Tuesday, April 28, 2009

martha

martha at her home phil bowen photographer kampala uganda

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2 comments:

  1. philApr 30, 2009, 12:57:00 AM

    documenting some of the work that CAFWA, Community Action Fund for Women in Africa, is doing in northern uganda.

    here, martha is standing in the middle of her home, some years ago destroyed by the LRA. she herself was twice abducted and twice escaped from the LRA.

    earlier in the day, in the IDP camp, i asked her to show me the graves of some of her family. she went to six graves in three different sites. i thought she didn't get that i wanted to see her family members' graves and instead she was just showing me random graves. no, she understood - then showed me seven more.

    "the north" kind of gets stereotyped here. i sort of think of it as a place that college interns go to say they've been there. now that it's safe. like you can get a gulu merit badge or something.

    but now that i've been here, it's pretty sobering. some crazy shit went down here. recently. and you don't know about it. i think martha's story applies to a lot (most) of the people up here.

    but at least we have 24 hour reporting on a flu that has a WHO-confirmed death toll around the same number as martha's family.

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  2. Betsy BowenApr 30, 2009, 9:10:00 PM

    Whew, this story is never redundant.

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