And hurrrr, Mo is born!!!

I am the flamboyant gentleman from Pajule, in Pader district found in Northern Uganda. This week, I bring you a short story about me because it is also the week that my birthday falls. So, naturally I have to send regards to my folks by recognizing them. I was born sometimes in the far past, on a steamy Sunday heat and in Gulu Hospital.  Gulu is a Municipality 332 kms North of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. For beginners, Kampala is found in Uganda, East Africa. July 23 of every year, I tend to gather my friends to do reflections of life and to revisit our goals for the future.

I am already on the third floor of my building in case you may suffer deceit by my baby face features.  Definitely am in the hours of late mornings of life approaching the noon. Life for me has been a struggle and at times, cumbersome ones but one that has also been spiced by trials and tribulations of varying magnitudes. I have endured many odds; being a child of civil servants and humble people who lived life not so close to the margins of life and yet moved from one duty/ assignments to the next around the country in order to eke a living for their children and at the same time fulfill their desires for public service.

Humbly raised by a father who served in the army and a mother of five who was an elementary school teacher. Dad was a gentle disciplinarian at home and mom was a ruthless educator who put every fibre of her being for our education. I learned from an early age that life can be humbling, but can also come in variety of harsh hues. Inner strength therefore was the element in each one of us that set us apart from another humble being that were my older siblings. It was taught to us early in life that a good person must liberate himself from the harshness of ordinariness. I found myself developing gentle character and ability to survive and thrive through some of the adversities and inconveniences of life out of that imperative.

Somewhere down the lane one would imagine how life can impress upon an individual such strong resentment and yet the will and power to thrive enables this individual to survive all odds. For me, the most trying moments were those that I endured in the warring zones of Northern Uganda. I was a victim of NRA Kadogos (child soldiers) brutality, way back in 1986, just as I was turning 8 years old.

Riddled with bullets and left to die, I defied death that stared at me impatiently in the eyes. That experience, such a close encounter with death, can never be equated with any other human experiences such as incarceration, starvation and slight acts of transgression. When you are faced with making choice for dear life, life itself becomes a subject, not pain or suffering or torture – but life!  That indescribable experience was for me the definitive moment that shaped my life; where I had to either succumb to the sequestering impulses of death that beckoned at me or defy. I chose the unimaginable, to live and defy death.

To the insane and highly indoctrinated Child soldiers who visited such atrocities on me, justice has eluded them yet.  I have never returned to this spot where I got shot at, but soon and very soon, I will brave the heat of the occasion and return to that memorable place.

That’s my humble snippet of life and perhaps, as I celebrate this birthday, it is an important occasion for me. It will also remind me of the sudden death of my brother, Eng Bongomin Bongos in 1997 at Gabarone Hospital in Botswana from internal bleeding in the brain as a result of stroke; My beloved sisters Suzan Akello-Acii who was murdered in cold blood in Rwanda at the peak of the genocide in 1994 for being a Ugandan and; Winifred Lawino who died out of the recklessness of attendant Physician overseeing her still birth in 1992.

Finally, I salute my departed Father, Lt Col Pangarasio Onek who passed on 30^th November 2000. You were a good man who understood professionalism. I continue to get inspired by your values. To My Mom and all my orphaned nieces and nephews who have won my love and affection. I am so proud of all your successes and steadfastness. Utmost salutation to my Mom and brother Tom not forgetting you – sweet likkle Melanie Justice P’Loreng’a!

END!