Kony 2012

What if one evil man could be brought to justice not with years of war and thousands of dead, but with one year, and thousands of outspoken people that donate a few dollars?

I watched the Kony 2012 video like many others, only I already knew his name.  I already know his children.  I already have seen the crimes he has committed in the faces of women and children who have been raped, had their families murdered in front of them, and forced to live in the wild or fear capture.  I visited northern Uganda in January/February 2011, and I will never be the same.

Me with one of the children from ChildVoice

I visited my friend Natalie (her blog) who volunteered for an organization, Child Voice International that hosts a center for young women and their children to attend to learn life skills so they may provide for their families.  They stay for a year or so and then return to their villages where they can hopefully get a small loan and start their businesses.  (At the time I visited they were working on the last part).  These women and children were all so happy and joyful, it’s hard to believe that they had been tortured just a few years prior.

The “mother” of the center told me a story of how she had to run from her village with just her twins and no supplies because the Lord Resistance’s Army was coming to kill everyone.  She saw many murdered.  She told me of not knowing who of her family and friends survived and who died.  They lived in the bush for years wondering if tonight would be the night they were discovered and killed, or kidnapped to become a sex slave. 

Many of the women have children, not because they are promiscuous, but because of rampant rape in the bush.  I could write for hours about these women’s absolutely horrific stories, you could fill pages with their suffering, but what I want to talk about is their hope.  They WANT a better life for their children.  That’s why they are at the Child Voice center, to work hard for a way to provide for their families.  But Joseph Kony and his LRA are still a threat.  What if everything they have worked so hard for is destroyed and taken from them over night?  This is why Kony needs to be stopped.

Some of the kids from ChildVoice

What’s the best way to stop Kony?  I’m not sure.  I honestly don’t know if blanketing cities in posters is the best idea (sounds like an environmental hazard actually), but it’s the first idea I’ve heard that puts the power in the hands of the citizens of the world. 

Not everyone can afford to fly to Uganda and volunteer at Child Voice, but everyone can afford to post a video to Facebook to raise awareness.

There have been many critics to the Kony 2012 movement, but what good movement hasn’t?  People have issues with Tom’s Shoes and even the Red Cross, but for me all three of these organizations do enough good to justify my donation.

I’d like to imagine a world where an evil dictator can be imprisoned with the power of millions demanding it and a few highly trained people executing it.  No need for massive wars, bombs, or deaths, just a couple hundred troops of the country where the evil man is residing with some additional training and help from others to capture a man that has spent his life capturing others.  This world I imagine can be real.  I’m going to at least try to help make it happen.

  

That butter container is for me to WHAT?!?!

Everyone is called to do something in this life – using their talents for others.  Helping Africans in Uganda is not mine. 

These are the words I wrote in my journal while I spent two weeks in Uganda in February visiting my friend Natalie Committee.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED the experience and am so glad I went; it just felt so weird that I actually missed Afghanistan.  I was on vacation in a beautiful country, and I missed my warzone.  I needed to rid myself of guilt and realize that discovering what I’m not meant to do is a vital step in figuring out what I am meant to do.

Natalie and I knew each other since she was about 3 because I grew up with her big sister, Christina.  We were in her sister, Christina’s wedding in the summer of 2010.  Natalie had just decided to move to Uganda for a year and I had just had my first interview for a position in Afghanistan.  To most of our friends and family we were either mentally unstable or living a dream that they wished they could.  We held strong to each other and supported one another in our “crazy” adventure.  When Natalie first told me about her idea to volunteer in Uganda I promised her I would visit.  At that point I was still working at Marshall and would need to save for years to afford that trip, but I knew somehow I would make it happen.  After all, how often do you have a friend to show you around Africa?  Thankfully fate stepped in and I got a job in Afghanistan and could save the money to see Natalie.

We met up in Kampala, the capital city.  It is bustling and quite intimidating.  We rode “boda bodas” everywhere.  These are dilapidated motorcycles that you have to hold onto the back bar and balance on (you never hold the driver) while the driver weaves in and out of traffic so close to the other vehicles that your knees literally brush the sides of vans that are whizzing by.  Natalie and Jess Blackwell (Natalie’s friend who was visiting and helping out for a month) greeted me with huge smiles.  I brought them icing and hot sauce! (delicacies they couldn't find in Africa).  We stayed at the Red Chili Hideaway.  If you ever find yourself in Kampala, this is the place to stay.  There were people there from all over the world.  At night we each got a beer and just relaxed outside talking to Australians, Brits, Macedonians, Germans and whoever else waltzed by.  We then took a 3 day safari around Murchison Falls.

