Day 4: The River of Life

Arrived at camp at 7:15 to the normal chorus of "You're late!" from the counselors. By far the most punctual people I have ever met. Don't know if that's a typical Ugandan trait or something that is specific to the EGPAF staff but these people are serious about being on time. After breakfast Joy and Rita, the two lead social workers, led a discussion about the challenges the children face. The stories the kids shared were staggering. The discussion was followed by an exercise in which the children were asked to draw a "River of Life", a timeline of their life's journey drawn to resemble the course of The Nile. With very few exceptions, the drawings began with "1. Born, 2. Father died, 3. Mother died". The stories got worse from there: periods of persistent illness, negligent or abusive relatives, hunger, homelessness. One boy admitted to an attempted suicide by overdosing on his ARVs. A girl was infected with HIV when she was raped by her stepfather at 8 years old. Another girl has been fending off the sexual advances of a 70 year old stepfather for months and was literally fighting for her life every night. I had never heard so much suffering and to see it all woven into childrens' drawings was horrific and surreal. It's one thing to hear about these tragedies on TV and assume that "life is just harder there", that the events aren't as bad for the people that suffer them as they would be for us. But to know these kids, to see that they are children just like children anywhere, then you know that there are parts of being a child that are universal to everyone. And that suffering is also universal and is felt just as keenly by everyone, no matter where they live. These drawings will haunt me forever.