Mary's interview

 

Lulenti and Mary are pastors in Kakira Sugar Works and partners of Australia HOPE International. Choosing to live in poverty rather than somewhere 'nicer', they work tirelessly to aid orphans and widows in their area. Mary has not been able to live at home for the last eight months as she had a hip replacement in January through money that was kindly donated to HOPE for this purpose. She is waiting for a second one when there is money. A house is currently being built where she can live that is on level ground and has a sit-down toilet as opposed to the usual squat latrines. When the toilet is installed she will be able to go home and continue caring for these kids.

The following is an interview Bill Osborne conducted with Mary and Lulenti after Bill, Suz and I had visited with them and met some of these orphans. The video interview can be found on the Australia HOPE International website here. I have not edited the English or the length (you might want to get a cup of tea before starting) but it is worth bearing with it (or at least in my opinion it is).

Have a blessed week.

 

Bill: So Mary can you tell me what life is like for most of the sixty or so orphans that are in your care in Kakira? What is life like for them?

Mary: Most of them have lost their parents. They don't have anywhere to stay, they lack food, they lack dresses. Nobody cares about them and since they don't have parents they come to us when they want some assistance. The little we have we share, pray with them and send them back home to their relatives.

Bill: Pastor Lulenti was saying sometimes they knock on your door and they have not been fed?

Mary: Yeah, most of the time they come at home, they knock on our door, sometimes when we are asleep, because when the parents die in Kakira they leave them without any relative and most of them go to just friends of their fathers, of their late fathers and their late mothers then they stay with them but at the end of the day these children are being mistreated. They are given a lot of work to do and if they don't fulfil that work they will not be given any food and they end up knocking our doors, maybe even at night, we are just sleeping, the kids come while crying, shedding tears. They tell us "I've not been given food since morning, I've not eaten anything." Then we give the little we have, pray with them together and console them, try to console them and encourage them, then the next day maybe can go back because we also lack, don’t have enough space to keep them.

Bill: And you were saying Mary, sometimes they are beaten?

Mary: Yeah, most of the time these kids are beaten because staying with somebody who you don't know, somebody who is not your relative, somebody maybe just picked them because he knew about the parents who passed away. It's hard for them to keep unless he has a heart of keeping a kid so they end up mistreating them. They end up beating them up seriously. Like one day a certain girl was beaten seriously and (s)he came at our verandah in the midnight. We had nothing to do. We didn't know who is knocking but (s)he was just knocking on our door calling "Pastor, Pastor! Can you really open for me?" Then by the time we opened the girl was beaten the head, the blood was flowing and some blood was coming from the ears one day. So the following day we had to carry this girl and take her to the hospital to get first aid then afterwards we had to talk to her and console her and tell her that one day God will help.

Bill: Has that girl gone back to the house where she was beaten?

Mary: Since we had nowhere to keep her we encouraged her to go back to the place where (s)he was beaten. She had nothing to do. She wanted to stay with us but we no enough space to keep her and we had to send her back.

Bill: If you had a boarding school she could board in the school and be safe?

Mary: If we can get a school and a boarding school (s)he can get in a school and stay in a school in a boarding school so that she gets her education properly because (s)he likes schooling but only that only that (s)he lost her parents.

Bill: And where do most of the children come from? Where did their mum and their dad come from that they ended up in Kakira?

Mary:These parents came from Sudan. That's another country in East Africa. A long way. And they came, the father came from there, from Sudan when he was a youth. He stayed here in Kakira for a long time. Time came when he got married, he got a wife, whereby a wife was affected with HIV AIDS and they were both now affected. When they stayed in Kakira from Sudan, they had no relative in Uganda and for a long time from youth to marriage period they began giving birth to these children. They had no relative in Uganda and they couldn't go back to Sudan because they had some wars whereby they had to run away from Sudan as refugees to come to Uganda. So when time came, they got HIV AIDS. They died. The father died. The wife also died and these children were just dumped in Uganda. No brother. No sister. No relative. Only the friends to the parents whereby they end up living a hard life, no food, nobody cares and they end up coming to our house.

Bill: And some come from Northern Uganda?

Mary: We have so many people who come form Northern Uganda since Northern Uganda is a place where wars are almost, is now 25 years. Some children were born there, they've never seen peace. Until today they are grown up but no peace. They don't sleep in their homes, they sleep in bushes and some of them, most of them were taken to camps since the villages were where these rebels were coming and they kill these families. So they were taken to camps whereby in camps you find that so many people they, they make alcohol which contributes to adultery, that they mix up together. Some of, most of them are raped by the rebels when they are taken. When they find a family all the girls become wives to the rebels and all the men are captured and being taken to fight against the government so they end up that they, these ladies end up with children but with out fathers and most of them when they heard that Kakira was an industrial area where they can get maybe they come and cook alcohol. So they come from Northern Uganda to Kakira whereby when they come to Kakira they come when they already affected with HIV AIDS and at the end of the day they end up dying whereby in Kakira there is nobody who knows them. They came from Northern Uganda and when they die these parents are being taken in the middle of sugar cane where they are being buried and they just leave their children just dumped in Kakira. No father. No mother. No parent apart from god and they end up coming to us telling us "Pastor can you please help me? I want to go to school." But nothing to do.

Bill: So Mary and Lulenti somehow you manage to keep about 60 in school. We've been helping you with about 20 or so with their school fees but you actually manage to keep about 60 orphans in school, the ones we saw at your old house. What's your heart? What is your heart for those children? What do you really want for them?

