At home once again

Sunday May 27, 2007 came as a surprise to me; I decided to make a ride on my motorcycle to visit our original village. Because of the war, we deserted our homes almost fifteen years ago. The ride of 45 kilometers according to the reading on my motorbike, the journey took me one hour, it is a fairly good murram road with some pot-holes here and there. As I was riding I could see gardens of groundnuts, cassava and other crops along the road side.
I arrived at Corner Nwoya camp near my home village at 11:00am this camp is one of the newly created camps, called it satellite camp if you like. Although seems to be a bit planned, but the sight of children standing naked and not hiding their poverty, both youth and adult staring at passers-by cannot be avoided.

Instead of meeting my father, who is a retired school teacher, I decided to go straight to my first primary school where I expected to get Christian praying. This school, Nwoya P.7 was displaced and had just reopened this year on the original site. I was welcome by at least fifteen people who had come to pray. The place still looks deserted. The catechists were ready to start the service and of course I joined them in a 40 minutes service. After the service I then decided to a ten fifteen minutes walk to our ancestral home.I managed to get there and recognize some of the trees planted by my father like eucalyptus that have now grown very big and tall. being a seacon for mango,I ate one mango fruit as a sign that at least I have visited the place, and it reminded me of my childhood days. One striking thing was the borehole(see the picture above) that has been constructed by the Sub-county local government at the site of our ancestral well lacally called Wang-Aric.At the moment very few people use the water, but given peace many are going to benifit from this clean water. What I failed to see was the grave of my grandmother who died before the war, and of my uncle who was killed during the war. Maybe next time I visit I have to ask my father to direct me. After this I went to the camp where I met my father and some of my relatives. We had good time and good discussions. My father said he is not yet ready to go and stay at home because of unpredictable security situation, given the fragile peace talk in Sudan.

By Rev.Willy Akena

Pictures above: on the left is a group photo of those who attended the service in this once deserted place and in the background is the classroom where I sat for my Primary Leaveing Examinations before the war.
On the right is of Rev.Willy Akena standing at the borehole(taken by my wife Poline)