful of being spotted by the wrong people, and I have obscured a lot here. There are quite a few well educated refugees just like Joseph in the settlements.

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I have reports due every few months to the Peace Corps. One of the questions is always: “The one thing I wish Americans knew about my country of service is….” My response this month will find disagreement among many of my readers, but its the way I feel:

More than a million South Sudanese refugees are in Uganda today. Now, thousands more are flooding into Western Uganda daily from the DRC. These refugees would not be in these settlements without truly awful events forcing them out of their homes and across the Ugandan border.  The Ugandan government not only welcomes refugees, it allows them freedom of movement (even throughout the country) and they are given materials for a shelter and a small plot of land. Uganda encourages integration with the nearby host communities.

The refugees I’ve met aspire to educate their children, hold jobs, and lead peaceful lives, just like any American or Ugandan, and probably like any refugee from Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, or Iraq (countries in which American military interventions materially contributed to the refugee crises).  Americans could learn a lesson about this Ugandan generosity. I like to remind Americans that we have  accepted and absorbed 1.3 million refugees from Viet Nam. We can’t cause the crisis and then become a “gated community” and turn our backs. Ever hear the phrase “You broke it, you bought it?”   America has a moral obligation to accept more refugees.

Now a few more photos:

We’ve outgrown our office space and are moving to new offices next weekend. Here are staff working outside in the shade of a mango tree.

Every day at dusk thousands of fruit bats fly over Arua on their nightly quests to eat. This bat parade lasts 20-30 minutes.

The heat has been brutal. No rain since before Christmas. If you look at the temperature app on the blog during the day here, you always see temps in the 90’s. I came home early one afternoon and caught the guesthouse security guard napping in the shade.

Security guards watching a Nigerian movie on a flip phone using a memory card.

I think every post I highlight women carrying stuff on their heads

I like the geckos that hang around to get bugs for me. Surely the cockroach in my drain could feed that gecko for a week. This is a separate compartment from my room, and so far I have seen no cockroaches there. It’s an incentive to keep food out of my room. Meowri would have gotten this one.