Jess, Me and Natalie in front of some murderous hippos

The safari was absolutely incredible.  We saw all the “biggies” elephants, lions, hippos, crocodiles, wildebeests, warthogs, and meerkats.  The whole cast of The Lion King was there.  At night we stayed in tents with warnings to not venture outside because you might get run over by a hippo.  They kill more people than any other animal in Africa!  After the safari was one of the most nervous times I have ever been in my entire life.  We needed to go north to Gulu, but our safari was returning the 3 hours back south to Kampala.  Natalie decided we could just hop out at the next big town and jump on the next bus that was going to Gulu.  Fool proof plan.  I wasn’t a big fan to begin with.  It all sounded too up in the air.  There might be a bus at this time, hopefully it’s not too full, we should be able to find a place to wait.  Well then our safari van broke down, in front of a military compound so Ugandans came chasing after us with M4s to move.  As we waited at a restaurant for the van to be fixed and the minutes ticked by, decreasing our chances of catching the last bus to Gulu which came some time in the afternoon, I went from being not a big fan, to downright obstinate about Natalie’s “plan.”  But she was the Africa expert after all, so we went with it.  At the stop, the van dropped us off and our only American friends – a 7 month pregnant woman and her husband, wished us well and gave us a look like "I really hope I’m not going to be interviewed by Nancy Grace about what happened to those cute American girls we went on safari with."  We got to the stop where the busses fly by and there were Ugandans all around trying to sell us goods and shoving meat on sticks in our faces.  We had no idea if a bus to Gulu had passed by or not, and there are no hotels or anywhere else to stay for literally hundreds of miles.  Also of course we are the only, Mzungus – Whiteys, for hundreds of miles as well.  Thankfully a bus pulled up marked Gulu and we hopped on.  It was the most relieving feeling ever, until I smelled the live chicken in a cage next to me.

We arrived in Gulu and then took boda bodas back to Lukodi where Natalie lived.  She worked for Child Voice International.  They are an organization that rehabilitates women who were former child soldiers or ravaged by the war.  The Lord’s Resistance Army ravaged northern Uganda for years raping women and killing men.  Many of the women at the center were forced “into the bush” where they lived for years off the land in the forest to escape the murdering and raping that was occurring in their villages.  They are the strongest women I have ever met.  Through all this tragedy, watching their family be murdered in front of them, having children from rape, instead of wallowing, they want to make their life better.  They came to the center to learn a trade, so they can provide for their children.

Natalie's mud hut home

Our hammocks, bath tub, water jugs, dishes, and pee cups

One of the women braiding Jess' hair

I thought I understood “poor.”  I had no idea.  All of these women and children have one, just one outfit.  It usually includes a shirt with holes in it, ratty pants, and a pair of incredibly thin and worn flip flops.  We all ate the same meal twice a day, everyday.  Rice and beans.  Natalie had commandeered some spice packets from the last girl that volunteered, so every night we chose to convince ourselves we were either eating chili, enchiladas, or anything with hot sauce on it.  Although these women had little to nothing, they were always trying to do things for us, give to us.  It was amazing.

We lived in a mud hut with no running water and electricity for only a couple hours per night.  It was February and sweltering hot.  We slept in hammocks with mosquito nets to prevent disease.  The first morning I awoke to Jess’ alarm clock tone which sounded eerily similar to the mass casualty alarm on KAF.  I freaked out trying to get out of the net I was zipped in to jump to the floor, then I remembered I was in Africa.  Natalie was incredibly proud of the fact that she managed to get me my very own…pee bucket!  A lovely used butter container.  For any other matters, there was  literally a hole in the ground (no seat of any kind) with a wooden shed around it.  When I first took a tour of the grounds I saw a cage of rabbits and thought they were adorable pets for the children, I was quickly corrected that they were delicious special holiday treats for the children. 

The kids were my favorite part of the entire trip.  They don’t understand a word I am saying but they laugh and play just the same.  When we would go for our evening walk and come back they would all rush the gate screaming, “MZUNGUS!!!” and leap into our arms.  We felt like rockstars.  When we were on our walk, Ugandans would stop us and ask in their language that only Natalie understood, “What are you doing?!”  It was such a foreign concept to them that someone would walk for no reason other than to walk.  They get so much exercise from doing all their daily tasks of preparing meals by beating grain with a large bat, doing laundry by scrubbing clothes against a metal plate, fetching water in huge containers from the well that is far away, that one would never need to talk a “walk.”  

The kids watching Natalie and I paint a hopscotch

They were all so sweet and so welcoming even after all they had endured.  Natalie and I talked about how much guilt we felt.  Guilt that we were born into a life of such luxury in West Virginia while these children in our eyes were born into despair.  To them though, it's not despair.  They thank God everyday in beautiful hymns that they were so blessed to be spared.  They lived another day, and that was something to thank God for.

