The north still has a long way to go.

My colleague Jake has alluded to the twenty year war between the state and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony. The LRA, an indigenous group, terrified its own people in the north aided in part by the odd interplay of inter-tribe and intra-African geopolitics that is far too complex to describe here. (Although Reuters does a good job here.) The LRA members were fierce and ruthless fighters devaluing life and debasing communities through rape, torture, abductions and murder. Many villagers moved to camps for safety while others, known as night commuters, would file into cities in the evening. A child could go to the village water source and never return.

The remnants of the LRA are still leading attacks in neighboring Congo. The UN estimates that they killed over 1,200 people and abducted over 1,400 children from 9/2008 through 6/2009. The International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Kony and his top associates on multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The short of it is northern Uganda has not developed in 20 years. People lived in camps for 5, 10, 20 years. The war's end is a clear blessing, but returning home to their native lands presents many problems. There is a generation going back home to a land they have never seen before. It is a cultural change. Many adults now must find ways to farm to survive when previously their meals were provided for at camps. Boreholes that once provided water are no longer working. Families are now larger than they once were, putting additional stress on any type of infrastructure that may be remaining or that will be built. Simply, after twenty years the cleared out areas that were once villages will often have become overgrown and dilapidated. And after living in camps they lack the savings to provide for much.

In this context, our goal is not to provide a hand out, but to build the capacity of those returning home -- those who faced disaster -- to live healthier lives. It is a slow process, a struggle. But it is a hopeful one, and rewarding when done right.

Overlooking the valley below

Perched half way up one of Kampala's famous hills on a ¼ acre of parcel of pristine real estate, Becca’s house, where I am staying, is by far one of the nicest places I have been. With five bedrooms in the main house (and an odd assortment of midsized rooms jutting out in odd places like the bathroom), it may also be one of the largest. And that’s not counting the “boy’s quarters” right beside the main house that has two rooms and two baths. I asked how much the place was while we were chatting on the roof deck overlooking the valley and another of Kampala’s seven hills. At roughly $2,000, it’s a bit less than my previous small one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.

Go figure: in Kampala, one gated house; in Brooklyn a one-bed. But then again I get potable water from the tap, while they get malarial mosquitoes. Somehow, it all washes out in the end.

The most remarkable thing about the neighborhood is how mixed it is. Not racially, but economically. Just down from the house is a beautiful apartment complex that you could find in Miami.

Adjacent to those flats are one-room huts made of mud bricks where its residents travel some 500 meters to get water. They are lucky enough to live just below water towers that service the complex but unlucky to see none of it.

This morning, I walked past those shacks on my way to their watering hole, or better-termed, protected spring (see below). The water was fresh and cool and provided relief for the kids playing soccer on the field below, some off-duty soldiers traveling by “leg” -- I believe they said – and the woman who filled up jugs. (Although a protected spring in a city does not provide the cleanest source of water with septic tanks and people around likely contaminating the source to some degree.)

In speaking with the first woman I met filling her yellow jerry cans, I found out she was Achioli, meaning she was from the north -- Kitgum, to be exact, the region bordering Sudan, where we conduct our projects. It did not take much questioning for Mary to tell me her story: her father was killed in the conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army and well, pretty much everybody else; Mary then fled south with her mother who has HIV. She couldn’t afford school. She got married and has all the while dreamt about going back to the north to see some family members who were left behind but did not have the $12 or so needed for the ride. So she makes three trips a day to get water. She still smiles a lot.

Somehow my personal narrative, where I survived the fall of Lehman Brothers, is not nearly as compelling and feels far too easy. And she was just the first woman with whom I chatted at the spring at the side of the road.