My first angel lives in the Acholi slums. The slums are located on the outskirts of Kampala and are inhabitated by 1000 families that have been mainly displaced from Northern Uganda. Most of the families fled the north years ago because the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was pillaging villages, killing thousands, and kidnapping children to populate the "child army."
Although the violence in the north has subsided with the LRA's retreat to Sudan, the people of the Acholi slums cannot return to the north for lack of livelihood. To do so would also require that they start over and rebuild their homes. In addition, they fear the return of the LRA.
We visited the slums bringing rices, beans, sugar, flour, soap and worm pills for distribution to the families. We also brought books, toys, and clothes for the chidren.
The slums are like nothing that I had ever seen/smelled or imagined. Clay homes, no bigger than the size of my hotel bathroom, house entire families. Hundreds of these homes sit within a couple of yards from each other on a steep clay hillside, and dirty water trickles between them down the incline.
And amongst it all this, I saw my first angel. I little spitfire with a twinkle in her eye and new stickers on her forehead. She was about six years old and had the loveliest brown eyes. She picked me and wouldn't let go of my hand. When I eventually had to board the bus, she glared at me with angry eyes that said "You are leaving me here." My heart broke. I stared back saying "I cannot take you." So that I didn't cry in front of her, I did something to make her laugh.
I say she was my angel because she still has hope & spirit in a place where squalor, filth, and poverty unceasingly reign.
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