America Eats Africa: A Night Spent in Pabo

I am sitting in the back of a white pick up truck speeding down a burnt sienna road. Above me cotton clouds fill a bright blue sky and all around me tall grasses, a myriad of green and yellow, sway with the breeze. In the distance the rolling land exposes clusters of trees and bushes and a horizon of shadowy hills. We are driving through an oil painting entitled “African Paradise”.

Inside the truck I am surrounded by jerry cans, boxes of curry powder and other groceries, and a large machine tied down with twine. There are six others traveling with me today. Along the window of the cab, my Dwon Madiki companion and a young woman sit on boxes of salt. Beside them sits an elderly woman with a tall thin stick. She is wearing a pastel shirt with a loud early 90s pattern. Over the pocket it says “Original JAMS”. Two middle aged men sit on the opposite side of the truck from me and a young guy about my age hangs dangerously close to the edge of the vehicle. As we bumpily maneuver through potholes, I grip the side railing for safety. In the middle of this stunning scenery, wind cascading through my hair, I cannot believe that we are leaving Pabo. Though mere minutes, I feel worlds away.

Pabo is an Internally Displaced Persons camp in the Gulu district of Uganda. It is the largest in the country and perhaps the most impoverished as well. We are going there today to check in on two students from the Dwon Madiki Partnership who live there. In order to experience life in an IDP camp, Madisson and I have decided to spend the night. There has been much discussion about whether we should sleep in the hut with the family or in the camp’s parish but I think that we will play it by ear and decide once we get there.

Megan and Kevin have some work to do before they join us in Pabo, so Kevin shows us where to catch a bus and we wait. We just missed one bus, so the wait time is long. I wander to a food stand nearby and grab some chapatti before settling in to play some Snake Xenzia on our phone. After an hour, a bus arrives heading to Pabo and for 4,000 shillings we board. I am leading the line of DMP travelers and am first to notice the four large sacks of cabbage blocking the aisle to the only empty seats left. In an act of desperation, I climb over seats and leafy vegetables to a window seat in the back. After a half an hour of possible mechanical problems, we take off on our way to Pabo. The ride is bumpy and combined with the smell of exhaust, I feel quite nauseated. Luckily we arrive in one hour, despite Kevin’s estimated travel time of two and a half. Because of our delays, Megan and Kevin have beaten us here, so we walk to find them. When we reunite, we make our way to Pabo Primary School.

It is soon apparent that we have arrived at an incredibly poor time: lunch break. As we walk toward the school, hundreds of students donning pink and blue uniforms are heading in our direction. The first small wave of children wave and greet us, “Munus! Kopa di?” Soon the small wave turns into something more like a swarm. As we walk at least a hundred kids follow us. They shake our hands or simply try to touch us, laughing, squealing, and greeting. To them we are a novelty; to them we are money. In this moment I know exactly the feeling of an international celebrity. Kevin, trying to avoid the crowd has sped up and is walking 20 feet ahead of us. Having driven here on his boda, he wears a large puffy coat and sunglasses. In this moment he is our bodyguard. And he is doing a poor job. In a lapse of judgment we take out our cameras to capture this moment, exciting the masses even more. Kevin finally comes to our aid, shouting at the children in Luo telling them to go home and leave us alone. Some scatter but most stick around until the head teacher at the school appears and shoos them away. He leads us to the school and I see that Megan is reading a letter. It was given to her by one of the many children, and I soon find out that it is a hand written plea for help from an orphan who is unable to pay school fees. The saddest part of this scenario to me is that the thought that Moses was holding on to this letter just waiting and hoping for someone who might be able to help to come on by.


In the office of Pabo Primary, we remind the head teacher about our program and explain that we wish to check in on our students. He calls for their teachers and while he does the five of us wait. All around the walls are posters. I notice one that reads, “Overworking women makes them grow old quicker. They get ugly.” I’m mildly disturbed by this hanging in a school, but I try to ignore it. When the head teacher comes back with the student’s teachers Kevin, Megan, and Laura leave, allowing the education majors to talk it out. As with most of our experiences talking to teachers, I am not assured that they actually know who our students are. They give us generic answers when we ask how they are doing in class saying, “She is active. Her English needs work. She behaves well.” It seems rather unproductive. We plan to come back to the school to observe a lesson after lunch and we meet back up with the others.

