Déjà Vu

Friday morning began with a torrential rain storm mere words are ill-equipped to capture when uttered by anyone other than Noah himself.  Imagine yourself standing under a high capacity shower head.  Then turn on two more.  Then turn on a Vornado fan so the water blows sideways.  Then plug the drain.  Then kneel.

At one point, the water through which Daniel navigated was a hair under four-feet deep.  I wish I was exaggerating.  Vans such as the one in which we are traveling, by necessity, divert their exhaust pipes up the side of the car so the exhaust blows above the roof.  Without this modification, the rain storms would cripple these vehicles, and I would wear floaties under my suit jacket.

Flood Resistant Exhaust Diverter

When it rains this hard, the boda drivers lose their customers (and their will to navigate the streets on motorcycles), which further swells the vehicular traffic.  This, coupled with the newly birthed rivers flowing through the streets, naturally leads to gridlock.  So we were late getting out of town on our way to the Ihungu Remand Home in Masindi.

*          *          *

Life in Uganda is lived in the moment.  The vast majority of the population grows its own food, fetches water daily from community pump wells, and worries not about tomorrow – today is simply enough.  I often wonder if this at least partially explains the deep and abiding faith in God of most Ugandans.  Likewise, emotions reside quite near the surface here.  And for me, these emotions spill over whenever my work summons me back to Ihungu – where my first glance down into the well of desperation of children waiting for justice came.

I will forget my name, my birth date, and most other things I have seen and done in life before I forget what I saw when I first walked into the boys’ custody at Ihungu three years ago.

“Is this OK with you?” I felt myself being asked.  “What are you going to do about it,” nipped the next question at the heels of the first.

“Nothing.  Not me.  Someone else.  Where would I even start,” came my feeble, but emphatic, reply.  But the questions persisted like a cold sore.  My tongue kept flicking at it, hoping it would be gone each time I checked.

One of the many images I couldn’t shake was of Katwesige Scovia, sitting in the dirt on the periphery, giggling and casting her eyes down every time one of us looked at her or tried to talk to her.  She was fourteen years old.  My Jessica was also fourteen.  My heart broke for her innocence lost, and my mind mourned her hopeless future.

I was overjoyed to learn, however, that John Niemeyer on behalf of Restore International had arranged for her to be enrolled in a Cornerstone program when she was released.  A few months later, however, my sorrow returned when I learned she had dropped out of the program.  Time first scabbed, then later scarred over, this wound.  Every month or two, a memory of Scovia re-surfaced, but she had mostly receded into the teaming masses of memories from my multiplying months in Uganda.

Until yesterday.

“How many girls do you have here now,” I asked Carol.  (Carol, simply known as “mom” to the inmates, is the matron who stays with and cares for them.  Were it not for Sixty Feet, who pays Carol’s salary and provides other necessities for her, the inmates would be motherless (twice over) and unsupervised).

“There are two – one on remand, and one who is leaving on Sunday,” Carol said.

“Where is she going Sunday,” I asked.

“She was released by the court earlier this week, and we are taking her to Kampala so she can go back to school,” she responded.

“Why is she going to Kampala for school,” I inquired.

“She cannot afford to go to school, but she has a sponsor who has admitted her into a program,” she said with a smile.

“Who is sponsoring her,” I queried.

“Sixty Feet,” she said as she pointed to Kirby across the way.

God bless you, Sixty Feet!

I explained to Carol that we needed to talk to each of the children at Ihungu on remand (waiting to go to court) so we can get them lawyers and move their cases along.  She understood and mobilized the troops.  David and a UCLF lawyer set up one station, while Sarah and I set up another.  Kirby set to work assessing the material needs of the Remand Home.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw through the door to the girls’ custody and noticed something familiar.  The open door was relatively new because the old door is actually mounted on my wall at home.

The New Door

There is more about that here and here.  The familiarity that Deja’d my Vu, however, had nothing to do with the door.  It was the girl inside.  She looked to be about 17 and I felt like I had seen her before.  But where?

“We will start with her,” I said to Carol as I motioned to the open doorway.

“Scovia, you come and talk to him,” Carol instructed.

My breath caught as the nickel dropped.  She came and sat directly across from me, her almost imperceptibly smiling eyes meeting mine.  “You are Katwesige Scovia,” I said to her in a whisper, because a whisper spent all I had in reserve.

“And you are Jim Gas,” she declared with a grin.  Close enough.  While I did take a photograph of her, I hesitate to put both faces and names together of children inmates on the web.

“How have you been?  It has been three years, and I never thought I would see you again,” I said.

Over the next ten minutes, we talked about what she had been doing (not much) and why she was again at Ihungu (theft).  I pulled up computer pictures of her and the others who had been with her three years ago and we laughed together.

“Where is John Niemeyer,” she asked.  “Can he visit me on Sunday?”

“He is in America.  He is one of my students now,” I replied.

“When will he visit me again,” she asked, still not quite comprehending.

As I write this, now 24 hours later, I can’t quite decide whether I am glad I got to see her again, or whether well enough was better left alone.  She is still my daughter’s age, and the difference between their lives could not be more profound.  Scovia will likely be released right about the time Jessica starts her freshman year at Pepperdine.  None of this is yet OK with me, but I am learning that what is bigger than me belongs to God.  I am also learning just how small I really am.

After we concluded the fact-finding interviews of the children on remand, the warden arrived from court.  It was good to catch up with my old friend Mr. William.  Before we left, he reminded me that the last time I was there, I had given him enough money to buy meat for the inmates – a luxury they are seldom afforded.  A steady diet of beans and posho (corn meal) is all they get.

“Will you buy them meat again, Mr. Jim,” he pleaded, more than asked.

How could I say no?  For 50,000 shillings, all 26 could get some protein and a little dietary variety.  I gladly forked over the equivalent of $20.  My paltry “generosity” shames me even as I write this.  I could have given them meat for a week and not even noticed a dent.

Trust, but verify.  For accountability, I made sure Carol the matron knew about the upcoming feast.  Soon, the inmates knew and cheered.  Such a little matters so much here – a lesson I too often forget.

From Masindi, we made our way north to Gulu.  I have made this drive enough that I no longer need to change my underwear multiple times during the trip.  The Volkswagen-sized potholes, the daredevil pedestrians, the suicidal bicyclists, the buses and trucks forcing other vehicles off the road at regular intervals, the brush-clearing wildfires, the urinating-by-the-side-of-the-road-while-looking-at-you locals, the road-meat hawkers, and the begging baboons will never grow old.

Gulu Baboons

We arrived in Gulu just before dark.  David, Kirby, and I stayed at the “upscale” Churchill Courts Hotel, while the others set off in search of a more affordable option on which to spend the customary per diem Sixty Feet had graciously allotted them for the trip.  The less they spent on lodging the more they were able to keep.  This disparity of accommodations produced more than a slight pang of guilt, but clean linens, hot water, and electricity (amenities we enjoyed, and they didn’t) brought our accommodations to within shouting distance of a Motel Six.

We enjoyed a comfortable outdoor dinner in what is usually stifling Gulu heat in the hotel’s courtyard before turning in for the evening.

Saturday will be my first visit to the Gulu Remand Home.