StaffFocus: Patricia

Patricia endured a journey that consumed years of her youth. Torn away from everything she knew as a child, Patricia returned, world-weary - with a child herself - searching for a home. She found it at the ChildVoice Lukodi Centre.

Losing home
Patricia spent most of her childhood in Gulu District, a region of northern Uganda pummeled by the war and shrouded in fear. At 11, Patricia's childhood was put on hold. The nightmare everyone in the village feared happened to her. Along with others, Patricia was dragged into the bush by the Lord's Resistance Army, forced to live as a mule, a pack animal. She was no longer a school child - barely even a human.

Suffering. Those who use the word know the weight of it. For two years Patricia suffered - walking for miles and miles every day with this new tribe, heartless, hungry, starving - searching for food and searching for victims. This suffering was all around her - no one was spared. Patricia watched helplessly as her peers, other children, were pulled into the madness. They were forced to kill. Refusing such orders guaranteed their own death.

Patricia was never made to do "those bad things", and for that she is clearly thankful. But she cannot escape what she endured. Patricia recalls her time with the LRA with a single word: suffering. No other details are needed. From her mouth, the word is soaked in sadness and pain.

Two years of her life were stolen by the LRA. Like so many Ugandan children of this era, Patricia found a way to escape the horrors of captivity and, subsequently, look for a way to return to her life. But Patricia's journey was not over. She moved south to Kampala for four years, seeking haven from her past. From there, Patricia's uncle brought her to Kenya to live with a cousin. It was there that she learned to cook. Her cousin was a caterer, so Patricia used that time to learn and practice a marketable skill under the tutelage of someone who cared for her.

Rebuilding her life in Kenya, Patricia met a man who became her boyfriend. The two grew close, and Patricia became pregnant with his child. This was the turning point - the moment that Patricia's support network began to crumble. Her cousin turned her out to live on her own. Her uncle withheld support. And her boyfriend, the father of her child, abandoned her.

Just like that, she was on her own.

Patricia was despondent. Confusion washed over her: What had she done to deserve all this? With a child now, she was lost, disoriented, alone. In those depths, Patricia summoned the courage to find her way back.

"I wanted to stand by myself."
With money from her brother, Patricia bought a bus ticket back to Gulu and, in 2005, settled in the internally displaced persons camp (IDP) in Lukodi. Shortly after, ChildVoice International began refurbishing the old primary school nearby to serve as the campus for its pilot program. As the ChildVoice crew readied the facility to welcome its young program participants, Patricia struck up a relationship with some of the new staff.

Though she was closer to family - in particular, her brother James - Patricia was still struggling. Like most inhabitants of the IDP camp, she had no job and no means of supporting her son. She convinced intern Sonia Taly and then Logistics Officer Richard Kyitarinyeba to let her try her hand at cooking. The opportunity was all she needed. Patricia threw herself into the job - first by cooking lunches for the men building the kitchen at the Lukodi site, then by serving as full-time cook for the new Centre residents.

Finding a home
She's been working at the Lukodi Centre for more than a year now (alongside her brother James, who performs maintenance and security duties at the Lukodi campus). Days start at dawn with the preparation of breakfast - then lunch, then dinner. Often, work winds down as late as eight o'clock. Meal after meal of beans and rice, sometimes chicken - her favorite is chicken. In the tradition of Acholi culture, guests are served greater variety: pork, potatoes, greens, fruit.

Between meals Patricia walks to the nearest well to haul back jugs of water. Twenty times a day she makes this trip, each time returning with the full jerry can balanced atop her head. The work is hard and never ending, but there are many mouths to feed, and Patricia is proud to be the one doing it.

One of those hungry mouths belongs to Patricia's 3-year-old son, Jesse. He has become a mainstay at the Lukodi campus, a shy boy who paces the periphery of activity - but a boy who has slowly eased into life at the Centre and finally claimed it as his own. He would avoid interacting with other children and participating in early childhood development (ECD) classes by darting to the refuge of the kitchen and attaching himself to the hem of his mother's apron. Now, he is a regularly attending student in ECD classes who can proudly recite his ABCs and sing the class songs. His mother beams as she recounts his progress.

This is clearly home now. The long, painful journey - from the Ugandan bush to a Kenyan city - has brought Patricia here. Knocked down by adversity and abandonment, she has found a way to stand on her own. Patricia is employed and empowered, able to care for her son - and finding meaning in feeding and nurturing girls who share a common past.