Stories from Awer | Stories from Gulu and Acet

The Awer beaders are one of our newer cooperatives.  These four stories are representative of what all our beaders are experiencing.

Agnes Akot, 24
Two children, both boys, ages two and five

Agnes' bright smile belies the trials in her life.  She and her children have now left the Awer camp and with her parents and sisters have gone home to her childhood village.  But being home has not brought her peace.  All eight people in the family are crowded into one small round thatched dwelling, built with the help of the Norwegian Refugee Council.  An additional hut is badly needed, but Agnes is the only wage earner in the family and what she earns though Paper to Pearls has to go a long way, not leaving enough to pay for all the materials and labor needed for the new house.  As it is, she is setting aside money from what she earns to buy bricks, with the hope of finally saving enough to afford all the materials needed to start building.  Her father died recently and because there are now no men in the family, she will need to hire laborers, since in Acholi culture only the men build structures.

And still she smiles.  Life is better now than in the camp; there are more resources, including water, farmland, and better sanitation.

But then there's the problem of her children.  During the conflict, rebels abducted Agnes from the Awer camp, forcing her to walk with them to the Sudan border where they left her. She was 18.  As she began looking for a way home, she met a government soldier, who upon hearing her story, promised to take her back to Awer.  Instead, he took her to a town several hours from the camp.  He locked her up, forcing her into his bed and to become his wife.  After several years and two children, the soldier decided he didn't want to be with a "returnee", and threw all three of them out of his house.  Agnes returned with her children to Awer.

In Acholi culture, when women marry they and their children become part of their husband's clan.  Since her return, Agnes has been harassed by the men in her clan to get rid of the children by sending them back to their father.  They are willing to take her back but not her boys, fearing they will demand land when they are grown.  She turned to her husband for help, but he refuses to see them.  She has no solution to the problem.

Agnes talks quietly and then puts on a hat when we ask to take her picture, giving us her beautiful smile.

Betty Bilal, 42
A widow with three children

Originally from a village in Awer, Betty married a man from a different clan and village.  She lived there with her husband and children until his death, when she returned to Awer and life in the refugee camp there.  Since she is a widow and no longer part of her husband's clan, she has no land on which to settle outside the camp.  She has asked the local government for permission to stay where she is and was told she will have to wait and see if there is any land left in the camp area after others have received their distributions.

The LRA abducted the eldest of her three children in 1996, when he was 13.  There has been no news of him since.  Her two remaining, a boy, 17 and girl, 14, live with her in the camp.  She has been able to pay their school fees with her earnings from Paper to Pearls and is proud of both, especially her daughter, who is usually at the top of her class.

Betty dreams of one day building a dwelling on her own land and providing a true home for her children. 

Nancy Ayoo, 26

Married. Five children, one of whom died from malaria in 2000 when he was two.  Her four remaining children are between two and nine.

Nancy has land, but that really doesn't help.  The land is in the middle of the Awer camp, which grew on and around it.  Land that her family once farmed is now compacted and resists cultivation.  Aging structures cover the trodden dirt and water runs off it, unable to penetrate the dense soil. 

In addition, there are hundreds of bodies buried throughout the camp and none has a marker.  When people died during the war—whether from disease, injury, malnutrition, or the conflict itself—they were buried within the camp perimeter.  Now the land cannot be disturbed without disturbing, and thus disrespecting, the dead.

So Nancy and her family must rent other land on which to farm.  She and many others believe that if the government had not forced people from the camps so quickly, there might have had time to relocate the graves to new villages.  Then her family could make use of their land.

Nancy has been part of Paper to Pearls since 2006.  She uses the money she earns as many of our beaders do—for school fees, supplies and health care.

When asked what her dream is, she says it is to use savings to start a small business selling produce in Gulu town.

Grace Adoch, 45
Divorced, six children, ages 12-28

Grace is divorced and supports her six children on her own from her Paper to Pearls income.  She stills lives in the Awer camp, hanging on to her small hut for as long as she can, since she has no one to help her with the funding and building of a new home.  Her ex-husband refuses to help.

As is the case with so many of our beaders, there is a 'back story' to Grace's predicament.  In 2001 she was abducted by the rebels and abused in the bush for three months.  Upon returning home, her husband divorced her and forced her and the children out of the house.  Although she tested negative for HIV, he didn't want to be with a woman who had been raped.

Grace has land that her former husband doesn't want, but not the 200,000 shillings [$100] for the materials and labor needed to create the home she longs for.  Before the ceasefire and the disbanding of the camps, Grace rented her land to farmers, earning valuable income, which she used primarily for school fees.  Now, however, most people are moving back to their own land and no longer need to rent. 

All six children still live with her.  Her eldest son was close to marriage but couldn't afford a wedding and a new life.  His fiancé left.

Grace expresses her request simply:  "Please Mama Barbara, please provide additional support for school fees.  I would have nothing without Paper to Pearls, but I need so much school money with so many children.  Each child's fees are 300,000 [$150] per year.  Can you do more?"   I reach out to buy more of her necklaces, even though we have finished all our Market Days purchases.  I think about establishing a sponsorship program for the beaders' children through Paper to Pearls.  I'm thinking about it still.