In Uganda to say Good Morning you say, Apwoyo Matek which literally translates as, “Thank you for waking.”  I was dirty, stinky, without caffeine, hot and cranky, and yet every single Ugandan I pass is thanking me for being alive.  What a simply beautiful way to live.

Do I need to assign you a battle buddy?! - The Joys of Mil Air

To fly military air there is no ticket purchasing for a particular date or time, instead I must sign up 10 days ahead of when I actually want to leave the country and hope there is space on a flight.  I cross my fingers and hope for the best as my name starts out at 76 on the list.  As flights leave spaces get taken, and my name keeps moving toward the top.  My coworkers said you usually want your number to be in the teens to get on a flight.  The day before I want to make a flight I am at 36.  Not a good sign.

The day of my hopeful flight I borrow my coworker Scott’s huge hiking backpack, place it on my back (almost tip over), and then go to the PAX (passenger terminal).  I am a nervous wreck.  What if I don’t understand one of the abbreviations?  What if there isn’t room for me on the flight, and I get bumped to the next day?  What if I sit in the wrong seat, or follow the wrong procedure? 

The huge backpack, dwarfed only by the huge pig

I sit on the backpack while in line outside and a lady takes our CACs (military ID cards).  As I wait I eat a chicken sandwich.  I had been warned that it can take about 4 hours to physically get on the flight, and you can’t leave the building so fueling beforehand is imperative.  The woman comes back out and calls for a particular unit that was going on leave, and they file past us.  Then we get the call to get in the security line.  Ummm, guess this means I got on the flight?

I then enter a hard structure that literally the ceiling and parts of doorways and walls are crumbling, not exactly JFK or London Heathrow.  I hear though that KAF is the busiest single runway in the world.  At security there is no need to separate your liquids or take your laptop out of its bag.  Just throw your guns, knives, body armor and helmet on the belt, walk on through, ignore the metal detector going off, and pick up all your weapons on the other side.  My sister got her nail scissors confiscated at an airport, and the guy in front of me just picked up his 9mm gun.  This flight is going to be a little different.

I walk upstairs and hang out in one of the waiting areas.  There are a few tvs and some port-o-johns outside, no Starbucks, airport shops, or free wifi.  I wait around then they start calling out last fours (the last four of your social security number) and return our CACs.  I spot a soldier who frequents our center, and immediately I decompress.  It is as if his mere presence will ensure my safe travel to Kuwait.  Next thing I know they do an all call (basically scream get in line and on the plane).  We all suit up with our IBA (individualized body armor aka flak jacket aka bullet proof vest) and helmet, and stand in line.  I am sporting some jeans, a tshirt, camo ballet flats, a massive flak jacket with a colorful African purse strewn across it, and I’m holding my helmet.  I can just see the stares of the military on my flight thinking, what in the hell is she doing here?

While we are standing on the flight line the sound of airplanes roaring past is absolutely deafening.  We literally have to stop walking at one point to let an airplane taxi by us.  I could have run out and licked it.  The back of our plane is opened up like a toddler sticking its tongue out.  We walk single file up the ramp, and I sit in a jump seat.  In the plane the jump seats are on the side.  They have sort of a seatbelt-like bottom, and the back is simply a pad attached to the side of the plane.  These are surprisingly more comfortable than the traditional airplane seats that are shoved incredibly close together on palettes in the middle of the aircraft.  In the jump seats you get as much leg room as you could possibly want.  Behind the traditional airplane seats are pallets with all our luggage Saran wrapped on top of them.  On my way back there were Conex boxes (the big containers trains pull) in the middle of the plane instead of airplane seats.  An airman walks by and passes out ear plugs and mumbles some safety features as I intently gaze at all the exposed wiring above my head.  Then, we’re off!  There are no windows inside, so you can’t judge the progress but we accelerate extremely fast and break into the air.  I try to push out of my head the reasoning for the incredibly sudden ascent.  I just hold on so I don’t smash into the soldier to my right.  On most commercial flights I can’t sleep, but with the loud humming of the engine and seeing all the soldiers relax and drift to sleep, I fall asleep as well.  Four hours later I’m in Kuwait.

After following instruction for civilians and having two soldiers help me back into my over-sized backpack, I was on my way to the USO at Kuwait.  I stayed for a day and then hopped onto my commercial flight to Africa.

