The Refugee.

The  "Refugee" bears a certain aura about him,  a sort of unwanted  mark. The Refugee is despised, scorned, ridiculed, unloved, unwanted, unrecognised. His voice isn't given much attention, The Refugee's life is likened to a stain upon the proverbial White Fabric of society.  A blemish. We often forget that before all fell apart. The Refugee led a happy and peaceful life.  The Refugee held large dreams and big prospects. Then one morning His sons and His neighbours' sons took up arms and gunsmoke filled their kitchens. 

We often encounter the unwashed, wretched lot. We forget they're that way because of circumstances out of reach. Each one of us is a potential refugee.

Kyangwali Refugee Settlement Camp, undoubtedly the largest Refugee Camp in Uganda is located in Hoima District South West Uganda. The Camp is  home to over 38,000 refugees. The refugees are mainly from Congo, South Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.‎

A number of non governmental organisations like AAH-I Uganda, Refugee Law Project, American Refugee Commit, UNHCR are  trying to change the lives of the refugees through provision of  health care, food, security, education, legal aid, water and sanitation, environment and sources of livelihood.

A team bubbly  of 3 bubbly lawyers, an immoral-tongued driver and I  crammed into a Navy Blue Mitsubishi double cabin and hit the rather beautiful highway which leads to the oil fields at Kaiso-Tonya.  We soon branched off onto a dirt road, slowly leaving civilisation in our wake.

The main entrance to the camp is manned by armed guards. Within the camp are tents set up by UPDF soldiers. The civilians live in mud and wattle houses. A few lucky  enterprising refugees own concrete and iron roofed houses.  

We had lunch at Betty's.  Betty Kiden, is a rather hyperactive South Sudanese woman with trademark fair Dark Sudanese skin,  snowy teeth and clear glassy eyes. Her beans cost 1000 less than her chicken stew. I prefered chicken. She has about 3 cooks who double as waitresses and a sarcastic boy help. 

"Aunt Betty, are you planning on boiling this water?" he asks of the dirty water collected in a hand washing bowl.

 The chicken in Kyangwali is mammoth. It's like the thigh of a Khoi Khoi newborn child. The chicken looks like the sort which has to be chained and held by strong men from Kabale quarry on the day of its slaughter.  Monstrous piece of meat. Unlike city broilers whose bones might be chewed. Betty's chicken is rocky. Hard enough to crack your jaws on attempting to crack it.‎

I suspiciously eyed the greasy looking chilli in a glass jar before pushing it aside; 'poison' I muttered under my breath.

I walked the lengths of the trading centre and most shops were filled with more soft drinks neatly arranged.‎

We visited a police cell where we found 3 inmates detained. All males, one man had beaten up his wife after taking one too many gulps of the bitter stuff.  An eleven year old chap who beat up a peer because he'd betrayed them was inside the cell. The boys nicked a bowl. Their peer betrayed them, earning himself a proper beating. He spent the weekend in jail.  He looked visibly shaken and traumatised.  

Kids in tattered cloth and no shoes hold dog-eared exercise books, returning home after a long day at school. We hit the road again, with about 3 lawyers. Lawyers have certain dark humour. You always wonder whether laughing would be against your conscience.‎

 The people in this Camp are peasant farmers.  Large gardens of maize, sorghum, millet and tobacco race by. The houses here are mud and wattle. In the midst of one of the villages within the camp stands a Jehovah Witness Church, majestic  like a blue eyed child in a Nigerian village.

The chairman's house has an iron roof with small rocks conveniently placed on its top to prevent the roof from flying away when it storms.

We went to Nyapindu village where we were meant to have a community meet. The folks sneaked upon the meeting point quietly and sat. The legal team shared with the folks on the intricacies of the law.

Boda boda cyclists here zoom past. Loud music blaring off their bicycles.

I met a Congolese girl. Here girls  are are goat queens.  The little girl had a rather uncanny ability, tending goats. She summoned them, beckoned them. They seemed to listen to her, the goat whisperer and do her bidding. She ran after the little ones. Goats, ducks, hens are quite common here. 

Dogs and cats are deemed useless. They produce neither meat nor milk. "What will they eat? Dogs and cats refuse to eat grains. Proud little devils." laments Michael.

"UPDF goats stray here and destroy our crops. Even when we arrest them their owners take forever before they claim them. There are no drugs within the health points. I have a child dying in my house. I haven't a thing to do." Laments a man. 

