ChildFocus: Concy
TODAY.
Today, on this sunny, bright morning, Concy awakened to a beautiful new dawn at the ChildVoice International program in Lukodi. The mangoes are ripening outside her dormitory and a warm breeze wafts through the grasses. She rises and hugs her one year old son, (named after a member of the medical team who came to Lukodi last June), and smiles tenderly at him. She readies herself for the daily activities, classes and vocational training at the center. She may even find time to frolic with her baby son.
It is seemingly typical to think about a young mother like this, balancing her time between her family and her responsibilities-- hoping to find time to play with her children and enjoy herself as she navigates the demands of the day. For Concy, however, her life has been anything but typical.
The 17- year old young mother walks outside her bedroom door, with her son on her hip, and welcomes her surroundings—an area that she has been familiar with most of her life. Only now it looks starkly different than it looked on a May morning in 2004. Concy has lived in Lukodi before. She lived here until she was stolen from her family and taken to the bush to live for two years. This is only part of the story that she has endured as she struggled to make it home
YESTERDAY.
She, like any preteen child, awoke that morning, saying hello to her family, and getting her chores finished before she walked to school. Her day seemed as routine and predictable as any other day. She had heard about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacking a camp earlier in the week, but found solace in her daily rituals and decided to put it out of her mind. And then it all changed in an instant.
Concy watched as her home was one of many huts burned to the ground by the LRA soldiers. She watched as many people that she knew were bludgeoned to death or consumed by flames in their huts. Amidst the screaming and terror, she vainly searched for her parents, only to discover that they were both killed in the attack on Lukodi. As 42 adults and 15 children lost their lives that day, many people were able to escape the area and walk to Gulu, 17 kilometers south of Lukodi. Concy was not one of those who escaped. Her two years imprisoned in the bush had begun.
As she was forced to march along the LRA soldiers and other kidnapped women and girls, her experiences were unimaginable. As a way to condition and brainwash these children, the soldiers would demand that they kill others whom they considered “obstacles” to their murderous and twisted objectives. Concy was continuously forced to beat others with logs as they pleaded for mercy. She became numb. She advanced against her will through the bush, from camp to camp, raid to raid, commanded to execute other civilians that they encountered. Often, she was told to mutilate the faces and limbs of people, leaving them to bleed and never to fully heal. She walked, anesthetized to the terror that claimed her childhood, often burning vehicles and looting the belongings of families as innocent as Concy herself once was. She wondered and dared to wish that she could be saved from her horrifying life with the LRA. The wish finally came true on a day the Ugandan army struck the LRA camp deep in the bush. Her leg swollen and hurt, Concy managed to evade the gunfire and conceal herself beneath a log. When the fighting ceased, she stood up, and surrendered to the Ugandan army. They took her to a rehabilitation center, where she was given food and a new dress. The dress was a small happiness for Concy among the moments of confusion and liberation.
NOW.
She opens the door on a new beginning now, as she closes her own bedroom door at the ChildVoice International program and walks outside to look at the Lukodi morning; the place where she lost her parents and her youth only four years ago. She carries her son out the door, joining other mothers and children as they go about their days. She sees the school where the girls and children attend, the kitchen, the chapel, the trees and fields.
Maybe someday, she will be able to look past the reminders of the massacre-- past the bullet holes still in the shutters of the old school, past the monument to those who lost their lives and look on to her future with her son.
Now she is learning, through the programs at ChildVoice International, the skills she needs to provide for her baby and begin to piece together her life and move forward.
She wants to enjoy today and every new day.
Comments
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commented:
Oct 31 2008
Wow! What a story, I am so proud of her.
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