Sis-in-law Amy just called me from the quad on Tulane’s campus.
She’s in a cardboard box.
Amy is taking part in Displace Me, a project designed to call attention to the 1.5 million Ugandans who have been forced from their homes by the war in their country. Here’s a snippet about the project from InvisibleChildren.com:
“The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has abducted thousands of children, subjected them to torture or sexual violence and forced them to fight in a violent guerilla army for 21 years—making it the longest running war in Africa. In hopes of providing protection from this rebel militia, the Ugandan government forcibly evicted its Northern citizens from their homes—giving them 48 hours to relocate into camps. Today, more than 1.5 million Northern Ugandans remain far from secure, suffering nearly 1,000 deaths per week due to inhumane living conditions in the camps.
“Displace Me” is the nationwide event giving Americans the chance to respond.
By traveling to one of our 15 camps and gathering together, the strength of our size will make a visible statement to our government and media that the citizens of the U.S. demand action in ending the war in Northern Uganda, in order to send the Acholi people suffering in the camps and the abducted children back home.”
So thousands of people across the U.S. are spending tonight in makeshift camps, with cardboard boxes and sleeping bags as their shelters. The women have to bring water to the camps, and the men gather the food — saltine crackers. This mimics, in a small way, the conditions in the camps.
Amy lives in a “compound” will several other students from her seminary. She and her boxmate, Tiffany, scrawled slogans on their box:
“Aid is not enough”
“We know what it means to miss home”
I hope someone is listening.
