Just a few quotes from Ayoo Jennifer:

“It seems that when you were a child your parents used to beat you.” Confused, I ask her why. She replies, “Because you just look stubborn!” I laugh. Even here in the Quarter, I can’t hide my stubbornness!

Later on, it’s scorchingly hot. As I’m sitting talking to Ayoo, I rolled up my pants. Ayoo looks at my legs and says, “Your legs are very nice, you do not have many scars. Your mother took good care of you. She must have carried you good.” Thanks Mom!

I arrive in the Quarter before the sun debuts. I walk uphill through the Quarter where the sun will soon rise. Along the way, I pass the little shack of a salon where three men are crammed in, playing cards beneath a single bulb. I pause to watch my first Christmas Day activity in the Quarter - gambling. Soon their gambling has ended. As 2 of them leave, with empty pockets, the third man says o me, “We now play gospel music.” And proceeds to blare music from an ancient speaker. He outstretches his hand to me and says, “Merry X-mas.”

A little while later, one woman, Carmella, stops and asks me,”You come here for a black Christmas instead of a white Christmas in America?” Smiling, I pause and wonder what makes Christmas white to her …

Children, dressed in their new clothes, swirl their skirts and march in their white shoes. The children of the poorest families are barefoot and wearing their finest torn clothing. They seem acutely aware that even in the slum of the Acholi Quarter they are poorer than most.

I pause inside the Pentecostal Church, listening half-heartedly to the bellowing pastors. I’m temporarily mesmerized by the sea of bright colored clothing filling the pews. I see a trio of girls in their virgin white dresses leave the church. I follow to watch them, half curious at how long their dresses will remain pure in this settlement of red dirt.

More children follow the lead of the 3 brave girls and take leave of the confines of church. They flit like butterflies showing off their new clothes and enjoying temporary freedom. It doesn’t last long. Soon an elder comes and rushes them back into the vacant pews.

As the sermon ends, friends and family gather to feast on freshly slaughtered chickens and kilos of the meat of cows. This carnivorous meal is a treat, reserved only for special occasions and holidays like Independence Day, Christmas and Easter. The meat is devoured and the bones are left bare and greasy fingers licked clean.

As for me, after enjoying sodas, gifts from many friends, I head to Ayoo Jennifer’s home where I will enjoy my Christmas feast. Since early this morning, Ayoo began the preparations. First making the traditional matooke, wrapping bananas in banana leaves and cooking for hours on an open fire. Then the slaughter of the chicken that had been tied to the iron post of her home for a week to fatten. After plucking the feathers from the neck, she expertly twisted it and with a knife severed the head. She plucked the chicken clean and roasted it briefly over a charcoal fire. Then she used all her might to rip the chicken apart and carefully cut it into pieces - the claws, the thighs, the neck, innards which I could not readily identify. With great detail, she explained each slice of the knife. When she held the chickens stomach in her hands, she turned it inside out and spilled out a belly full of undigested grains. I nearly puked. The children howled with laughter.

Later that afternoon, I shared the mountain of food Ayoo Jennifer had prepared with Mama Oyet (Esther), Ocan Night and Adoch Jennifer. At the end, I was every bit as full and satisfied as I would have been dining with my own family on Christmas Day.

I went to bed smiling, thinking about how generous people are in the Quarter and how they have welcomed me and embraced me just as they would their own tribe.

There’s still so many people I haven’t had time to greet since I’ve arrived. This afternoon I went to visit Ocan Night. I greeted her and her children. She told me about the events that have passed since I was last in the Quarter. Nighty’s cellphone rang and while she spoke into the phone, her oldest daughter, only 19, spoke to me. She told me that she had lumps in both her breasts which needed to be removed. She brought out her medical reports for me to read. I’m a muzungu, so somehow I think she thought I could just fix it, which obviously, I can’t.

I told her not to worry. I showed her the scar on my right breast where just a few months ago doctors removed a lump. I assured her it was no big deal, she’d be fine - an assurance that I knew could not really be assured. Has her life not already been hard enough? Should I child growing up in poverty in a slum really have to face breast cancer too? It just doesn’t seem fair …

Esther’s neighbor, Akwii, who I’ve known since I first came to the Quarter, quietly enters Esther’s home and kneels before me. She speaks to me briefly in her Teso tribal language. And then just as quietly, she leaves.

Later Esther explained to me that she needed help. She used to earn a meager living selling marua, the local brew, but then open sores on her arm revealed her HIV status and she was banned from continuing to make the drink for fear she’d pass on the infection. With tears in her eyes, she had told Esther that she would take her children and move back to her village in the North. The area, still extremely violent with rebel activity, would put her children’s lives at risk. But she no longer cared. She couldn’t continue this life any longer. Esther persuaded her to stay with the words, “God will provide.”

I tried to absorb everything Esther relayed to me. Why is life so hard for so many people?

December 24th

After finishing tea with Esther this morning, I asked her to invite Akwii in. I inquired about her 3 children (the youngest only 2 1/2 years old). I offered to help - offering to put the 2 older children in school and to buy some paper beads (the local handicraft) to provide her with some extra money to help. She sat very quietly, stoically, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I wasn’t sure if she understood (she speaks little English, and Esther only speaks a little Teso). Then I realized she was too emotional to speak. She was trying to hold back the tears that were flooding her eyes…

The Awakening of a New Day

Roosters crow people to wake. There’s no snooze button to hit as the roosters call to each other from their various posts throughout the Quarter. Rows of faded yellow jerry cans, carried by young children, start to form an eternal line by the scattered water kiosks. From the peaks of the stone quarry, life unstretches.

The homes within the Quarter vary tremendously. A few of the finest homes are made of mud bricks and the walls thickened with cement and fine aluminum sheet roofing protects from the heavy rains that come each spring and fall. Most other homes have walls made of branches formed to make multiple tic tac toe games and then filled in with mud. And with aluminum too expensive, a simple plastic tarp held in place by whatever can be found, offers inadequate protection. Stretching beyond these humble homes out of the slum which is the Acholi Quarter, rise solidly built homes with red tile roofs. At night, the flickering of lights in these homes is a stark contrast to the few lights in the Quarter.