Lost In Palaro

My plan was simple: survive and serve. I minded my own business most, if not all the time speaking to patients and doctors only when I needed to. Trust no one I always told myself. I had no friends and I liked it that way. It was these similarities that drew me to this simple but guarded man, Doctor Olaratim. Who was he? What was he hiding?

It was a normal day at the center, two men __turned out to be brothers__ had bled to death their bodies slashed by pangas. They had been rescued from a close-by village that was attacked in the night. Rumors filled the corridors of other villages attacked. I was checking on the new mothers and vaccinating the newborn to 6-month old children when Olaratim half running, stomped in, and spoke directly to me.

“Pader Girls. The school. The girls! There was an attack last night.” Olaratim’s fragmented sentences were laced with fear and anxiety that made his firm voice shake.

I’d overheard the patients talk about eavesdropping on the afandes speaking of the attack.

“I heard one girl was kidnapped. Adong I think was her name…” I started. “How the afandes know is a mystery…” Unsure of what this news had to do with me or him looking at his overly concerned face.

“We shall leave here at noon. I have asked Musa to come. Carry enough First Aid supplies, we do not know how many are injured.” His sharp eyes staring straight into mine setting off a rush of blood to my head. Embarrassed, I looked away, unsure if what I sensed was just fear.

“Yes Sir, sorry Doctor.” I fumbled and wanted to pinch myself. It wasn’t like back at the camps where I would have had to refer to him as ‘Sir’.

We sat in silence for two hours as he drove over the Palaro murram roads to the girls’ school. The only sound was that of the run-down manual Toyota double cabin. It’s exhaust pipes coughing smokes of gas. It was amazing the car was still running. Musa sat up front in the passenger seat next to Olaratim and I sat in the back seat, wobbly and fluid as we hit holes in the road. One would think the clutch had offended him the way he forcefully changed gears. It did cross my mind how out of the norm this was. It was the job of the Afandes __with their trucks__ to carry victims to the nearest medical centers. How would the Mede Center run for the day without us? We did not have to go, to make matters worse, to a girl’s school that was attacked. What if the men had not left? What if one stayed behind and recognized me?

We drove through the wide-open school gate, abandoned with no gatekeeper in sight. As we passed through, I looked to my right where on the ground lay a guard covered in blood with an unrecognizable face. I was immediately sick to my stomach and shaking. The first buildings we came across were the staff quarters __four stand-alone houses that now had shattered windows. A woman lay on her back motionless with blood pooling on her side. Two girls crowded her trying to fan her. From the amount of blood around her body, she was possibly dead. We drove past them and parked in front of the two-storey class building which was further ahead. Olaratim and Musa jumped out of the double cabin and run straight into the classrooms. I stepped out of the double cabin and made a few steps towards the woman at the staff quarters. With tears rolling down my face, recalling Madam Atim and how she had fought off our attackers until her death.

Thoughts I knew were best kept to myself and which until this moment I had successfully buried deep in my memory tumbled forth. I do not know how I’d survived that long, to be honest. The Sisters at the church said it was God’s grace. According to the band of sisters, I had been chosen by the anointed lord to serve a great purpose beyond anything I could ever dream of. One greater than my interests and even my family; Many are called but few are chosen! they had repeated to me. I’d wondered why the same God had not stopped the madness and ruthless killings by his chosen high priest’s men of Madam Atim and my classmates Ajok and Balwano. The band of sisters never recounted the genesis of how they ended up in the camps. I imagined the process was the same for us all:  ‘chosen’ at the ripe age of early teens, taken from our schools in the villages or homes, our siblings and parents either killed or perhaps managing to run away or if they were ‘lucky’, they too ‘joined’ the chosen army. We were then assigned to the ‘men of god’ as wives. As the third wife to a commander but considered a girl still because I did not yet have my monthly bleeding, I was assigned as an apprentice to the head nurse and the traditional doctor and learned a lot about nursing the wounded and the sick. My only reward and portion was food, for which I was grateful.

