GULU

Now when people think of Uganda, they think about the 22 year civil war, the longest in Africa, and the Invisible Children taken in to the Lord's Resistance Army to become child soldiers. This is the place where the movie Invisible Children is filmed. So we left very early in the mourning for a 6.5 hour bus ride, until we finally got there. We arrived and went to a IDP camp, where women who had been raped by the Rebel LRA army, and had children who were outcome of that. In the IDP camp we walked to a small village of hut houses and quickly the children flocked to us. This was the most amazing part of the trip so far, these kids had the most amazing smiles. This amazed me because these kids didn't have anything, some not even clothes but they were smiling and playing with each other. If these children were in America they might be shunned from their community for not having clothes, but not these kids. They held hands, laughed, and played with each other. I will never forget the children of this villages smiles. Following that visit, we heard testimony of the women who had been raped by the rebels. They told us how they have couped with the situation, and what they need. Their answer for their most important need shocked us all........an education. Above clean water, food, clothes, or shelter; these women wanted to be educated. We gave them all the supplies we could and left for the hotel.

At devotions Lee mentioned he wanted to stay at St. Mary's Hospital, the place where invisible children was shot, to sleep with the kids. I quickly jumped on this. This is a once in a life time opportunity to stay with these kids and hear so of their stories. We rode a bota bota (motorcycle) there and were quickly question about what we were doing there. The security in front could not believe that three Americans would want to stay and sleep on the floor of the hospital, and he tried to make us stay on a bed in the guest house. We refused and eventually he lead us to a place where we could sleep outside with some of the people. This place was amazing people were everywhere on the hospital grounds. I laid next to an 18 year old boy who walked here from about 5 miles away to stay every night. The kids stay at the hospital so they are not taken by the LRA to become child soldiers. We were introduced to a man in a wheel chair who spoke perfect English and showed us around the paraplegic part of the hospital and introduced us to some of the residents. At night a family gave us food to eat including salted ants, that they had collected for the lights. Then we tried to sleep on the floor but couldn't. How could these people do this everyday, you sleep on a straw mat without a pillow or blanket on a cold floor; just for their own protection. We tried to leave the hospital early so we could go on the safari, but they would not let us out of the compound until 6 o'clock. This was for our own protection. So far this is the most memorable part of the trip.