Junior year, I decided to join the PTPI Student Chapter of my school, Dowling Catholic, in West Des Moines, Iowa USA, almost on a whim; I believed in the chapter’s motto and I wanted to be more involved. When I learned we were running a fundraiser, I jumped right in, talking to religion classes in my high school about the mission of ChildVoice International, a non-profit that rehabilitates former child soldiers in Uganda. I helped collect money, counted cash and raised awareness for the fundraiser, but ultimately it was my high school’s generosity that raised over 4,000 dollars. We happily sent the money to ChildVoice and thought that was the end of it.
For me, it wasn’t. At the end of June, I was told that our school had raised the most money in the nation and as a result, I was being offered a trip to ChildVoice’s center in Gulu, Uganda. Less than two months and hours of studying Ugandan etiquette later, I found myself thousands of miles from home and immersed in an entirely different culture. Being there was different than anything I’ve ever experienced before. I was suddenly sleeping in a hammock, living without running water, and not even thinking about technology. Every day, I woke up and spent my time truly interacting with people there. I built a rabbit hutch with my team, pumped water from the borehole, and taught the girls how to cook peanut butter cookies. My best time spent, however, was simply talking with the former child soldiers.
Not only did I get to talk to people who had lived entirely different lives than me, I was able to actually put into practice PTPI’s mission in the real world: Peace through Understanding. I began to understand their culture more fully: how hunger was more prevalent, how only skirts were acceptable for women, how walking 10 kilometers every day to the city or to a farm is normal, how the people appreciate what they have, and even more than that, who they have in their lives, because they have lived through such horrible pain.
Coming back was difficult, not only because I was leaving my friends, but because I now had to adjust to the perspective I had gained visiting another country for two weeks. While it’s hard not knowing if I’ll ever be able to visit again, I would never regret going. My time in Uganda has changed the way I see everything, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.
Side note from Liz Wegman, Director of Public Relations and Development at PTPI:
When I read Clare’s account of her trip, I couldn’t help but ask her more about her interactions with former child soldiers. She told me that they visited an all girls facility and did not ask too much about their lives serving as soldiers. Clare also said that the girls were very good humored and always joking and laughing.
I asked if Clare came away with any impressions on how these children would be affected for the rest of their lives as a result of their experiences. She responded that she knows they go through a lot of counseling and that their dreams can get awful but that what struck her the most was their age and maturity; that they seemed so much older than her but were often in fact younger.
