We headed off for Kisoro to see the refugee camp today, not knowing what to expect. One thing we were told about was the road was bad, and it must have been the worse road we have had to travel on. The trip of 90km took us just over two hours to traverse. As we were travelling I was thinking of what it could be like with many scenes that I had seen in movies or pictures I had seen in books. When we finally arrived at the Registration Centre it was not as dramatic as I had expected, but the realities were the same. We saw four or five large tents, a lot of small tents and thousands of people. We later found out that there was between 9 and 11 thousand people there. The camp was surprisingly disorganised and appeared very ad hoc with a few tents for medical services. Here is a couple of photos of the grounds.
The land was very bumpy and unfenced. We discovered that the tents were full of people and what belongings they could carry with them when they came. The tents provided did not house everybody and many people had their belongings and mattresses laid all over the ground. If they were fortunate enough to get a space within the tent it did not mean that they were protected from the elements as many had holes and one was only a roof and had no sides. Later when we left Kisoro as we passed the Centre again we saw two truck loads of food and as well as another on the road later on. At least they are getting fed.
While we were there the Siddans family got swamped, which was good for us as we could take a minute to think about what we saw, but bad for them. They left after about 10 minutes or so as the children were swamping them too much because of Amelia.
This is when things for us changed as the children focused their attention on the next best thing, us. Everywhere we walked they followed in large numbers. I was wanting to talk to the people looking after the Centre to get some more information but the children would have followed and we would have caused too much trouble. Edward said to the Siddans that at least we provided them with 30 minutes or so of happiness. He was right with that at least. Here are a few photos of the children enjoying getting their picture taken, “Photo me!” is what they all said.
It was frustrating not being able to even greet the people, either the refugees or other local people in Kisoro. At least in Kabale if someone does not speak English we can at least say hello and ask how they are going and then say good bye again. This got me thinking about what it was like for the refugees, having to come to Kisoro, and not being able to talk to the people there, at least they had each other. These people were probably just like the people of Kisoro in that they lived simple lives, just going about their daily lives, struggling to survive with the little plot of land they probably have to grow crops with, in the little houses that they built themselves. Some of them may have been small shop owners, or boda boda riders. But now they have had to desert everything in their lives in fear of their lives, maybe even having lost family and friends and to come to a land where they cannot even talk to the locals with nothing but what they can carry and possibly no hope of returning to what they left behind. When and if they get to go back all they left may be destroyed and their fields left to ruin.
When I was in Australia I thought that a refugee camp would be an easy thing to do and very well run. But the Registration Centre in Kisoro, which is most likely not different from all other refugee camps in Africa, except in numbers, was strikingly inadequate to meet the needs of the refugees. I suppose that I thought of things back in Australia and how things can so easily be set up and organised. But when you are talking about refugees coming to a community that struggles to look after itself then you have an entirely different scenario. The local people themselves are so desperate that they set up food stalls just outside the camp in hope that the refugees will have some money to buy something from them. This is who the refugees are coming to for help. The only help that the government themselves appeared to be giving was by allowing them to stay on the ground that the camp was set up on. The only people we saw helping were Doctors Without Borders, who had a medical centre set up and UNICEF who were distributing the food, and probably set up the toilets and water that were there. This is the only help we could see the refugees getting. I remember seeing movies where boards were set up for helping people find relatives and other things like these, but that’s the movies not the reality for the refugees today coming to Kisoro from Congo.
What is sad is that the refugees are coming because of rebel fighters in the Congo, which are a carry on from the Rwandan genocide. It is extremely disappointing to know that the rest of the world sits back and watches as genocides like the Rwandan one happen and do not learn from them. You can see the same thing happening in other African nations as the world sits by and does nothing to help, just look at what happened in Darfur, as in the case of Rwanda it has all been done and no one has done anything to help. Then even after the thing has happened and things appear to settle down, or the news stops reporting as it gets boring to the west, things carry on for years and years. There will probably never be any kind of rest for African people. War, famine and disease is all they know and will probably be all they ever get to know. Sure some people live in cities and are oblivious to what happens in other parts of the country like we in the west do, but this does not change the reality of what is happening to the ones that are experiencing these things and living a life that we would consider pure torture. We hear about things that happen in Kisoro and have taken an interest because it is so close to us, only 90 kms away, but similar things are happening in the north of Uganda, in DRC, in Sudan which in reality is like something happening in neighbouring states back in Australia.
It is crazy to think that this is normal life for some. And what are the so called super powers and world bodies that are supposed to be having the best interests of the world’s inhabitants as a driving force to direct their actions, doing, so called humanitarian rights and all that. We can just watch the news and see that they are only interested in helping where there is something for them to get out of it. Imagine if the west had to live without oil, and live like the rest of the world, having real equality. Maybe that would be a real wake up call for us all. Just to ease the mood a bit I thought that I would throw in a picture of the scenery just outside of Kisoro. I have also posted an album of the refugees on my photo site for a while also.
Seeing what we saw today has reminded me of the fact that there are lots of innocent people around the world that suffer at the hands and actions of others and the said correct channels of help and support are not adequate.
