Acholi Children

Today was Saturday, and the Acholi villages do nothing on the weekends, so we used this opportunity to spend all day with the children playing soccer. We met up with another aid organization who was working in Gulu and we played Munos VS. Acholis. We won, however we did steal their star player and their goal keeper for our team because we were short two players. After the game we soon came to find out that the entire team was a team of formally abducted children. They were all in between the ages of 12 and 15 and they had been taken by the LRA at some point and had all either escaped or been set free. Some of them told us horrible stories of what they had been forced to do, and it was very heart breaking. I (Jesse) became good friends with a 21 year old guy named Chris, who was abducted at a very young age and forced to kill many women and children before he was able to escape. He had some battle scars and was very open about his LRA experiences. This was uncommon because saying the words "LRA" rebels or talking of the ongoing war on the street was a sore subject, and still caused so much pain for the Acholi people. We spent hours playing with all the kids who had gathered to see such an amazing site. By the end of the match there were over 50 children and adults on the sidelines just watching our every move. The children just would stand and watch us even when we were just sitting in the shade resting. They would mimic everything we did, and we taught them the game "Tag". Sarah, Kari, and Ashley made a jump rope out a piece of a dress that a little girl voluntarily ripped off and given to them to make the rope. They played with all the girls for a long time and it was great to have such wonderful interaction with these people who were still so amazed at our presence.