…the conflict in northern Uganda really did affect everyone my age…
Posted by Gavin in Front Page, Project Uganda, Project Uganda Blog on November 5, 2009 | no responses
By Erin Hunt
I’ve been talking about the changes in northern Uganda between when I first arrived in 2006 and when I went back this year with OA, but this post is going to be a bit different – a bit more personal.
I just saw a rough cut of the first short film to come out of our partnership with the Vancouver Film School and filmmakers Mohammed Soliman and Angela Buhr. It’s an amazing and powerful piece – I can’t wait for it to be finalized so you can all see it. (Definitely stay tuned to see this one and the others, or check out some of the video journals already up). While I won’t give too much away the film focuses on one of the youth leaders we worked with and their life. This person has been a friend of mine since 2006 and quickly became a friend of our whole team.
I learned a lot about my friend through this short video - things I never knew even though her son calls me Auntie (a common term of affection used by children for older women) well I think that’s what he was saying don’t forget he’s a toddler who speaks Acholi, we e-mail updates and they are pretty concerned about me not having a husband yet. When I started working with youth in northern Uganda, I made a point of learning as much as I could about the conflict and things that the people I’d be working with might have experienced. I read everything I could get my hands on and listened very closely to the stories told around the office. I never really asked about people’s specific experiences in the war, if they had been abducted or what had happened to their families because I didn’t want to make them talk about things they didn’t want to talk about. They could always tell me but only if they brought it up. Some people did bring it up, most didn’t.
I found this video very interesting. It answers a number of questions that I’ve never asked and brings the reality of the conflict home to me on a more emotional level. I’ve heard many stories about what happened during the height of the conflict. However, those stories have either come through a translator because of the language barrier, been told using a lot of dark humour, or from someone who I met only briefly. Rarely have I heard detailed accounts of events from a friend who I’ve worked with, socialized with and had many meals with. I guess it’s another reminder that the conflict really did affected everyone from my generation living in northern Uganda.
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