 His voice is firm with bitterness. Wearing a rather frustrated look. He keeps swinging his hands wistfully. The sort of demeanour a man watching dark clouds of the bleak future hovering keeps.

"The health personnel don't understand our language, we need translators. The police men ask for 50,000 UGX when we report crimes. It's an insult to ask that much from a

"Foetus and Polythene!

I remember her eyes. Pale, hazy and drowsy. They had within them a certain tender bewilderment.   They had a repulsive aura about them. She stood at our house holding a shiny black polythene bag and a hankie drenched in sweat and dust. It had turned from crisp white to dirty brown. Her feet were covered in a thin layer of dust.

"How are you, is your mother home?" she inquired in the softest of voices. It was difficult to discern the reason for her softness of voice. Was it soft with politeness or was it what life moulded our voices into in times of trouble.

"Ma isn't home, she returns around 9pm!" I replied softly in Luo.

That quiet January day still sends shivers down my spine.

Ma had arrived a few minutes later from her little shop.

I'd told about the presence of a strange young woman. 

She'd moved out to meet the young woman who she found sitting at the door steps, head bowed, eyes staring into the ground.

The two discussed in hushed tones. Their  whispers soon turned to sobs. Feminine sobs sound the same, guttural and punctuated with sniffling and deep breathing.

I moved closer to the dark pair and called out.

"Ma!" 

"I'm coming! " she replied curtly.

Mother replied firmly, beseeching my patience. I knew they weren't her sobs. I was guiltily relieved.

Guilty because a troubled soul was sobbing and simply because it wasn't Ma, I didn't feel an iota of pity. The gulp of saliva that slipped down my throat  was certainly one of concern but not pity.

"Why did you do it my daughter? Why???? Ma asked.

{Silence...}

"You can't spend the night here, something could happen to you and we would be blamed."Mother  firmly said.

"Madam I'm so tired, I can't carry on. I don't have any money on me."

Mother had sat down long with the young Luo woman. I sat at a distance observing the dark pair. Ma laid her hands upon the young girl and offered her what she had, prayers.

"How did you know we spoke the same tongue? " Mother asked.

" I often pass here, and I know you speak Luo, I gathered the last strength I had and made it here." she replied.

‎

The young woman girl whose face I certainly can't recall had passed by our home because she'd noticed us speak Luo. 

A young man soon was summoned by phone. He arrived on a motorcycle and took the young woman away.

Mother stayed out in the dark. I went out to meet her and learn the truth.

The polythene bag the woman carried  held a two months old terminated foetus, the source of her woes. We never got to know her reasons for aborting the life she had growing within her. She never said.

Her heart was heavy with guilt, her body was light with the threat of imminent death.  

Those eyes still trouble me, I could have forgotten her face but not her eyes. You wouldn't forget those eyes.

I asked mother what her reaction was when she realised the contents in the black polythene were the remains of a two month old foetus. 

She looked at me and said.

" Son, it's not your place to take the life of a baby!"

"People will talk when you bring here a young girl pregnant with child, but they'll judge if you take a life of that child. ‎

You can't wash your hands clean with blood."

Fornication is sin between two, but abortion is murder.

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"Police Brutality!"

A drowning man will clutch at a Crocodile's tail to save himself.  Drowning conjures certain levels of desperation.  The same level of desperation is evident in our society. Ours is a frustrated society. Police brutality?? Mirror image of us.‎

What makes police men and the thugs within police force so brutal?? Are they the squalid conditions of living, leaking unipot roofs?? A frustrated force is capable of anything, a little bit of bonus and tot packs of  potent Officer Cane spirit are enough to trigger off the beast mode.‎

Albert Camus in the 'Outsider' focuses on the irrationality of the universe. The universe as a whole gives zero fs. But the people ought to stand for what's justifiably right.

William Golding in "Lord of the Flies!" asserts that generally man is innately. Police is innately evil. There's a certain level of rot within the forces. Rot that must be gorged from the depth of it's spawn pool, us!  

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We ought to all be ashamed of what we've degenerated into; vicious beings indifferent to reason.  We however can change us. We can, by refusing to blindly tolerate blatant disregard for rights of man.

What does it feel like to hoist a baton over one's head, bring it crushing through the air against  some hapless citizen's  head or chest. Does consci

ence temporary run amok?? Does satisfaction fill our hearts seeing adults scamper like scared fowl. Do we love the odour of blood or are cries of pain Music to our ears????

This sickness will be our death. First they'll use batons then they'll employ ammunition, wounds will summon coffins. 

#ImpunityMustEnd.‎