Now being a veteran mil air-er, I thought I had it down pat for my way back.  I got a whopping 3 hours of sleep after my flight from Africa, and then I grabbed some coffee and walked to the PAX on base in Kuwait.  Once I got there I realized I had completely forgotten my IBA.  You can’t fly without it, not to mention I can’t lose it in Kuwait.  What if I need it back in Afghanistan? (Let’s all hope not!)  I check in at the front desk and tell the guy I forgot my IBA back at the USO.  He tells me that after you check in for your showtime you are on lock-down and aren’t allowed to leave.  Well crap, my showtime is in 10 minutes.  He tells me I can throw my bag on these wooden shelves and go get my IBA.  Apparently the military does not have the ‘don’t leave your luggage unattended’ rule.  I rush back to the USO, and we try to get into the Conex box where my IBA is stored.  The lock is jammed.  I tell Randy, fellow USO-er in Kuwait, to just ask a soldier in the center to bring it to me at the PAX when she gets the lock figured out.  I then take off back to the PAX.  I make it just in time and find out I’m on the flight.  Phew.  It’s all good.

A couple minutes later Randy shows up with my IBA, and we chat it up.  Then I sit down on some chairs next to about 50 or 60 soldiers and start to enjoy my now lukewarm coffee when a Sergeant Major yells out, “SARAH KEMP, SARAH KEMP!”  I meekly raise my hand.  Everyone is now staring.  He comes over to me, “Do you have a bag to palletize?”  “Yes sir.”  “Well show me to it.”  We grab my bag and while walking he says, “Did you not hear me when I called for everyone on Moose 83 to come palletize their bags?”  (Every flight has a call sign, ours was Moose 83).  I reply, no sir.  He says, “Yep, I figured you were too busy chatting with your little friend, but I thought I’d let you make your own mistake.”

We walk out and I throw my bag on the pallet while a contractor asks if I am Sarah Kemp.  I say yes.  He then verbally assaults me/explains to me that I need to listen to all instruction.  I'm brusquely informed that our next call time is noon, but it might be before that so I need to pay attention.  Then as we’re walking back the Sergeant Major (SGM) says, “We need to know where you are at all times, so even if you need to take a piss you need to let someone know you’re going to the latrine.”  Wow, got it.  I haven’t had to report my bathroom breaks since getting a hall pass in high school. 

We’re back in the terminal hanging around and I realize, I’m nervous.  I have to pee.  Maybe I can hold it…or maybe not, it is a 4 hour flight.  I walk over to the SGM and tap him on the shoulder.  He angrily turns around, then sees it me and smiles and says, “yessssss?”  I ask him may I please use the restroom?  And his quick and loud response is, “SARAH KEMP DO I NEED TO ASSIGN YOU A BATTLE BUDDY?!?!”  “NO SIR!”  I reply.  He tells me where the bathroom is, and I scurry off.  While outside in route to the bathroom two soldiers who apparently had witnessed the earlier incidents yell after me, “Did you tell someone you were taking a piss?”  and start busting out in laughter.  Yep, that’s me; I provide entertainment for the troops wherever I go. 

I return to the terminal, tell the SGM I’m back, and patiently wait.  An airman gets up and announces something like BEAR63, flight to Bagram, is now leaving.  I shrug it off knowing that it is not my intended destination nor my call sign when I hear SGM yell, “SARAH KEMP, THAT IS NOT YOUR FLIGHT.”  I break out in laughter along with about 20 soldiers who are within earshot, and I yell loudly back, “YES SIR, UNDERSTOOD SIR.” 

Eventually they call out my flight’s call sign, and we file on the plane.  I look down my row and see the SGM.  I give a huge thumbs up and scream, “I’m on the plane, sir!”  He just shakes his head and laughs.  It was an uneventful flight back, until we landed.  They don’t let us off the flight, so we sit on the airplane for approximately 45 minutes.  Then they open the back of the plane, and we can see the rain pouring down.  I don’t have a hood on.  We are told to exit the plane.  We walk through the rain to a school bus that is parked in the middle of the flight line.  The bus is already packed with soldiers who are going to get on our plane to fly back to Kuwait.  Everyone has their IBA on, and most soldiers have backpacks.  The bus is stuffed, to put it lightly.  This is where being a girl comes in handy, I get offered a seat, and collapse.  It is now 2000 and my last meal was a coffee and half a muffin at 1000.  This makes for a not very pleasant Sarah.  I distract myself by asking the soldier next to me about the reasons of his numerous tattoos (most explanations of course involved copious amounts of alcohol and friends with tattoo guns, or women’s names who he never wanted to speak of again, yet they are forever engraved on his neck).

We sit on the bus for no joke, 2 hours.  Finally they let the soldiers who are getting on our flight off.  They file out then we make way for the PAX.  Once at the PAX we get off the bus and sort through the pallets in the rain looking for our luggage.  Inside we give our CACs to the airmen to make sure we belong there, and finally are released.

I make eye contact with the SGM in the holding area and he says, “Do you have a ride SARAH KEMP?”  Oh how nice, I’m touched by his concern.  I answer, “Yes sir, but thank you.” 

“Thank you for what?  I wasn’t offering you a ride.  I was just asking if you had one.” 

Oh the joys of mil air.