Uganda...makes you think for a while.you'll probably just shrug your eyebrows and tell yourself "that's the new soft beverage brand or a chain food restuarant."then you just forget it and continue with what you were doing.but this word means much more than these to me.it bears a definition of something more important, even more than my own existance, let me just tell you,that's my country.
the land i was born and grew up in. and where i am working now.i've winessed all the wars and hardships in this land and now i bear a part of our nation's history in me.i experienced poverty, solitude in an equatorial country, with the least means of comfort.here most of the population lack their basic needs such as healthy water, shelter and .....
i am a teacher, in a remote village called "Yembo Se'ene" which means hello. i only chose to be here for the sake of children who need some kindness and unconditional love.you'll find nothing but kindness among these people although life hasn't showed them anything but it's bad face. opression , violence and things like that is the cause to the people's misery here..
you may ask me why am i putting these in a blog.this may seem to you as something trivial. but it sure is important to my student.
Shoes! yes,a pair of shoes!sounds so ordninary?eh? but not to "Enzi". Enzi is a 7 year old student of mine.he lost his mother when he was 2.he has a crazy father who lives a life of nomad.he will be gone for month without anybody knowing what he does and or where he goes.he appears every once in a while in the village then he just disappears again. Enzi has been writing to his uncle (who lives in the town nearby) for some time now and keeps asking him for a pair of shoes ...but he hasn't received anything yet...you know everyday i enter the classroom and see someone is missing...my students are decreasing in number each and every day and i just can't do anything but to shake my head in regret.i can't help them anymore than this, i'm poor too and my salary is only enough to feed me for a month.
i don't have a child...i don't know when will i have one or if i'll have any.sometimes when i think about it, it frightens me, it frightens me to think that my child's fate would be the same to enzi's. i am really afraid.i can't sleep at nights and i have nightmare that my village is dstroyed, being blown by bombs, turned into dust.
don't let this make you think that ou problems here are just the lack of shoes.no!it's not that simple for Enzi. in fact having a pair of shoes is his biggest wish.he lives with his grandparents and it so happens that they have nothing to eat so poor Enzi has to sleep with an empty stomach not even knowing for certain that the house that shelters him will still be there tomorrow or will he lose that too!!most of the student miss my class hoping to find a job that can provide them and their family members some food. that's the end of the world!!! i live at the end of the world.
i'll write more about Enzi and other students in the days to come.