Kevin takes us now to the family’s hut. We walk through the congested camp, most huts close enough that I could lie between them and touch both. They are made of clay and have grass-thatched roofs, but many cover their roofs with tarps for fear of fire which easily moves through the camp. I walk past huts that have doors fashioned out of USAid cans, USA, USA, USA written all over the door. I feel as though this is a statement on something but I’m not sure what. We are invited into the family’s hut, and I must duck down beneath the roof to enter. They have set out two wooden benches for us to sit on while they take seats on the floor. Along with Beatrice and Wilfred who are in DMP, their mother has two other children. Daniel, who is about three years old, has bad burns covering most of his face after falling into a fire when he was a baby. And being held closely by his mother is baby Ogenrwot David. This was the baby our fellow ICer was asked to name last year and he gave him his exact name. This gives us a good chuckle.

Beatrice ran to fetch us some soda, a treat given to us regularly as a sign of hospitality. Fantas and Pepsis all around, we begin discussing some business. Kevin talks about putting the children into boarding schools next year, which seems to be positive news. There are some requirements like mattresses, shoes, and a Bible that we leave to the guardians to pay and we ask if this will be feasible. I am happy to hear that it likely will since there are eight months to prepare. During this conversation we learn that Felda is HIV positive and the children’s father died from the disease. I had not known this before and I wonder if the children are inflicted too. I am told they have not yet been tested.

We leave the family and start walking to the parish. Kevin told us that it would be safest to sleep there tonight. Because we worked up so much attention just walking through the camp, it would be known munus were staying in the hut and it would be a likely target for attack. So we decide to stay in the hut until eight and then have the children walk us to the parish to sleep. When our living arrangements are made, Kevin leaves with Megan and Laura. Though I am happy to be staying tonight, I feel a little anxious to be there without Kevin. He is like our big brother here and to not have his protection is a little unnerving.

Madisson and I walk back to the school and are escorted to Beatrice’s P5 classroom. The man taking us there tells us a little about the school. During the war, many of the village schools closed and so the Pabo School was built hastily to accommodate the floods of displaced children. As we walk through the patchy, half dead grass, he tells us the lawn was once used for food distribution during the war.

We finally get to the class, and sit in the back of the room. We are observing an English lesson today and the topic is turning nouns into adjectives using the “ish”. The kids recite England/English, Britain/British, fool/foolish, and child/childish. The teacher asks for some example sentences using one of these words and (because there is already a sample on the board of “She is so foolish”) a boy raises his hand to answer, “She is SO British.” The thought of Mary Poppins comes into my head, thinking of what it would take to make someone so emphatically British. At the end of the lesson, the teacher writes some exercises on the board. The first asks the students to change the nouns into adjectives: boy, girl, woman. I contemplate these for a minute and when I think of womanish, I exchange confused looks with Madisson. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before. The students don’t seem bothered by this and get going on their practice work. We are sitting closely to Beatrice and I watch her complete the work. Her teacher comes by to correct her and the only one she gets wrong is womanish.

At the end of this lesson, the class says goodbye to us and performs a special clap and we head to Wilfred’s P4 room. The day is almost done and they have completed their lesson. We sit for a moment and greet the students and the teacher introduces us to the wrong child: here is Alfred, your student. The teacher speaks in Luo to the kids about us and they laugh. I make an exaggerated confused face and the laughter becomes uproarious. I am happy to only spend a few more moments in this room. Class is dismissed, we find Wilfred and Beatrice among the sea of children, and they walk us back to their home.

Back in the home, Felda and another woman are cooking dinner. Madisson and I sit with Beatrice and Wilfred. There is an obvious language barrier, their English about as good as my Luo. I had wanted to simply hang out with them and do what they do when they get home from school, but I think there is something special about our visit that robs their day of its normalcy. So we sit. I pull out a piece of paper from my bag and some paper and see if they would like to draw. They take them happily and we all draw quietly together. I draw the only thing I can think of how to say in Luo: gueno or chicken. When I show the kids, they laugh. Beatrice pulls out some of her school notebooks and writes some things down. When she shows us, I see what she has written, “America Eats Africa.” My mind searches for a context or possible mistake, but I have no ideas. Again Madisson and I exchange looks, this time one of amusement.