A year passed then 2 years and still, I did not bleed. This stirred up a lot of unwelcome attention. I eventually was able to escape and volunteered as a nurse at the Gulu Town Hospital when I finally arrived there. Life at the hospital was busy in the night as many gathered in large numbers looking for safe shelter having walked for miles on end to reach before the sunset. Fear was now the chief of the village and death its master only a few dared to stay at night. A traveler __on why he walked miles every day to seek shelter in the town buildings__ had said to me at least, he had a place to call home and could not stand the thought of being carried away into an Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp. I had ended up in an IDP camp on a hunch my family had escaped there, somewhere close to Mede. Occasionally I thought back to the sisters and the life at the base camps. The moments when our ‘husbands’ returned with loot __food and household items they claimed were our reward for keeping them strong__ and with timid girls and young boys who would be recruited as child soldiers. Many like myself had been taken from schools, others from their homes. Though they had walked miles they still wouldn’t get food until the next day. I saw the pain of those families they took from. The protected IDP camps were no better. Perhaps we were never lucky but cursed to live with the very monsters that took from us.

“Are you alright?” Olaratim asked grabbing my shoulder. I turned to find him staring at me.  “You are shaking and just standing here doing nothing.”

I had not been aware I was shaking. I stood still and tried to control the fear coursing through my body causing this involuntary action.

“Get the First-Aid kit and assess the injuries of the girls in the first room. We shall need to call Mede to send some of the Afande’s cars. Please get a hold of yourself. You should be used to this by now.”

I wanted to tell him that a man who has seen death and even flirted with it can never get used to the cruelty it carries but he had moved on before I could respond. I run back over to the double cabin and grabbed what I could. Dialing Mede Helpline I requested for the Afande on duty and explained the situation at the school. To my request for support I was told two of them had no fuel and Olaratim was not around to approve their requisitions for fuel. I cursed at the Afande in my heart and instead told him to do what he could to get fuel and make their way to the school.

As I bandaged a girl’s hand __that could have easily been sliced off had she not turned to expose her frail back to the panga__ I looked up where outside across from the block was Olaratim, he seemed distressed as he spoke to a hysterical woman I thought might be the school matron. I returned my focus to my patient.

“What is your name?” I asked the semi-conscious girl whose whimpering was like a baby that had been crying too long.

“Anna. I tried…” she broke out in more sobs.

I let her finish. I understood her. Madam Atim and Balwano had tried as well. She was lucky.

“They sought her out and took her. He called her Darling.”

Darling is what they called us. When I finished I moved closer to the window where I could hear the conversation better.

“They took her Doctor. Only her!” the hysterical woman was saying as she broke down in tears and collapsed in his arms.

As strange as they seemed, I sensed Olaratim knew this woman and even still knew this Adong girl. How is he so comfortable embracing a woman? I thought.

I walked over to Musa who was also bandaging some of the girls with minor wounds. Those who were bleeding from falling on broken glass.

“Musa! Are there any other serious casualties?”

“Two girls are unconscious. They sustained serious cuts trying to escape through the windows and suffered severe blood loss. They are in the last classroom. I tied some gauze to stop the bleeding but I do not know how much longer they have. These here are alive but still in shock and some are injured.” He responded as he knelt to attend to another one of the girls.

I rushed over to Olaratim, who now appeared more distressed than I’d last seen him. I gathered the strength to interrupt.

“Two unconscious girls and possibly a dead woman. The trucks had no fuel but are hopefully on their way.”

It was as though he did not hear me. “Are you…”

“Let’s distribute the First-Aid. Musa can keep the situation here under control until those goons come. I need you to come with me.” There was fury in his eyes. “I am going to look for that bastard. I am going to find my girl and bring her home.”

I stood there stunned at the revelation the missing girl __Adong was his daughter. I could have shown more sympathy. I berated myself.

The double cabin made louder noises as Olaratim drove out of the school gate and after a few kilometers off the road into what appeared to be nowhere. I was too afraid to ask what was happening. Who was the bastard and what did he have to do with Adong?