Lulenti: What we want to do if god helped us and we get a school, a boarding school, it can help us to keep many of them and to educate them because you know when they are in different schools we can't pay but if we have a school it can help us to educate all the children who are suffering, fatherless, motherless. So it can help us a lot.

Bill: What will happen to these children when they grow up if Hope for the Hurt and Australia HOPE International, we do not intervene, we do not come to them and help them with education, with good food, with love, with the Christian hope. If we do not bring that what is their future? In five, ten years where will those children be? What will their life be like?

Mary: If we don't help these children at Kakira in fact what we can see if we don't help them totally then they are going on the streets, like girls can go and just sell themselves on the streets that everybody, every man who comes around they'll say "You're welcome." They sell their bodies because they have nowhere to get any future and the boys will end up on the streets. Most of them will end up thieves, taking marijuana and if they take it that will, they will end up on the streets and stealing people. But we just pray that we just help them.

Bill: When a young teenage girl sells their body how much do they charge? What money do they get for a man to abuse them?

Mary: Yeah, when they sell their bodies they are just given even a chapatti because of lack of food.

Bill: Just a little bit of bread...

Mary: Just chapatti just a little thing and they end up even loving these boda boda (motorcycle taxi) men so long as he can give one hundred, two hundred shillings whereby (s)he can get only something to taste.

Bill: So two hundred shillings is about five cents - that's all they get and they probably get STD's, they get AIDS.

Mary: They get AIDS. They get STD's. They get, they produce when they are very young girls and they end up also dropping, most of them after getting pregnant like that, they get their kids and they throw, (s)he delivers like today (s)he goes and throws the kid when he is still alive in the toilet and most of them in Uganda here just picked from toilets by somebody maybe when they hear somebody is just crying from there.

One day there was a lady who had a young girl and this girl got pregnant yet the mother was helpless and (s)he convinced this girl and told her that can we please abort this kid and yet the womb was 7 months the child had already grown but because of lack of funds and lack of assistance she suggested that they can abort the kid. The girl tried to refuse but the mother could insist that we have to abort this kid. One day the kid was aborted, after abortion this kid refused to die. When he refused to die the mother suggested that they will arrest us lets get hold of this kid and throw it in the toilet.

They went and threw the kid in the toilet and God was still sustaining this child's life. After three days the kid was still alive in the toilet, just crying from there, then the third day that's when the girl, the owner of the kid went to the toilet (s)he found when the kid was still alive and was crying. When (s)he told the mother that the kid is still crying what the mother did, got a stick and went with it since the toilet was almost full (s)he pushed this baby down the faeces until the baby passed away. It was very sad, very sad news but they were arrested.

Afterwards the mother was saying, "Now I have no husband, I only gave birth to this kid. We are suffering. I am affected with HIV AIDS. Anytime I am dying. I'm leaving this kid. This kid is also affected with HIV AIDS and she has given birth to another kid. Where to leave the kid? I was forced because of the situation to push that baby inside the toilet." So the situation is so hard and so hard and most of the time these kids who are left and dumped without parents they end up…

One day Pastor Lulenti was moving and I plus Sylivia, we were moving on the streets and we found one day a certain young boy. He was very sick, shivering, he had no help, no assistance. What we did, Pastor got hold of this boy, he was taken to the hospital and after taking to the hospital they need some drugs and to eat well. So we ended up getting hold of this boy and we took him to the hospital until he was treated but most of them who are dumped like that without parents we always find them on the street.

We find them just like five people. We find them on the streets like in a family both parents are dead they've left the elder kid, is ten years, he's caring about the younger ones, about three of them and now you find that he also goes to the garbage to look for some food to pick pick some food leftovers, that have been thrown there he pick picks to come and give the young ones.

So we find like one day we found a certain ka young girl. It had rained heavily. (S)he had nobody to care about but (s)he was just on the street lying down, not even good streets but a place, just lying down (s)he was sleeping because there was nobody to care and we just picked the kid we brought the kid back home where they had been left. Yet they were chasing them again away from that house because they had lost the parents. The parents who had no land, they had no houses and they were just being helped to sleep there because they had nowhere to go but still the owners of the houses they want their houses for rent so that they get some money, so they end up just dumped and they come to us crying but they need help.

Bill: And Mary there's no letting up, there's no stopping of this is there? Recently you lost a pastor and his wife and you and Lulenti had to find somewhere for their four children. Last week you lost a widow. She had two children and you were finding somewhere for her and this goes on all the time doesn't it?

Mary: Yep.

Bill: What did that widow die from that left two children last week?

Mary: Ah, this widow who died last week, she died of HIV AIDS and because ARV's here in Uganda because of corruption, ARV's are supposed to be given freely but because of corruption, a lot of corruption in our country Uganda, you find that so many hospitals demand some money before they get, whereby these widows end up, they don't have any amount of money. So this woman ended up dying not because she was supposed to die but (s)he lacked even funds to go to the hospital.

Bill: Alright well your faith must be strong to cope with that and I know it grieves you both very seriously, it's very heavy to cope with this every day but we commend you both for the great work you do in Gods strength and I hope someone in Australia will come to our assistance to fulfil our dreams for these children. And Mary I hope we get the septic tank in your house so that then you will leave Kampala and come back to your husband and you'll be sweethearts again. Yeah that will be good...