Soon we are served dinner, a large portion of maize and beans. I am grateful that this family, with so little, goes so far to welcome us into their home and feed us. I am not sure why but the family eats outside without us. Beatrice stays with us and I am happy about that.

With dinner done, Madisson and I sit outside with the family. Little words are exchanged due to language but I don’t mind much. Kids start to notice we are outside and a buzz is created. After a while Felda gets a stick and starts shooing them away. I think in a weird way she enjoys having the attention munus bring. After a while, I see Wilfred writing “one, two” in the dirt with a stick. I take this as an opportunity to start an impromptu lesson. We start writing numbers, which soon leads to math problems in the dirt. It is fun and Wilfred is quite good at addition. Madisson begins doing the same with Beatrice. What started with playful math soon becomes a game show. A large group of people (children and adults) gathers to watch us. With each problem, I feel the eyes of the masses waiting for the correct answer. I hear whispers of people (children and adults!) helping Wilfred along with the answer, saying the numbers in Luo. The attention feels a little awkward to me, but I feel like we are bringing some excitement to the evening and so I try to squelch my discomfort.

After a while, Madisson and I decide we would like to go for a walk around the camp. We end our math problems and get up. There seems to be confusion that we are unpleased and are walking away. We explain that we just want to take a walk but we are not understood and do not know the words to say what we mean. Felda happily walks with us and we think somehow that we have made our meaning known. We walk a little way down until we reach a shop. Felda speaks to a man in Luo. He turns to us with a smile and says, “She has no idea what you said. Can you say it to me in English so I can translate?” We explain ourselves and Felda happily shows us around the place. Though I find this situation funny, it saddens me a little to be so ignorant of Luo.

Walking around the camp, I get my first real view of the stereotypical Africa, the one seen on those late night infomercials. Families are living in extreme poverty here in small clay huts with only the very basic necessities. I see children with the potbelly of malnutrition. I see children playing with the rubber of bicycle tires. One little boy has a small wooden box with a string tied around in. In it he has put a brick and he is running around toting the innovative toy around with him. He seems genuinely delighted by it. As we pass, people happily greet us with big smiles. When I look behind us I see a line of children following along behind us. We cause quite a stir. For a moment I think about what Kevin said about our presence making an attack on the family’s hut more likely. Even though we are not staying there I hope that this parade through the camp does not cause the family any unwanted attention or harm.

When we get to an open area of the camp, I look to the horizon and see the rolling landscape. In the states this would be a million dollar view. Seeing all of this open and beautiful land, I am filled with anger that these people have been wrangled and forced into this tiny patch of earth.
We return from our walk and spend the rest of our night sitting outside with the family. Again, a mass of people surrounds us, just watching us in silence. We take out our cameras and photograph the family and the hut. It is a fun time, and I am glad the digital camera allows us to show the pictures off as soon as we take them. After a while, a nursery school teacher who happens to speak English joins the crowd. She talks with us and translates for us and this is how we spend the rest of our time with the family. Dusk falls and we walk to the parish. The whole family accompanies us on the walk there. We say our goodbyes and part ways. Though we will be leaving early tomorrow I know I will see them again, for I want very badly to come back.

At the parish we are kindly welcomed and given coffee, water, and two bottles of Coke each. We are given g-nuts, which tastes absolutely delicious. Beds have been made up for us with green and pink mosquito nets. We wind down after a long day and spend hours talking until we finally give in to sleep.

In the morning, we are served a light breakfast and head on our way. With the help of a man from the church named Peter, we head to the main road in search of a ride back to Gulu. Peter suggests we take a taxi, but because they wait for full capacity of 14 people, the vehicle will likely not leave for hours. Ahead we see a pick up truck loaded with cargo. They will be leaving shortly. I am extremely hesitant to take this ride, questioning the safety of it, but do not want to wait for a taxi. I decide, perhaps against my better judgment to hop in the truck’s bed and we head on home. Soon the camp is behind us and we are driving through an African Paradise.