In and Out of Culture: Okot p’Bitek’s Work and Social Repair in Post-Conflict Acoliland

Abstract

In 2008, on my fifth visit to Northern Uganda, I was staying with Nyero's family in Padibe Internally Displaced Person's (IDP) camp, in what is now Lamwo district. At that time, the cease-fire of the previous year and a half had changed things considerably. People all over Acoliland1 (Northern Uganda) had begun to return to their villages after a decade of forced displacement into squalid camps, where inhumane conditions killed--according to one study--in excess of about 1,000 individuals per week (UMH 2005). Like much of the 90% of the population who had been forcibly displaced, Nyero's family was planning to return to their "traditional" village at the end of the year. Finally, land was being cleared, seed sown, water wells checked, gardens planted, grass cut, and huts built.