"The war has made our people lousy."

I knew the day would be busy, as I had scheduled several meetings and packed my schedule more than is wise to do in Gulu. But I had no idea what was in store for me that evening.

My first meeting of the day was with Robinson Obot, the District Inspector of Schools for Gulu District. We then met with the Dean of Students at Gulu University to discuss several things. After that, we met with a man named Julius who might be a research assistant for us.

My fourth meeting was with Victor of the War Affected Children’s Association (WACA). I had heard a lot about WACA and was hoping to secure a volunteer position with them or at least observe some of their programs. Victor was really nice and generous, and he started telling me all about WACA’s programs. It was founded in 2002 by people who were formerly abducted by the LRA, and it’s funded by Trustfund for Victims, which is a branch of the ICC. They have 3 components: economic empowerment, vocational training, and psychosocial support. Part of the last component is training in cultural dances. Former abductees between the ages of 19 and 30 gather together with an instructor to learn or realearn Acholi dances, and WACA provides funding for the costumes. I was invited to join Victor on a trip to Awac subcounty this Saturday to observe the dances and see some small skits.

After this we picked up some furniture for our house (I’m currently sitting at our HUGE new table and business chairs). Then we had a rendez-vous with the Pincer Group’s Gulu Office. We met Beatrice, Charles, and even Tom was there from the Kampala office. We told Beatrice we might like some volunteer positions with Pincer, so she asked us what our research is. Pincer used to work mainly with education, but now they have changed their programs a bit and work a lot with peace education. They say they unpack the “Peace” in the PRDP (Peace Recovery and Development Plan). They actually run or work with a lot of programs that have to do with cultural reinvigoration and she seemed optimistic that I would really be able to work with Pincer and have a volunteer position for my stay here.

You can see that this day improved as we went on, and now this is the awesome part. One of Pincer’s programs, run by Geore PiWang, is to encourage the reintroduction of Wango’o. When you read about Wango’o, you’ll learn that it’s an Acholi tradition of storytelling by the fireside at night. Traditionally, the grandfathers and elders would impart knowledge to the youth in a group of no more than 20 people. Before the war, people lived in family units in their villages where their families had owned land for a very long time. So everyone in the Wango’o knew each other very well, and everyone knew what was going on in the community. Because of the dangers of being out at night and the forced displacement into camps, this tradition was discontinued. Most young people we know have never been to a Wango’o, but if they had grown up before the war, they would have attended one almost every night. And out of our great friendship with Pincer, we had an invitation to attend the reintroduction of Wango’o in a village outside Gulu. I can honestly say it was one of the most enlightening experiences I have ever had in Uganda.

We drove out for maybe 15 minutes, and Tom explained to us along the way that really Wango’o is for men while women have their own kind of meeting. When we arrived, we found around 15 people of all ages, men and women, sitting around a small fire. The men were in chairs while the women sat on mats on the ground. They started out with introductions, and we were warmly welcomed to their homes. We learned that these men were the cultural leaders of this area.

George asked several people to offer up their definition of Wango’o. Since it’s been gone for so long, it was good to discuss what it’s meant to be. This didn’t actually turn out to be how a Wango’o would be before the war. It was more of a discussion of what it was, what it should be, how it can be adapted, what the war has done to traditions, and how the war has affected different generations.

Most people believed that things are too different now to really, truly go back to the way it was. The war has introduced a lot of young people to town life, and they are no longer content to go back to their villages and sit and listen to the elders at night. Advice is no longer accepted, and they no longer have a handle on all the happenings in their community. The young people in the meeting, who were just a little over 20 years old, believe they missed out on huge parts of their culture, and that the war has killed their culture. Traditions like Wango’o seem to be too out of touch, and the people believe that morality is too far gone to return to these traditions.

At the same time, though, they believe these traditions need to be reinstated in order to empower the people. One of the elders even said, “The war has made our people lousy.” After this he lamented that before the war, northerners could be found in universities all over the country. But now, very few go to university at all, even to schools in the north. He believes the people are disempowered from years of relying on food donations and government protection in the camps. They feel imprisoned in their situation. He recommended that the cultures be strengthened again, and then the Acholi will be able to continue growing and producing, as they had been.

No one knew how to strengthen the culture, though. The elders believe the youth need to be more interested in the traditions and settle down a bit. And the youth believe the elders need to push more for having the traditions returned – they need to be stronger because right now the youth have no faith in them.

But then the elders even admitted that they can’t operate at their full potential because of the way the government is. They say they are not independent or empowered and that it will take a long time to return. Without people that can restore it to its full potential, children won’t receive these values. They said that they are crying that the cultural institutions come back in their full potential.

There were so many more elements to this meeting to discuss, but I could dissect every aspect of it for hours. It was so interesting because, while it wasn’t Wango’o the way it’s meant to be, it did bring together a small group of people and they had real multi generational dialogue about their culture, their lives, the war, etc. Everyone was chomping at the bit to speak their part, and everyone had their own point of view. Even the women, who normally sit quietly in meetings like this, spoke very strongly. It displayed the huge struggle left for northern Uganda, but I think it also showed a step towards peace and normalcy. It also showed the struggle facing cultural leaders – how do you go back to what you know when so much has changed in such a violent way? How can you reconcile traditional culture with a contemporary society?