Lukodi Village

Exactly two weeks until my birthday :)
Today we went to Lukodi, a village outside of Gulu. A survivor from the Lukodi massacre, which happened in 2004, invited us there after speaking to us last week in class. The scenery on the way to the village was incredible. Nothing but fields, trees, and in the background mountains. I loved it :D Once we arrived, we were greeted by the local people from the village at the local school. We walked to see the memorial and hear the testimony from a few survivors. It was heartbreaking what we heard. 56 people were killed in the massacre and even more are still missing to this day. One of the worst things about this particular site is that the people of this village buried their loved ones according to culture after the massacre but they were then required to unbury them for evidence and then bury them again. It broke my heart when hearing this and even more when I saw grown men cry when remembering it. After we saw the memorial, we walked to the new site in which they plan to build a community center. The land on which they plan to build is beautiful and there is an old building that was falling down with trees growing through it. It reminded me of The Secret Garden. After looking at the new location and hearing what they imagined to be there one day, we walked back to the school to see their classrooms and to play a game of “football” (soccer) with the local team. I didnt personally play but the guys that are on the trip played. We watched and enjoyed the wonderful breeze. During the game more and more village children came to watch so I handed out my silly bands to them. They loved them! But some of the kids were trying to be dishonest and take more than one so it got kinda rowdy. Once the game was over we got back on our bus and headed back to Gulu. It was an amazing day.That night we went to eat ethiopian. It was yummy! It started raining while we were there so we had ride the botas back on muddy/puddly roads. Not fun. Today was much better than yesterday and it was great to be able to see more of Uganda. It amazing to hear the stories of the survivors and to see how optimistic they are.

Quote
“Your hair comes in first, yours in second, and yours last”

PS my hair finally got touched by a random women.