“Move to the back and keep low,” ordered Olaratim. “I am sorry I am risking your life, but in case Adong has been harmed, I will need a nurse to do a quick check on her and treat her wounds. I only ask that you survive and help my girl survive.”

I wanted to hold his hand to reassure him that everything was going to be okay. I wanted to lie that she was safe and sound.

“Move back now!” he yelled suddenly.

I hurriedly stepped out of the co-driver’s seat and moved to the back seats. As I tried to squat between the seats I realized I had stepped on a rifle. I started to say the Lord’s Prayer asking for forgiveness. I even asked God to forgive me for having been chosen as a girl. Perhaps I deserved to be punished. I was mid-way the Lord’s Prayer when I heard the loud shattering of the passenger side mirror and then the pinging of the shot against the steel of the bonnet.

“Get down Consy,” Olaratim screamed as he reached out for the rifle bringing the car to an abrupt halt.

I heard the cocking of the gun before he pulled the trigger. A man cried out and fell to the ground. Another shot! This time the bullet hit the windscreen cracking it into an unclear screen. Olaratim quickly reversed and managed to fire a shot again. The sound of another man falling down. At this point, I was screaming the first line of the Lord’s Prayer continuously. Our Father who art in Heaven Our Father who art in Heaven.

“That bastard is not here. Only two guards on site.” He muttered to himself like a man reporting to his comrades.

“Stay down and wait for my call.” He said. When I looked over to the driver’s seat, his eyes were locked on mine. This time I did not look away. I wanted to let him know I trusted he would get us out of here safe. He seemed to nod in agreement.

He grabbed the gun and stepped out of the car. As the car door slammed, I heard the sound of a rifle being fired followed by Olaratim’s scream in agony as his body fell back against the car and then silence.

Olaratim I wanted to scream. He is alive. He has to be alive. What do I do? There had been a third man and he’d fired the shot that finished the Doctor.

“Namirrr!” a girl cried out. “Namirrrrrr!”

“He is dead.” Someone said.

I froze. A face flashed across my mind as the voice replayed in my head. The saying is true, I had run straight into my past. Whether it was fate or bad luck I was now going to face the husband who I had fled from five years ago.

I heard two men start to laugh even with the girl still screaming ‘Namirrrr’.

“Shut up Darling, your father is better off dead,” Osama said with amusement in his voice.

“We can take the double cabin as we proceed. I am sure our lord will be pleased.” The other voice echoed to Osama.

“Good idea” He chuckled. “See what else is inside there that we can use.”

My heart raced as I heard footsteps approach the double cabin. I heard Olaratim’s body get dragged away from the door. I moved quickly from the back and into the driver’s seat unsure of what I was planning to do or how I was going to get out of this mess. All I knew was that I had to get Adong and we had to escape this place.

I watched the body that was bent over dragging Olaratim’s body away __blood was flowing across what used to be his face. I started the car. The bent man jumped out of the way and our eyes met. It turned out to be Ojak, the fourth in command. He smiled when he recognized me. In disbelief at who he saw.

Adong her wailing momentarily ceased turned to the car. My eyes must have told her to run away as I was now driving straight towards her and Osama who jumped to the left to avoid being squashed by the car. I turned the car towards him braking slightly for Adong to get into the back seat before reversing quickly and driving away from them back the way we had come. Ojak who had run to find his rifle started shooting at the car as we drove past him.

“Consolate! It’s your cursed wife Consolate!” I could hear him yell as he run towards Osama.

“Namirrrr!!!” Adong collapsed in the front passenger’s seat crying afresh.

“You are safe now.” I managed to say but she only sobbed louder.

I let her cry her heart out and busied myself with finding our way through the unknown paths. When I looked up at the rear-view mirror I caught her staring at me. Her questioning eyes quickly filling with relief as she gripped my hand that sat on the gear stick. I nodded my understanding.

“We are not safe just yet,” I said. “Did they have vehicles? Were they expecting more men?” I desperately tried to estimate just how much time we had before we were chased down, hunted.