Amazing Grace: In conclusion to the last entry

Today, I rode a motorbike to one of Invisible Children's sponsored schools. In the usual heat, my tires whipped through layers of chalky, dusty road. Suddenly, it began to rain. Out of no where. It poured all over the road, soaking through inches of dust, filling deep cracks of dry Earth. Dripping wet, I screamed as loud as I could. Dry season is ending. And perhaps with these refreshing drops, like a prophetic que, peace for Acholi Land. The paper today read "Peace Talks in Final Stages". This Spring could hold more than budding flowers and greenery. It may bring renewed energy and vitality to a land dormant and damaged. Hidden in this newly formed weather, peace may be gathering on the horizon, ready to run alongside the pace of the chariots of clouds.

Budding Peace

Dry season has consumed Gulu. This month has become a test of endurance against the sun, which rises with such innocence in gentle streaks of pink, hiding its true nature as a hellish beast. In America, and especially in the paradise of California, four seasons rotate like a pinwheel, balanced, each one with its own quality to look forward to. Ugandans have two seasons that flop like a fish out of water. When the dry season flips over in January, no Ugandan would admit to looking forward to the next few months ahead. In fact, most locals shudder at the switch in wind patterns, which begin to blow from Sudan, sweeping with it the death and destruction from that place.
The first day the winds turned, our friend, Akidi looked out her window and said, “disease has entered our land”. Trees bow to the ominous message of these winds, and shed their fear to bare limbs. Lush green is blanketed in brown dust, which transforms the environment to a bland palette. Last year’s vibrant harvests are burnt, and throughout the night, fires roar everywhere, as black ash falls from the sky. It is interesting to really feel the underside of vibrancy, which I feel is well controlled in America. We are lucky to not have to see or deal with these kinds of ugly realities. The ying to the yang. It has been difficult living in the midst of it, realizing just how much it has affected everyone’s moods. So many people are becoming sick, and older people are dying during this season. Last week, Okello, my best friend who I wrote about, the one who constructed the café, came to my house early in the morning. One of his last remaining relatives had died unexpectedly. He was in tears, rare to see on a grown Acholi man. I have always seen him as a man, but it was in this morning, with the sun’s budding light, that I saw a different side of him- the boy that he really was. He had no money for a coffin, and being the closest relative in a family that is practically extinct, he was expected to give him a burial. I gave him the money for the coffin, something I have never paid for. He borrowed my camera and took these pictures. I thought I would share a couple of them candidly taken by Okello. I know this is not the most heartwarming of updates. But, it is the reality of the season, and I think it has been beneficial for me to understand this other side to life that I am truly unfamiliar with. If anything it magnifies the beauty of the newly budding trees. And glorifies the cycle of life that is bringing new promises of peace to this land. In a figurative sense, a new season may be emerging with the literal first forming rain cloud of wet season. Peace for the Northerners, in the form of a permanent peace agreement, between the LRA and the government is budding, and looks closest to blooming since 1986. I hope and ask you all to pray for peace, so that the figurative and literal can collide together; that the March rains will carry with it a new era of peace, to refresh this exhausted land.

Photographs taken by Okello