Easter Weekend

On Friday, we attended a Good Friday service at Gulu Cathedral just outside of town. The cathedral was filled with schoolgirls from neighboring primary and secondary schools, including the famous Sacred Heart S.S.

During the mass, they held a veneration of the cross, in which the congregation inside of the church, as well as all of the children filling the lawns outside of the cathedral, filed through the church and venerated the crucifixion. This 3-hour long mass was extremely powerful and the singing was beautiful.


After, I met Todd Whitmore, a professor at Notre Dame. I first heard of Todd in Botswana in July, from a couple from Loyola University I met at a conference. For the last 5 months, Todd has been living on and off in the IDP camps conducting research. He has also started a project called the Cross-Border Animal Traction Project for Peace (CAPP) that is linked with the organization Tillers International. With CAPP, Whitmore and his team helps to teach Acholi farmers, agricultural skills from around the world, so that they can become self-sustainable once again and leave the camps and food dependency.


Friday evening was Dr. Hackett and Patricia’s last night in Gulu, and we all went to Acholi Inn for dinner. There, a woman named Sophia was holding a fashion show for her line called Dickie Fashions. Earlier we had been introduced to Sophia by her friend Mimi, an Acholi singer based out of Düsseldorf, Germany. Mimi is the youngest daughter of Gertrude, a woman we met over the summer who lives in Acholi Inn. Gertrude is also a musician, and when she was younger, she traveled all over Europe singing Acholi music.

I found the fashion show extremely interesting. Although I can’t confirm this statement, the MC during the event said it was the first of its kind to Gulu. That Sophia brought her line from Kampala to Gulu shows how peace has settled in Acholiland. The items, mostly traditional African dress, were for sale, and throughout the event, the MC was encouraging the audience to buy pieces. I don’t imagine that fashion was a large concern during the 21-years of war, although I may be wrong. Regardless, I see fashion design as an art expression, and maybe Sophia inspired some people in the audience to begin designing their own line. Also noteworthy, Dickie Fashions will be opening a shop in Gulu Town in the coming months, offering the items for sale on a regular basis.



On Saturday afternoon, Erin, Holly, Ben, and I went to HEALS youth center at the advice of our friend Judy who works at Kope Café. From what I understand, HEALS is a center founded by Jolly Okot, the country director for Invisible Children. Erin met Jolly in DC during the Lobby Day and told her about our Knoxville Jazz for Justice Project, after seeing War Dance, the documentary that was up for an Academy Award at this year’s Oscars. Although I have not yet seen it, I understand War Dance to be a film that follows a young group of traditional dancers in Pader District, Northern Uganda. Under the leadership and guidance of HEALS organization, Jolly and a man named Okot train the dancers to compete in the national dance competition that they go on to win.


(Norman Okot on the streets of Gulu sporting his KJfJ T-shirt.)



HEALS has a sister center in Gulu that is right across the street from there we are staying. There, the center offers a safe haven for children to be children and express themselves through play and the arts. They are huge proponents of play therapy and on their t-shirts, the back reads, “As a child it’s my right to play.” Inside there are 2 dormitories for volunteers, a library, an office, and a darkroom, where they teach the children photography and photo development. Attached to the main building are two classrooms, and a room for IC’s bracelet campaign. All of this is surrounded by a sturdy concrete fence filled with painting of animals and flowers. Outside there is room for soccer, basketball, and any other game they choose to play.



We went for dance practice and found Emmy, one of the children featured on IC’s bracelet campaign, leading the hip hop routine. Together, he and over 30 children practiced the moves. After, we watched the girls practice the dingi dingi traditional dance, while the boys played a game of keep-away with the soccer ball. I was amazed how each of these activities was child-led. Although Okot was there, he served as a tender father figure without need for direct supervision. Instead, order and discipline were loosely kept by the older children, and I say loosely because there was no real need for neither supervision or discipline. Everyone knew their roles.





I was so impressed by HEALS approach at counseling the children. The provide them with positive roles models in the form of adults and older children, while offering a safe environment for them to be children. Within those walls was the first time I remember being in Northern Uganda and thinking, these are kids just like my sister and her friends at home. While I’m sure many of them have dark backgrounds and many issues to still sort through, for the time they are at HEALS it is like all of the past is forgotten.



On Sunday we went to the Easter service at Christ Church, the Anglican church in Gulu Town. We went to the English service, and there was a traditional Anglican choir. We were disappointed there wasn’t the same lively traditional Luo music as we heard in the summer. We learned that that service is the one after the English, so next time we go to Christ Church, we’ll be sure to go to at 10:30 to hear it in Luo.

Sunday afternoon, we went back to Gulu Cathedral for an outside celebration and depiction of the stages of the cross. It was very moving. The man acting as Jesus was severely beaten by banana leaves, and that was difficult to watch in general. Being in Gulu, watching the people act out that brutality and hearing the crowd’s response was especially tough. Like watching the boys at Gulu high school act out the parody of the peace talks in Juba and hearing the crowd laugh at an abduction scene in the skit, it was strange to hear the people watching the passion of Christ laugh. I know that it is part of the culture, people here laugh when they are uncomfortable, but even knowing that, it is still strange to hear laughter. And knowing that so many of the crowd witnessed brutality during the war here, I wondered throughout the skit if it was painful for those watching.





After the skit, there was dancing and singing. Bosmic Otim performed a few songs, and the crowd loved him. Seeing their faces light up when he was on stage and hearing the murmurs of excitement as he walked into the event, shows me how much they appreciate his talent. I am so glad that he is using his music as a forum to discuss issues of peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness. I also see how he must be very careful because he is such a role model to so much of the youth. His video for the song “Kopango” has several scantily clad women dancing around him, and on first instinct, I am not impressed with the impression he is giving out to his young fans. I realize though that many of his other songs condemn defilement and domestic violence, so he is giving out positive messages through them.



During the music, Archbishop Odama appeared and afterward we went to his residence to present to him the books on religion and peacekeeping, as I mentioned in my post on the peace talks.

It is such an honor every time I see him. During this meeting, as I failed to mention in my earlier post, the Archbishop showed us to items he had framed. The first he calls his “second Bible.’ It is a picture of the former LRA spokesman Sam Kolo greeting the leader of the GOU (government of Uganda) delegation, Minister of Internal Affairs Ruhakana Rugunda in their first time that both sides came together in mediation. Archbishop says he has taken that framed photo with him all around the globe to show to people. The second frame he showed us contained a comic cut out of the national newspaper in June 2003. The comic depicts the leaders of the Catholic, Anglican, and Muslim religious communities in Gulu sleeping outside on the verandas with the night commuters. Archbishop told us that for several days they slept outside, and after 3 or 4 nights, the media picked up on this and drew a cartoon. In the bubble, it has Archbishop Odama saying something about how Jesus never had a mattress to sleep on. It was very clever, and one could see how it made the Archbishop chuckle. He said he looks on it whenever he needs a laugh.

Finally, now I am up-to-date with the posting. This week is sure to be eventful, as well. Before leaving Kampala, we were invited to attend the Juba peace agreement signing with the media from Parliament. They are traveling under the Uganda Media Center. With the signing set to occur on Friday, March 28th, we have heard from one reporter that they are leaving from Kampala tomorrow. If we do not go to Juba, then we will be going with NUGEN to Kitgum and Pader districts this next week, as they visit schools and do trauma counseling. Both will be invaluable experiences, and we are so thankful for all of our friends here in Uganda that are assisting us with our research and making us feel at home. Apwoyo matek.